It doesn't take a genius to realize that going bankrupt is bad, but compromise gets you killed by your voters... so you've got to find a way to not go bankrupt without compromising. Answer? A deadly game of brinksmanship. Both sides have nukes, and at least some on both side are probably willing to use them (i.e. let the nation collapse). But through a series of careful aggressions, proxy wars, periodic detente, and political exhaustion, the issue can be resolved. Compromise would be optimal, but compromise leaves you to open to attack.
The world is my prisoner's dilemma.
I think that most politicians have at least some notion, however misguided, that they are acting, ultimately, for the good of the nation. Not all, but most.
I guess one of my main problems with this is that all they do is perpetuate the situation where such actions are necessary, that is if I am even willing to buy into the notion that it is a round about way of accomplishing something, which I'm not entirely convinced of, and certainly isn't the case in the Australian system.
The end result is that such actions are constantly required, meaning the compromise result may be satisfactory but not optimal, and take far longer to arrive at which in many situations only results in the end compromise needed to be sufficient to dig you out of an even bigger hole. Look at the debt crisis in Europe, had nations like Greece been willing to take austerity measures MONTHS ago when other nations first started pushing for it, then would they need to be making such serious cuts now?
