How can one judge the merits of a decision without having a basic "objective"? This blog will dig into this very key concept.
I have given this business of "objective" a lot of thought. I used to teach Decision Theory and Micro-Economics at a major university and without an "objective" how can one judge the merit, quality or value of a decision? The answer is clear that. "It can not!". I will explore some simple examples to clarify my point.
I have explored many possible objectives and note that in a country of over 300 million people would expect an equal number of "individual" objectives. For decisions that effect the whole country the question is how does one boil down all these individual objectives into one that can apply to the whole nation? This is the challenge. but I have come up with one that I think works and that is to "improve the quality of life of the citizens of the USA"' That needs even a more detailed definition and I add that it applies to the "median" person or that person right in the middle. It is not the average nor is it "all" persons. That would be impossible to define the objective as "all". This simple definition could be adjusted to weight people toward the top and bottom, but I think that would end up crashing the whole concept of a national objective, Now, let try my objective against some recent decisions.
First off, let' look at the decision by Biden to open our Southern border. You could argue that letting all these poor people in will help our economy produce a bigger economic pie and that would be good. We all know that we are short of workers, so more workers would be good. If we test this against my objective of "better quality of life for us USA citizens", we see that this bigger pie has to be divided between more mouths such that the "median" mouth ends up with a smaller piece of pie. That violates the objective, doesn't it? The median quality of life goes down due to Biden's decision. It may be true that the average piece of pie goes up, but only because there are a few at the very top who are even richer.
Next, let's look at the decision by Biden killing the oil pipeline and drilling on public lands. Before Biden's decision gas cost $1.50 plus $0.50 tax for a total of $2,00. Now gas at my station today was $3.00 plus $0.50 for a total of $3.50. By my calculation Biden doubled the cost of gas and I do not make twice as much money as before. I think that most of you understand that energy is the main key to the raising of quality of life for us humans here on Earth and what Biden's decision has done it "lower" the "median" quality of life here in the USA. You might argue that Biden's decision addresses global warming and that improves the quality of life for us. Even if you add this to the decision, you still need to show that it is "worth it" to the "median" citizen and you know that answer--no!.
You can continue similar analysis of decisions as I have done above and I think it will be clear that we need to agree on a clear national objective. You know my objective for the nation and I challenge you to discuss this concept with your friends and see if you can come up with a better objective. Plus, you will challenge those who judge national decisions without a clear objective that you will call them out.
