Smart Choices

CHAPTER 6

Tradeoffs

AT THIS POINT IN THE PROCESS, having compared the consequences of your alternatives, you will likely have eliminated some poor choices. Those that remain will seem to nearly balance each other: alternative A will be better than alternative B on some objectives, but worse on others. Important decisions usually have conflicting objectives—you can’t have your cake and eat it, too—and therefore you have to make tradeoffs. You need to give up something on one objective to achieve more in terms of another.

In the early 1980s, for example, the United States enacted a national speed limit of 55 miles per hour to reduce gasoline consumption. The limit also led to a reduction in highway fatalities. Ten years later, however, a fresh ...