Thursday, February 05, 2009

On the brighter side...

Our government is renowned for the unintended consequences it so often brings upon us. Those smelly Chinese Lady Bugs that crawl into your home each fall were brought to the United States by the Department of Agriculture to eat aphids off of soybeans. Who knew they wouldn't care for our aphids?

FDR's Soil Conservation Service planted hundreds of acres of Kudzu, an aggressive and invasive vining plant, to control erosion,(and make work for the unemployed), in the south during the 1930's. The last estimate I saw was that the plant had taken over about 7 million acres.

Congress's Community Reinvestment Act was a well-intentioned plan to make sure that people who couldn't afford a home were still able to purchase a home. Unfortunately, it was one of the tripping stones for the housing market crisis, which was one of the tripping stones for the mess we find ourselves in today.

Not that all unintended consequences are bad.

Like those of President Obama's Cabinet nomination process.

It's been a windfall for the Internal Revenue Service.

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