[ by Howard Haykin ] By now, it's an everyday occurrence - people make decisions or take actions that involve needless expenses, result in monumental losses to others, or lead to significant regulatory violations. The specific actions or decisions themselves are bad enough - but what's worse is the complacency or acceptance of such actions and decisions by those who carry out the deed or action and by those who observe them - including those responsible for supervision and monitoring. How and why does this happen?  Have people become insensitive - either because they recognize a "wrong" but choose to ignore it, or because they now view such "wrongs" appropriate or acceptable, regardless of the outcome? Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger addresses these issues and others in his powerful commentary, "The Age of Indiscretion." The piece speaks volumes and hopefully serves as a "wake up" call to those who still care. And now, we give you Mr. Henninger ... ..................................................................................................................................................... "Past some point, it becomes pointless to ask, What were they thinking? That people exist who still ask this question suggests there's hope. Maybe. Carousing Secret Service agents, thought to be an oxymoron in a slovenly time, was one we didn't see coming. Former Congressman Anthony Weiner, from a class of humanity that fell long ago, nonetheless broke new ground by frolicking in ghastly color online with unmet women thousands of miles away. The General Services Administration "on retreat" in Vegas was a bottomless joke until you saw five senior GSA officials (not all of them partygoers) standing in front of a congressional committee, their hands raised like characters in "The Godfather." That would be hitting bottom for most people. Wondering what were they thinking is a statement, not a question. The better question is: Does anyone think anymore that what they are about to do is, at the least, a mistake? Yes, but those who do look before they leap are a dwindling tribe. Let us stipulate that the GSA and Secret Service scandals involve serious issues of mismanagement and possibly malfeasance. The big bust can't happen, though, until that voice in the individual brain says: Go ahead; do it. Welcome to the Age of Indiscretion. Athletes, celebrities, politicians, bureaucrats, reality TV, YouTubers, no doubt co-workers and now even Secret Service agents. We're all in. Discretion, before its recent death, had many allies—judgment, common sense, prudence, reticence and the two better selfs, self-control and self-discipline. Indiscretion, of its nature weak, dropped discipline and control to let the self run free. Has it ever. The age of indiscretion even has its own motto, on display at the Resort M in Vegas and the Hotel Caribe in Cartagena: Living large. Earlier mottos have been discarded as too corny, such as, A word to the wise is sufficient, or, Forewarned is forearmed. Worth noting, though, is how often now one hears cries for "adult supervision." The reign of indiscretion has been a long time coming. Some say it arrived in the late 1960s or early '70s, when constraints on behavior eased. But the new age's booster rocket, the thing that finally killed discretion, was social media. Social media of its nature is about compulsion and revelation. It empowered the already indiscreet. Some of social media's indiscretions are microscopic ("She tweeted that?"), but holding nothing back has become reflexive, and so the norm. One big paradox at the center of this great untethering is that digitized photos, audio and video are always along for the ride. I'm looking at snapshots, uploaded by someone to the Web, of disgraced GSA Pacific Rim administrator Jeff Neely and his wife on their "scouting trips" to a Vegas hotel. Of Mr. Neely combing his hair in the hotel-room mirror or soaking in the tub with a glass of what looks like Cabernet. Going further than one should is one thing, but why the compulsion always to record it in a media format that can be distributed to the whole world? Such is the allure and power of indiscretion. Which group of people more than any other would be aware that any hotel, such as the Hotel Caribe, has 24/7 security cameras recording everyone's movements onto a hard disk? A big part of the Greatest Generation's mystique was its instinct to self-protect. On balance, they were discreet. Countless intelligence veterans of World War II and the Cold War, for example, have gone to their graves without a public peep about their successes. But when the current generation takes down Osama bin Laden, it releases a photograph of itself in the Situation Room and provides operational details of the Navy Seals' attack plan to the media the next day. That was indiscreet. The mortgage-securities bubble was fraught with systemic misfeasance. At its core, though, a liar loan was an act of indiscretion, on both sides of the deal. "Honey, do you really think we should be taking out a loan this big?" "Why not?!?!" Yeah, said lenders from Countrywide and mortgage packagers from Citibank, why not? Or as Rep. Barney Frank said in the spirit of the age, let's "roll the dice a little bit more" on subsidized housing. That is a government living large, and in time the boys and girls at the Government Services Administration and agencies everywhere saw that "roll the dice a little bit more" was the new normal. An architect of simplicity in design once said, less is more. An irony of the age of indiscretion is that more is less, especially if you get caught. The straightforward truth is that much unusual behavior can be tolerated and absorbed by a free society if discretion is putting speed bumps in the path of excess. It beats hitting the wall." Click to access the commentary:  [WSJournal Opinion Video, 4/25/12] or  [WSJournal Text Version, 4/25/12].