People Can Afford Stupid Governments in Boom Times

 This is a add-on to the previous post.

In boom times, like during the unleashing of new energy sources like coal, or oil (but not solar and nuclear) people can afford to support their retarded governments. By the way, the government is almost always retarded. The wealthy and powerful can divert resources to stupid projects, and it's no big deal.

Once there's a shift into management and efficiency mode, ironically, the government becomes a positive feedback mechanism--it amplifies stupidity. The EU nations are further down this road than the USA and blue states are further down the road than the red states in the US.

It's really just not possible to manage complex entities like a whole economy or the energy system. It's something that's either growing and doing well, or in a crisis and dying. Government interventions just exacerbate the problems.