In the Short Term and In the Long Run

By Rich Kozlovich

In business, as in life, there has to be short term goals, medium range goals and long term goals. In is important to avoid messing up your long term goals in order to meet the short term and medium term goals. It is avoided by having vision; in other words; being able to see farther down the road than the tips of your toes.

One of the things I have been disturbed about over the years is the short term thinking of people in decision making positions in business. Many years ago I read a management book that discussed this very topic and used a life example to show how foolish short term thinking is.

The writer cited a situation where a division manager was told that he would probably be let go because his last quarter figures were so bad. So in order to fix that problem he laid off a large number of people, just two weeks before Christmas. What were the results of this action? He was hailed as a great manager by company executives. However, the employees took this personally and were so outraged that they voted in a union. You see, one of the things that kept this company profitable was that there was no union. Now everything changed!

The company eventually went out of business a short time later because of this little piece of short range planning and lack of long range vision.

This “hero” manager lost his job and lost everyone else’s job also. But he wasn’t alone in this. His bosses were as clueless as he was. It has always appeared to me that in order for this kind of short range planning without long range vision to exist it must be endemic in any system in which it occurs.

If there ever was a movement that was rife with this kind of disastrous thinking - it is the green movement. Green is a feel good concept that is bereft of vision; or is it? Perhaps we merely can't conceive of their kind of vision. Let’s take green energy as an example.

We currently rely on carbon based fuels such as coal, oil, natural gas and large percentages of electricity are generated by nuclear power. Which one of these forms of energy do the greenies support? Well….none of them.

They have always been against coal, oil and nuclear as far as I can tell, but supposedly natural gas was acceptable to them as “clean” burning. Then came the false notion of anthropogenic global warming caused by the burning of carbon based fuels; then natural gas became evil. Some in the green movement then decided that since nuclear didn’t have any kind of exhaust system it was just fine now. That of course changed again because those in the green movement that supported nuclear were called traitors to the planet and were figuratively burned at the stake.

So then what are they for? They loved wind power. Then it was discovered that the blades were killing bats and birds at a frightening rate, including endangered species. So now there is a growing movement by the greenies to ban wind energy. So now they hate wind power.

They loved solar energy. Then it was discovered that the amount of land needed to generate enough electricity would be staggering and it would interfere with some species of turtle. So then they hated solar power too.

They adored ethanol. Then it was discovered that this was causing serious problems. First there was the increase in the cost of food all around the world. Then there was added run off of pesticides and fertilizers into the streams and rivers, not to mention the pollution run off from the production of ethanol. It was more expensive, gave less mileage and was detrimental to the engines. All of which would have a long term impact on the environment. Finally it requires huge acreage thereby reducing wildlife habitat everywhere in the world. So then they hated ethanol.

Furthermore none of these so called green energy solution are economically viable without huge outlays of government money in the form of subsidies or tax benefits or both. So what is their solution? They don’t have one!

So then, since they are clearly clueless; do they really have short term goals and long range vision? Yes they do! In the short term they want to get rid of everything that makes modern life possible, such as abundant inexpensive energy, pesticides, modern scientific agriculture, vaccinations, cars, dams, highways, etc. This will in turn give them their goals in the long run. They want to eliminate 90% or more of the human population and return to nature. There can be only one conclusion; the green movement is insane….and evil!

So that leaves one more question. How many of us have jumped on to that arrogant, green, feel good about myself because I am morally superior to everyone else bandwagon?

To be green is to be irrational and misanthropic!

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