Robert Samuelson’s must-read column: Why we don’t prepare for the future
“It’s hard to inflict present pain for uncertain future gain. Our political system makes us vulnerable to distant crises, because we don’t try to anticipate and defuse them. Just what kind of crisis is hard to know. A financial crisis — not unlike the 2008-2009 financial collapse — seems plausible. Other possibilities: war, pandemics and cyberattacks, to mention a few. There is one common denominator: We lose some control over our future.”