The Price of Hope

Sometimes I think a basic course in accounting should be a requirement at the high school level.  Concepts like "opportunity cost" are so simple yet crucial elements in the proper examination of alternatives, and yet it seems like the general public has no concept of these things.  On almost any subject about which there is public outcry or discussion, the options usually end up horribly misrepresented, because the alternatives are never portrayed realistically, if even considered.

There was a huge argument back when about whether or not to turn the Memorial Stadium into a supermarket.  But for all the public outcry against it, I never once heard anyone speak of a realistic alternative.  A private company wanted to put money into changing the building to supermarket.  To those opposing it, I ask, what was the alternative?  I heard "No, it shouldn't be a supermarket", but I didn't hear, "No, send the private money away, since surely Loblaw's won't take that same money and use it to convert the building into something else for us that doesn't generate profit for them, but instead raise my taxes so that the City of St John's can turn it into something I find more palatable, or perhaps allow the space to continue sitting unused."

And when it comes to clinging to hope, people become all the worse.  The health minister, Jerome Kennedy, feels we should explore an alternative therapy for Multiple Sclerosis that both the MS Society of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research have denounced.  And if one were to believe the polls on the CBC news page (and one shouldn't, I know), it would appear that many people applaud this.  Without a basic understanding of accounting, they fail to understand the parameters of the equation here.  The choices are not "do something" or "do nothing".  The choices are, and will continue to be, "spend limited financial resources on A" or "spend limited financial resources on B".  So if government is going to spend money chasing hope because a politician thinks he knows better than the scientific community - or worse, simply knows it will make him more popular and at no cost to himself - understand that it will come at the expense of something else.  It may come at the expense of less money being spent to explore better, more viable alternatives.  Consider that if "anecdotal evidence" is the benchmark of government spending, I'm pretty sure "Yogic Flying" should be up there alongside the proposed procedure.

I am very sensitive to the plight of people with MS.  It has affected my family and my friends.  I am surrounded by it.  And I hope, very much, that someday soon they find a cure.  But rather than throw money at the first snake oil salesman who comes along, let's have scientists explore the viability of possible cures.  Let's have clinical trials and blind studies.  Let's use well-established quality processes to rule out the snake oil, the yogic flyers, and - from what I'm reading - the Zamboni procedure.  Let's do it right, and let's reserve our hope for options that show proper evidence they might actually work.

Because that hope - it comes with a price tag.