An Exercise in Economics

In an effort to lower my cholesterol (doctor's orders) and improve my overall health (wife's request), I embarked on a new exercise and diet regimen called the P90X. I'm about a month into it, and as can be expected, I've had my share of challenges to stay motivated and disciplined, and I still have 2 months to go. Watching the news of the economic troubles we've been having and the proposed $700 billion government takeover of risky private debt caused me to juxtapose those troubles with the challenges of my program.

Here's what I observed:

• The right solution is sometimes simple.
• What is simple isn't always easy.
• Doing what is good for you may be unpleasant while you're doing it.
• There are results and there are consequences. You need to be concerned with both.
• The process makes the results sustainable, so it's important to favor the proper process more than results.
• Shortcuts may get you the immediate results you want, but the additional consequences for taking those shortcuts may be unbearable.
• If the results engendered by the shortcuts are immediate but the consequences take awhile to manifest, others may worsen the problem by taking the shortcuts.

I know you can interpret this in different ways depending on your perspective. The point of this is to encourage us all to think beyond stage one. What we do, how we do it -- these things matter beyond what immediately happens to our bodies and in the stock market.

Maybe you disagree. You may take John Maynard Keynes position and posit, "In the long run, we're all dead."

Maybe.

But God willing, our children will not be.

Our mistakes may cause us hardships throughout our lifetimes, but we are obligated to not push those problems off on our children. - Cam Beck 

Comments

[Lisa Braithwaite]

This explains some of your Tweets...

Will there be before and after photos of your "regular to ripped" physique after this program?

[Cam Beck]

LOL! Not sure I'm that brave. We'll see how I do. If I do it, I'll be putting it up on Jason Falls' Twit2Fit website. :)

[Paul Herring]

Keynes made this statement in response to what today would be considered more libertarian economist continual explanation that "things will work out in the long run". He suggested a more active roll in the monetary policy by the government. BTW - I'm not a big fan of Keynes but he did have a great influence on macroeconomic theory. He basically created it.

[Cam Beck]

Paul - Your Keynes reference is right on the money. To take it further, that's why he advocated a more energetic government response to economic vicissitudes.

There are several flaws with the general statement that I won't go into here, except to say that the "cure" is sometimes worse than the disease in the long run, so it's best to pay attention to what the likely consequences are before embarking on a course to relieve the pain in the short run.