The policy maker problem

The problem is the SAT prep test.  Policy makers attain a level of education by virtue of attending college and sometimes higher.  They did well on the SAT test to obtain admission to college, and did well on the SAT test by taking SAT test prep courses.

Those courses hammer home over and over very simple inductive and deductive reasoning — usually if / then type problems.

If there are two apples on the table and the dog ate one, how many are left for you and your sister.  By answering these sort of questions, students gain admission to universities, and then often specialize.  Sometimes even PhDs.  The PhD is usually earned by studying some VERY narrow subject matter like the post colonial sex life of Malaysian iguanas.  These folks often transition to the Ruling Class by virtue of their degrees or consult to the Ruling Class. Not a bad idea to have one of these folks if iguana sex ever becomes an international crisis.

So why is the SAT prep test the problem.  For many of the Ruling Class, the elites, the academics, the intelligentia, their intellectual development peaked and or stopped back in high school in 10th grade.  They have the if / then logic hammer and EVERYTHING thereafter looks like a nail.  This leads for example to the logic behind gun control.  IF there are no guns they argue, THEN there can be no deaths caused by guns.  The policy makers have these ah ha moments when most everyone else just says, duh.

These kind of stunted policy makers (uncompetitive in the private sector) and this kind of logic caused the 2008/2009 housing crisis for another example.  IF everyone owns a house, THEN …  These policy makers unfortunately can’t comprehend or manage the complexity of IF, THEN … BUT!  Depending on the political spectrum, some other policy makers immediately chime if with BUT guns don’t kill, people do.  Wow! Now we got it.  Slightly more advanced than 10th grade at least.  Another guiding light is the proverbial “a few bad apples don’t spoil the whole barrel”.  That one solves everything for sure.

The class described above is not just in charge of iguana sex.  They are advising on and implementing policy for everything from health care to banking laws.  IF we lower interest rates to zero, THEN …  They don’t even have a BUT.  Next if zero doesn’t work, IF we make interest rates negative, THEN …  What if negative doesn’t work?

A side note on the iguanas.  The post graduate work is usually related to sex or predation so the TV animal shows will pick them up.