I asked Ed, my YMCA water-walking buddy a question I’d asked the teens in my Sunday School: What would life be like if everyone practiced the Golden Rule – treat others as you would want to be treated?

We talked about the obvious, no police or armies, but I pressed further because my students also had identified no need for Social Security or welfare.

It sounded utopian, but then Ed threw a wrench in the works – he suggested that it is only through adversity and trials that we grow and mature, so everyone following the Golden Rule might not be a good thing.

We had stumbled upon The Law of Unintended Consequences – and a case for criticism of many well-intended government programs. As the critics see it, unintended consequences can add so much to the cost of a government program that the program is useless, even if it reaches its goal.

Welfare was cited. Its purpose was to provide assistance in times of temporary hardship and then to motivate individuals to return to economic self-sufficiency.

But, the unintended consequence is that many welfare recipients prefer the free handout to the rigors of work. In my North Auburn neighborhood, for instance, there are generations of welfare families who have never been taught the work ethic that might free them from the welfare trap.

Recently the government has been pumping money into the economy at an unprecedented rate, bailing out and regulating industries never before subject to government interference.

In years to come the results will be evident – you can’t pump that much money into the system without paying the future “inflation piper.” But some realtors already have seen an unintended consequence: buyers waiting for the Fed to lower interest rates so they can have their slice of the bailout pie.

Punishing those greedy AIG execs sounds good on paper, but look carefully, a “UC” may be lying in wait.

Reach Auburn resident Karen Shepherd at karen.shepherd@rocketmail.com.