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Life is full of tradeoffs. If we choose one thing that we want, we tend to be forced to give up a degree of something else we also value. Being happy isn’t a matter of getting everything we want. It’s a matter of finding the right tradeoffs — deciding what matters most.

It seems as though most modern people have chosen — perhaps unconsciously — the path of accumulating material things over emotional connections with other people. So millions of them sit in their suburban “boxes” and wonder why they’re miserable, even though they’ve achieved what they thought they wanted.

I’m thinking about this because of an old song that someone introduced me to over the weekend. (Listen to the song at the end of the article.) Malvina Reynolds was a singer/songwriter and political activist in the ’60s. I doubt I would have agreed with many of her political positions, but I found myself strongly identifying with her song, “Little Boxes,” which satirizes the antiseptic and meaningless lives that she saw people living in suburban tract homes.

I’m of two minds about people who protest against this “little plastic life.” There’s a part of me that appreciates the standard of living we’ve come to have because of the standardization and mass production of our lives. A world in which everything was custom-built individually is a world where not nearly as many people can afford nice houses and other material things.

On the other hand, there’s a huge part of me that’s repulsed by the world those things have created.

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In the eyes of most people, the intent of legislation matters more than the outcome. That’s the only way we can possibly explain why most people continue to support federal efforts to make health care more affordable and more available.

It wasn’t until the 1960s that the federal government got seriously involved with interfering with the medical industry. You can argue that it started before then, because it was certainly a gradual thing. But it was in the Great Society programs of the ’60s that the government started pumping massive amounts of money into health care. The purpose was to make quality health care available to everyone.

That’s not what happened, of course. In 1940, you could spend a day in the hospital in Greenville, Ohio, for $4. Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $31 today. Do you know any hospital where you can get a day in a room for $31 now? I don’t. Why is medical care so much more expensive today? And why do people trust the people who made it more expensive to fix the problem?

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If you ever wonder why people today know so little about economics, consider this recent short snippet of video below from Canada’s CTV television network. A reporter is explaining to the audience about the difference between assets backed by gold and assets backed by the U.S. government:

Some investors aren’t confident with what gold is backed by or if it’s backed by anything at all, as compared to something like the U.S. dollar. Investors are comfortable that the U.S. dollar is backed by the American government, so no matter what is happening to the American economy, something like the U.S. dollar is backed by the Federal Reserve. That’s going to be around a year from now. That’s a much more comfortable investment for them.

So does that mean that gold isn’t going to be around a year from now — despite being the world’s reserve of value for centuries and centuries?

This woman is reporting financial news for a major television network, yet she doesn’t understand that the U.S. dollar is backed by absolutely nothing. Whether you’re a fan of investing in gold or not, it has long-term intrinsic worth. The U.S. dollar is only worth as much as the Federal Reserve can snooker you into believing it’s worth.

As long as you believe people such as this woman, you’re going to be surprised when the economy collapses. You’l look at the dollars in your pocket or bank account and wonder why they’re worthless. And you’ll wonder why everyone wants gold or silver as payment instead.