When did looking at spending of scarce resources through a rational economic lens become "dissing?"

While not the sole reason, one of the issues driving AMA's trends is they cannot separate the emotion of the hobby from the rational economic decisions they need to make for the health of the business. An example? Go look at the 29 April EC minutes, specifically the discussion in the paragraphs preceding Motion V. You see the tension between rational discussion of what the business of AMA needs and the emotional perspective when someone makes a statement beginning with "competition drives....". From the discussion it's clear the data doesn't support the level of spending, and yet the EC ultimately sided with the emotional argument.

This event, while laudable and emotionally satisfying, still has a cost in terms of real dollars. The AMA does not have an infinite supply of dollars, and the supply they do have is declining. The value of community outreach events is difficult to quantify from a business perspective, but it's clear from this they don't generate a lot of revenue for AMA. While Speedy's group may have the resources to do these, the AMA providing MORE resources doesn't make sense when you remove the emotion. When your membership revenue is declining year after year after year, then I'd argue that from a rational economic business perspective, that $900 would have been better spent on direct efforts to gain members (increase revenue). Or writing grants get other funds (increase revenue), etc. That's what the BUSINESS of AMA needs most. It cannot afford emotion based decisions like we saw the EC make.