Economics is often referred to as the "dismal science" but article like this one make it seem like a lot of fun. The point here is basically that nothing is ever as good as you think it will be, as a basic law of economics. Kind of depressing! Many great moments, but I liked this part best:

The reason there are wars in the first place is that one side or the other is overconfident. After all, if everyone agreed on the expected outcome, there would be no need to fight the war—we could just jump to the conclusion. My ex-colleague Paul Krugman used to argue that World War II was fought inefficiently. The British bombed the Germans and the Germans bombed the British; think how much airplane fuel they could have saved by agreeing that each side would bomb itself instead. Better yet, they could both have agreed to act as if they'd been bombed and forgone the actual bombing altogether.