Hindsight, they say, is 20/20.
Often, however, I wonder if we only manage to spot the reality of things when looking back because it's more convenient that way.
I mean, the truth is indeed inconvenient. I don't mean just the environmental disaster, the-climate-is-changing truth that Al Gore tried to tell us about in a famous documentary several years ago. The title is An Inconvenient Truth by the way.
I mean, the truth _ any type of it _ compels people to act, to do the right thing supposedly. And boy, how inconvenient that could be especially when you are the powers-that-be or the authorities responsible.
First case: Consider these three things and see if they belong to the same group _ a Buddhist monk, posh Ray Ban navigator sunglasses and a Louis Vuitton monogram traveller bag (plus a smaller, damier-style one).
If this were a photo-hunter game, a five-year-old child would probably be able to give the correct answer. Tick the monk off! A "holy" man, who forsook a worldly existence to search for enlightenment through austere living and detachment from materials, can't sport Ray Ban navigators.
To pick a latest model pair with reflective lenses is even more wrong. What is so ambiguous about that?
The authorities, however, seem to be struggling to figure out what is wrong with this picture.
Buddhist monk Luang Pu Nenkham from Si Sa Ket has stirred up a controversy after being pictured with these luxury items on board a private jet.
Virod Chaipanna, who oversees a Buddhism office in the province, said he has no authority to investigate the matter.
The official said the Wat Pa Khantidharma where the monk is based is not formally registered as a temple. It is considered only to be a place for monks to meditate. The case is probably closed, for him.
National Office of Buddhism director Noparat Benjawattana-nant said the case was likely inappropriate practice, if there was any fault to find at all. He did not elaborate on what the office will do next.
This leads me to the second case: We know the following situation can't be right but we won't do anything about it.
I am referring to the scandal regarding the fitness club California WOW.
When the firm started to offer "lifetime" memberships to a massive number of people at various prices _ some 10,000 or 20,000 baht depending on your negotiating skills _ more than a decade ago, people should have known the deal was too good to be true.
The authorities governing consumers' interests should have known too. They should have stopped the fitness club from preying on consumers with such a Ponzi-style scheme.
But of course, many people _ thousands of them are now suing the bankrupt firm _ knew in the back of their minds that what the club was doing couldn't be right, but jumped in anyway probably with the hope they would get enough use out of the gym in time.
Again, it's the same mentality for those who fall prey to Ponzi or pyramid schemes _ which are illegal by the way.
The authorities didn't do anything about the fitness club until early this month when the Anti-Money Laundering Office (Amlo) said California WOW swindled its former customers and shareholders by moving almost 1.7 billion baht out of the country over the past decade.
The company deliberately declared false annual reports which showed it was running at a loss.
What is the point of Amlo looking into this firm now? The probe should have happened 10 years ago. The money was swindled, the suspects gone. What use is the information to anybody now?
Third case: Rice cartel.
Need I say more? The government, or its self-proclaimed behind-the-scenes strategist Thaksin Shinawatra, floated an impossible dream of setting up a rice bloc with Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar _ who, by the way, are our competitors _ and then cornering the world's rice market.
The government might have confused rice _ which can be grown a few times a year _ with oil, which is finite, when it dreamed up the biggest, most expensive rice-buying project in the country's history. It even believed that it would turn a profit once Vietnam or India exhausted their stockpiles, presumably this year.
Those in the know have had no problems saying from the start that the rice dreams wouldn't hold and that Thailand would suffer massive financial losses from this populist scheme. I wonder what the rice authorities will say when they look back at the scheme a few years from now.
Atiya Achakulwisut is Deputy Editor, Bangkok Post.