Originally Posted by Koyote

Yep, that's the one!

I like that quote because Econ is about (among other things) assessing trade-offs -- every benefit has a cost, every policy solution has a downside. Our job is to present policymakers with potential solutions and the costs of each one -- monetary and otherwise. It's not really our job to reach overarching conclusions or tell those policymakers what to do. That's why the view expressed by jon c. a few posts back is pretty much irrelevant.