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Let’s Play “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”
This could be a regular feature on R>, along the lines of Quote of the Day or Meme of the Day. This game invites you to predict “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” due to idiotic political proposals on the part of politicians and the voters who elect them. No fair making entries we’re already seeing the effects of, like printing and pumping massive amounts of funny money into the economy. That’s a game of “We Told You So.”
I’ll go first.
There’s a ballot initiative in Colorado that would eliminate the few hunting tags issued every year for cougars. The city dwellers will love this one, just like they did the reintroduction of wolves to Colorado. Because, you see, large areas of mostly uninhabited land (Canada) on which to sustain previously eliminated predators from Colorado are not enough. We must restore Nature to her former pristine glory. That’s the same b-b-b-witch that wants to kill you and everyone you love every chance she gets.
Allowing the mountain lion population to “naturally” expand will likely go wrong for hikers, ranchers, and Colorado’s legendary elk population. So, people who live off the land and actually go into the wilderness on occasion to hike and hunt and even photograph the wildlife will suffer the consequences — not to mention the elk. But, you do you, Blue Colorado.
On the national scene, the Harris administration would enact price controls on food. This entry could be better suited to “We Told You So,” for anyone old enough (or aware of any history) to predict what will happen. We could point to photos of the empty shelves and bread lines in the Soviet era, for example. But, lower food prices sound so good to a certain (large) portion of the electorate because our feminized, perpetually adolescent population lacks the intellectual curiosity to ask, “And then what?” What could possibly go wrong?
Your turn. Entries either local or national may be made and commented upon. Winners will be ranked in the “We Told You So” contest.
Published in General
There is enough human history that they are all “We told you so” at this point.
Maybe, but there’s either a lot of humans who don’t know their history, or Colorado’s humans are exceptionally stupid. I don’t know of other “advanced” societies in history that invited apex predators to dwell among them.
Why not both?
You sold me.
Would they do anything different, if they did take account of what can and likely will go wrong? I don’t think so. The left has power, which they could use for many different ends. The obvious outcome of valuing predatory animals over humans and of controlling free exchange by fiat is what attracts them.
Not the politicians. They’re in it for the destruction and rebuilding in their own twisted images. But, their voters will come to regret it when the grocery shelves are empty.
This one is old, and some of its stupidity was partially reversed, but is illustrative as a cautionary tale.
I lived in New York state at the time of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. The New York legislature felt the need to be seen to be “doing something,” and passed just days later, literally in the middle of the night, with no public hearings nor public input, major gun control legislation. The legislature needed to pass it before the public could find out what was in it.
Policies or legislation adopted in haste following a major event could probably be a significant subcategory of “what could possibly go wrong?” stories.
Two features of the gun control legislation caught the public’s attention:
The legislation’s limit on a gun’s ammunition capacity (something like 8 rounds) and outright prohibition on several popular types of firearms and firearms features contained no exceptions for law enforcement officers. I know there’s a separate debate about whether law enforcement should be able to use weaponry civilians can’t. But to New Yorkers who at the time depended on law enforcement for their personal safety since New Yorkers were not allowed to carry their own personal firearms for protection, it was immediately obvious limiting the ability of a law enforcement officer to protect the public with a firearm was a big problem. Law enforcement exceptions were quickly written in.
The legislation declared that a person who had ever received treatment for a mental health issue was forever banned from owning a firearm. People (especially people who worked in mental health) soon realized that this provision would deter people from seeking help if they thought they might have a mental health issue. I don’t recall how that provision was resolved.
Anyway, policies or legislation adopted in haste following a major event, with little to no opportunity for review and thought, is likely to have some significant unintended consequences, possibly even counter-productive.
Maybe the Department of Homeland Security falls into this category?
If it is a disincentive for filthy human beings to desecrate the backcountry by hiking or just being there, I think Blue Colorado would take that as a plus.
I lived near the foothills on the eastern slope in Colorado as a child. A couple of our neighbors had goat dairies, and cougars love fresh goat. The neighbors lost a lot of livestock until a state trapper finally ran the cougar to ground using dogs. The trapper rode a horse or mule on the hunt and so his pickup had a tall stock rack. I was told that he tied the front paws of the dead cougar to the top of the rack, and the back paws touched the ground. Big cat!
It was a good thing he was killed before he ran out of goats.
I’d like to see the data on the cougar situation before judging that one. Interventions one way or the other, or the lack of them, often have unintended consequences. Predictions are hard. I wouldn’t worry about the effect on the elk herds, though. Elk have been living alongside cougar populations for a long time. Habitat is almost always more of a limiting factor than predation.
