Unsustainable things can sustain for a long time

Yes, decisions should be made with facts. But in reality, to those directly involved, they’re made with contextualized facts (with things like social signaling, time horizon, office politics, government politics, year-end bonus targets, making up for past mistakes, insecurities, etc).

The easiest way to answer the question “What should I do?” is usually to be guided by a story that makes sense to you. Not a statistic or pure facts, but a good tale.