The Fallacy of the Short Run

Another great article on FEE entitled Not So Fast!: The Fallacy of the Short Run, by William Anderson. In this article, the author discusses, in greater detail, the problems with economic shortsightedness. In the article, he also quotes from Lawrence Reed’s 7 Fallacies of Economics.

"Some actions seem beneficial in the short run but produce disaster in the long run: drinking excessively, driving fast, spending blindly, and printing money, to name a few. To quote the venerable Henry Hazlitt again, “The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences.”

"Politicians seeking to win the next election frequently support policies which generate short- run benefits at the expense of future costs. It is a shame that they sometimes carry the endorsement of economists who should know better.

"The good economist does not suffer from tunnel vision or shortsightedness. The time span he considers is long and elastic, not short and fixed."