What we say and what we do are very different things; the distinction is what economists call revealed or stated preferences. A beautiful example, although one the authors actually disagree with, is the Boingboing statement that “Facebook proves that people don’t care about privacy the way that the Cheesecake Factory proves that people don’t care about obesity.”
With regard to the failure of governing bodies to jumpstart the economy, Brad DeLong points us to the following statement (emphasis mine):
Secretly Ironic 