You *don't* know what the future will hold (or, Austerity Sucks)

Seriously.
You Don't.
Wait, I can do better

YOU DON'T

Ok, a riduclously trite and trivial statement, but the point I'm getting at is that you may think you know what is going to happen.  In fact, for really small time horizons, you probably have a really really good idea.  For example that slice of toast that you just dropped is absolutely positively going to land buttered side down on your expensive persian carpet.
But, slide the time horizon out, say, 5 years, and what d'you get?  Is that carpet still going to be there?  Will you still like toast?  Will butter be outlawed?  Who the heck knows?

Which is why I love it when our elected officials make decisions based on tax receipts 10 years out.  Remember the crazy Bush tax cuts?  As a memory jog, we were supposed to have surpluses as far as the eye could see, and decided to cut taxes pre-emptively.  We all know how that turned out.

And now, it looks like Medicare growth is slowing down, despite our absolutely conviction that we were doomed, doomed I tell you, etc., etc.

The bottom line is, we *don't* know what the future will hold.  As Karl Smith puts it

Every time you ask a real living person to suffer for some future goal you have to know that you are betting their well-being on your being right about the future.

How sure are you that you are right?

Austerity costs with probability one. Attempting to effect long term growth is always a gamble.

i.e., be careful when messing with the future...