Bad Politician Good Politician

In a previous post I had proposed that the following extract from Economics In One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics by Henry Hazlitt applies to managers too:

The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequence of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economist sees only what effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups.

However, it is more apt for the politicians. Just replace the word economist with politician in the above extract and you have the snapshot of the chaos that is created by the government's knee-jerk reaction to the Telegana problem.

In fact, the paragraph actually describes all politicians. All. So it is worth repeating the whole paragraph with appropriate words:

The bad politician sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good politician also looks beyond. The bad politician sees only the direct consequence of a proposed course; the good politician looks also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad politician sees only what effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good politician inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups.

Of course, some of you may argue that 'good politician' is something of an oxymoron.