A few days ago we were in Idaho visiting our youngest son, and he commented on all the mountain lions in the area. On Sunday he drove us in his 4WD pickup on a rough road where he and I hiked a half mile further up to get a look at a natural stone arch. He knew his mother wouldn’t care to do that hike (as well as most of the ones we took except for those on asphalt trails) but he pulled out a folding chair with shade for her to sit in and relax while we were gone. She found that she actually got cell phone service out there (we were often out of range of cell phone service) and texted a friend showing where she was. Her friend was alarmed: “They left you there alone?!” (I’ll probably hear more about it when I see her in church next Sunday.) Our son later told us how furtive and far-ranging those mountain lions are. It’s really hard to get a look at one, and you never know where they are going to be next. The only elk we saw while there was one standing in the middle of US-26 as we were getting near the site of the Experimental Breeder Reactor 1, which we later visited. We did get to see some pronghorns, too, but needed binoculars to get a good look.
As for price controls, I’m not sure there has ever been an instance that worked as intended or advertised. One of the byproducts is corruption. I grew up listening to stories of how people had used various deceptions to get around the price controls and rationing that was done during WWII. Maybe to some extent it’s good in that it teaches people that laws are stupid and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. But in the long run it has a corrupting influence of the kind that now rules Russia and still plagues the former Soviet Bloc countries such as Ukraine. Once it becomes a way of life, it can take several generations of intentional and intense effort to get out of the habits of life that it teaches. Some countries may never bother to escape it.
That triggers a memory of stories of… Greece, I think it was… where people will just put up some pointless home foundation pieces etc, because any presence of “construction” even if nothing ever happens to it, allows for greatly reduced taxes.
I think a similar thing applies in Italy.
And that was one reason why those places don’t improve in some ways, because the tax consequences etc are so large. In the case of Greece – and probably true for Italy as well – they don’t build new businesses etc very much because the taxes especially on NEW construction are so high.
Price controls are a terrible idea.
That said, I do think there’s something to this argument:
These days I don’t trust Big Business much more than I trust Big Government, and I wouldn’t put it past them to rig the market to their advantage. I’m not opposed to more anti-trust scrutiny of consolidation in agribusiness.
Totally agree. Big is bad in pretty much every area I can think of.
Price controls will kill restaurants- food shortages hurt them too.
Yeah, nevermind the sheep and cattle ranchers.
When wolves and cougars start running amok in the cities, then you will see action taken by the left . . .
2-legged ones already are. Crickets
We already have coyotes running amok in cities.
What I would like is fewer whitetail deer running amok in cities. I doubt that introducing wolves and cougars would do much to change that, but if they would it might be worth considering.
Yes, it’s Greece. I remember visiting in my teens and my 40s and marveling at the number of homes that had unfinished second stories. All for show and to reduce taxes on a house “under construction”.
Much deserved ridicule is being directed at Harris’s promised ban on price gouging and her suggestion that first-time home buyers be given $25,000 to bulk up their downpayments. Appalling ideas both, but let’s not forget another truly awful policy prescription, Trump’s proposed 10% tariff on imports (at least it used to be 10%, but recently he’s suggested it should be 20%). The degree of economic illiteracy demonstrated by suggesting this while at the same time complaining about the cost of living is staggering. He’s pandering, of course, just as he was pandering when he suggested excepting tips from taxation, a ludicrous and unworkable idea adopted by a shameless Harris, his competitor for the position of Panderer-in-Chief. It’s a shame that one of them will attain it.
Whataboutism. Is there anything it can’t do?
Wasn’t Yellowstone the one that reintroduced wolves? Consequences?
Yes. According to this Yellowstone web site, it has resulted in more beaver, more willows along the waterways, and a lower and perhaps healthier elk population. Most of the elk mortality is now due to wolves, and elk have changed their behavior in several ways to avoid predation by wolves, and the accompanying changes in elk feeding behavior have resulted in changes in vegetation and other animal populations.
When the wolves were reintroduced I recall that there were some objections from farmers and ranchers outside the park who raised sheep. This article doesn’t get into any of that.
Speaking of sheep, when our son was taking us around the Snake River valley and some of the surrounding country several days ago, I asked if we’d be seeing any sheep–either domestic or mountain sheep. He said the domestic sheep are almost gone now, he thought due to the changing market for lamb meat and other sheep products. (With the high price of beef these days, I wonder about that. I like roast lamb, myself. Maybe the Biden/Harris economy has priced it out of reach, which has depressed the sheep herds, and the profit margins and fixed costs are such that there is no room to bring down prices. That doesn’t sound quite right, and I should do some internet research.) I also asked what happened to the Peruvian sheep herders. He thought most of them had integrated into our society by now, which I presume means they are finding other jobs. I should do some internet research on that, too. Back home the sheep herders were remote country people who were looked down on somewhat by city people, according to one person I know who has been living in Lima. Sounds like a bit of the same rural-city divide we have in the U.S.
Targeted tariffs to prevent dumping are ok with me.
That reminds me of one of the tricks they use to gimmick the official inflation rate. Substitution. If, for example, the price of beef goes “too high” they’ll just assume people switched to chicken. And if chicken is less expensive than beef, even if the price of chicken is also way higher than it was, they can still claim that “cost of dinner” went DOWN.
Actual dumping is pretty rare. Claims of dumping are not so rare, much as claims of price gouging are not so rare.
China is guilty