The consequences of short term profit goals

I’ve been thinking that business is fundamentally a zero sum game. People create ideas to be more economically efficient but rarely care about the long term consequences of their entrepreneurship. Ideas which have generated “value”or increases in GDP  have often preyed upon the immediate wants and desires of people decimating the collective good that we believe exists when human beings come together in a society.  

Perhaps there are now two different classes of people, those that are hunters and those that are preyed upon.  As a society we hire the Government, who are meant to give hunters balance and perspective but they have long since been bought off by the hunters to do their bidding. If not bought off then the election cycle forces then to cater to the immediate wants of society rather than long term benefits.

As a society we work on a system of incentives and we can see that the political centre right believe this whole heartedly. They have an ideology that suggests the private sector drives innovation – which is correct.. But that only works in the short term and any long term issues caused by profit maximisation are ignored or left for the next government to deal with.

Below I list some examples of observations where short term profit is made boosting the country’s GDP but longer term they are simply storing up problems for the future that are always resolved by the collective taxpayer making our society weaker. The perennial back stop is the taxpayer created Government- the one that everyone wants to make smaller and less inefficient. Ironically, the taxpayer is often the only organisation big enough to contain the fallout from the short-term “get rich quick” schemes. I am not advocating big government, far from it. We need efficient government who put in place frameworks which look at long term consequences not short term election requirements They have to play the elder statesman role while the private sector only looks to fulfil the short term urges of the people. 

Short Term Profit	Who benefits	Long Term Problem for the general population	Result	Who has to clean up the mess that “no one saw coming”
Cheap Buy to Let Mortgages & making loan interest tax deductible for buy-to-let landlords	Those few top earners with large deposits “Old Money” families	No long term housing plan Not enough cheap housing for the majority	Higher house prices and more homeless More government subsidy for the working poor to live in cities where jobs exist	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
Cheap Alcohol	Alcohol company shareholders & employees	Diabetes,heart disease and  general health issues Increase in violence and policing costs	Higher healthcare costs Broken Families in a social cycle of decline	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
Cigarettes	Cigarette companies’ employees and shareholders	Lung Cancer and related diseases	Higher cost of healthcare for all	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
Cheap fast food	Lots of small business owners Mass market food producers Retail company employees and shareholders	Increased litter collection Diabetes, general health issues	More expensive healthcare and local taxes for litter collection	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
Sugary Drinks / Cheap Fructose syrup added to all processed food	Food company shareholders and advertising companies	Obesity Higher cost of healthcare	Higher healthcare costs	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
Cheap Loans to enable more transaction fees and larger loan sizes	Banks employees and shareholders	Massive mis allocation of capital to non productive resources	Extended periods of decline in the business cycle which lead to depression and suicide rates rising in the general population	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
NHS staffed with short term agency staff	Agency owners	No skilled carers with long term experience	Poor customer service and more healthcare mistakes	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
High charges for fund managers to allocate your pension	Fund management firms, employees and shareholders	Not enough money to live in retirement	General population in poverty	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
Short term entertainment over long term development and skills	Advertisers, television and game companies and shareholders	Children who grow up to have a constant need for short term entertainment with no useful skills to add to their society	Fewer ideas and a a weaker society as we create less products to sell to the world	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
Prison containment based on short term goals - "quick sentences" or no rehabilitation	Outsourcing companies and share holders	Parts of society that can never be reformed Constant cycle of crimes against society	Re-offending Higher policing costs Destroying the lives of offenders	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)