by Bryce McBride
Mises.org
If while driving your car you suddenly noticed that you were heading straight for a cliff edge, of course the sensible thing to do would be to apply the brakes and sharply turn the wheel.
If, however, rather than traveling by yourself you were instead driving a carload of children holding bowls of hot soup, you might choose to maintain your speed and direction while opening a newspaper up in front of you. For the next few moments, by keeping the car stable and the children unaware of any pressing danger, you have made it unlikely that they will spill hot soup on themselves and suffer burns.
However, while by ignoring and obscuring the problem of the approaching cliff edge you have kept your passengers calm and the soup in their bowls, you have solved nothing. By failing to brake or turn, you have ensured that you will all plunge over the edge of the cliff in a fatal crash.