Value

     When I was a younger person I used to act as such and I thought as such.  I’m sure you probably did the same.  At a very young age you are not experienced enough or knowledgeable enough to truly understand the concept of the value of some things its hard to make good choices.

     As a young child I recall being offered the choice of having a shiny new dime or a larger nickel.  Of course I chose the nickel because it was much bigger.  I was too young to understand the “value” of money.  I thought it would be better to have the larger coin instead of the smaller one.

     There are some such circumstances today which present a similar dilemma.  Consider in many countries the enormous annual expenditures for military armaments!  In the United States alone hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars are spent as part of the military budget.  Large sums of financial aid are spent in other countries as well.  Now whether such expenditures are justifiable is not the purpose of this post, but it certainly shows that with what is normally received in return by such expenditures it is normally NOT something of equal or greater value.

     However, as consideration of expenditures made in another area, look at the education program.  Here individuals could be receiving the schooling and training needed to improve their minds and elevate their thinking ability.  Governments seem to consider the killing and destruction of human lives as a more important value on return instead of improving minds of their young citizens.  They appear to be looking at the “large coin” and not the true “value” of their perceived returns.

     Yet this has always been the thinking of those in positions of decision making within higher levels governmental.  The years I was in the Air Force demonstrated the reality of this.  Whenever a situation would develope that created a “fix or repair” decision, it was always decided to repair.  I recall one specific situation which would have cost approximately $150,000 to fix the situation or approximately $35-40,000 each year to “repair” the situation.  The government chose the “repair” option!

     Personally I have known that most governments have no real concept of value.  They almost always want to get a project approved, knowing that during the three, five, or ten years needed to complete the project the cost is going to escalate the final billing several times its original projected expense.  This is part of the reason that some projects never get started and why all things associated with government are complicated to say the least.  It's hard for them to comprehend the true "value" of their actions when they feel if someone else is voted into office later they will have to deal with the problems that have been created.

QUOTE TO CONSIDER

THOUGHTFUL GEM

"Get the project started,

you can justify the cost later."