There was a good diary yesterday, The Chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute Says the Surfside Condo Collapse Victims Deserved to Die, that got me to thinking. While I’m not too supportive of the chairman’s logic he does have a point.
Actions have consequences. The corollary is also true: inaction has consequences. All you can hope for is do the best you can and let the chips fall where they may. In large part it is the quality of the decision making process that determines the outcome.
A case in point. Over 50 years ago I was at a party where there was a lot of drugs. One of which was a bottle of liquid morphine with a handwritten label marked poison over the stock label. The hosts of the party, twin brothers, students at the Univ. of Colorado, were determined the morphine was not really poisonous, that the handwritten label was just there to scare people. It did, it scared me. I tried to explain that risking your life was stupid but they wouldn’t listen. So I told the people with me we were out of here, the brothers did the morphine and it killed both. You and I can’t fix stupid but life sure can. I think there is a lesson there.
Surfside Condo is a lesson in what economist Paul Krugman calls ‘Lemon Capitalism’. All previous owners got off without having to pay full freight. Isn’t that what people are supposed to do in a capitalistic society? Get the most you can at the least possible cost? Get it while you can and Devil take the hindmost!
Back in the land of my raising that’s referred to as ‘selling a pig in a poke’, also referred to as the Greater Fool Theory of Real Estate – no deal is a bad deal so long as you can find a bigger fool than you to buy you out.
The owners and condo board argued for nine years before taking action. Unfortunately, by this time the costs of deferred maintenance had risen to the point of requiring human life.
There is a quote from Abraham Lincoln I like: “The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities”.
Up until 10 years ago Florida had a law requiring condo inspections every five years. But being a red state that law was repealed. Can’t have government telling you what to do and all that. And look at all the money saved at the mere cost of 200 lives.
You see that attitude play out with the Covidiots. Maryland reported that 100% of their recent COVID deaths were from the unvaccinated, not that that should make you want to get vaccinated. After all, it affects only a few and so long as it’s not you and yours who cares?
You saw that play out in Texas during the Great Freeze where 150 people died officially or 600 unofficially. According to one official, Dan Patrick I believe, that’s OK though ‘cause Texans would rather die than have government tell them what to do. Not really much you can do with that mindset.
The Surfside Condo collapse will have consequences. Hopefully those consequences will save as many or more lives than it cost. Some may even learn something.