Fully comprehending the downsides of foregoing risk requires not just statistics, but imagination. How much wealth that could have funded private sector, cost effective breakthroughs in renewable energy (as opposed to government funded boondoggles), sustainable agricultural practices, cleaning up pollution, life-saving medical technologies and drugs, desalinizing ocean water, or plain old basic research, has instead gone down the big government and social safety net ratholes? How many would-be scientists, inventors, engineers, and entrepreneurs, contemplating a future of endless regulation, taxation, litigation, and competition against government succored crony capitalists, have decided the game is not worth the candle and pursued careers in the law, government, or investment banking instead? “Take care of me” has replaced “can do,” and we’ll never know what could have been done.

In Atlas Shrugged, John Galt euthanized a sclerotic world by convincing its productive giants to go on strike. Lacking such a dues ex machina to hasten its downfall; the U.S.‘s economic slide has been long and slow. Unless dramatic but unlikely remedies are administered, the prognosis is prolonged hardening of the arteries until the patient finally expires.