Poker is a "zero-sum game." For every dollar won someone else loses a dollar. But in the real world, effective negotiations must be entered into with a "nonzero-sum" attitude, which is to say with the attitude that both sides can "win."
Unfortunately, Americans think primitively about negotiating, and we've elected people who actually ran for office on promises of no compromise on budget issues.
Ironically, the intransigence of our self-styled "fiscally responsible" non-compromisers is about to backfire, since a lower credit rating for America will cost us billions in higher interest rates. One of the criteria rating agencies use in determining credit ratings is the ability of the party in question to work cooperatively to solve a problem. We've already flunked that test. And as the old Pete Seeger song had it, "We elect 'em again and again."
Bruce Henricksen
Duluth
