Natural Selection and the Economy

Let’s talk about the theory of natural selection. 1^st off I don’t want to talk about evolution of the animal kingdom, nor protection of endangered species. I want to speak about natural selection and how it applies to the economy.

In the last few months we’ve all seen an alarming trend of taking tax dollars and using them to ‘bail-out’ companies that were poorly managed. As an entrepreneur I’m upset that some companies like AIG and GM can go to the government and essentially say, “we’re so important that if you don’t give us money, the country will die.” As a patriot it scares the paints off me to see the government buying private companies out of bankruptcy (even though bankruptcy is essentially the same thing). And as a moral individual I am appalled because of the dishonesty, the lack of responsibility, the obvious burden placed on the backs of other people.

I don’t propose to be a genius of business, but as I’ve studied economy, and I make no claim to be an economist, there is the idea that as one company’s value drops someone else will buy it. It goes along with the rules of supply and demand, almost like a natural order in life. When we the government decided to step in and ‘bail-out’ AIG, GM, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, etc… we not only set a precedence, but also interrupted that natural order. Rather then letting poorly managed companies dissolve so that better ones could come along, almost like a sentimental stock trader, we stepped in and upset the balance.

A great many years ago, before almost any of us were born our country entered another depression. It was a hard time for many people who didn’t have jobs, food to eat, and many if not all the necessities of life. Our Government stepped in to help in a very different manner, they created a welfare program. The design of which was to not only help provide for each other, but also to improve our nation. The idea behind it was that the government would create jobs, such as the ‘C.C.C.’ where people who put in a good amount of work were compensated. Of course as time went by those groups were dissolved or changed into other entities, the idea of welfare also changed until what we have at present is very different from before. The idea of asking labor or effort of those seeking welfare was let go, and the idea became that we just gave money to those who didn’t have enough. Originally the welfare program no only gave gainful employment to those who sought it out, it also restored dignity. The new system depraves them of it and changes those involved into something akin to a parasite. Up until now that has only been localized to individual people. With these billion dollar give-aways we are now adding corporations to the group, and just as ugly as watching a family on welfare buy a big screen T.V. we now see the CEO, Rick Wagoner, of GM write himself a pay check for last year worth $14 million. That’s roughly $1 million less then ’07; considering that GM lost $30 billion in ’08 we can see that he’s being very responsible with the company. I ask the leaders in charge, “Is this what you wanted?” It seems the only effect of our bail-outs is to increase the cost of living, speed up inflation at an alarming rate, and take us step by step to a system of government in one way very much like communism. This is almost the exact same scenario as watching a 3^rd world country change currency, they flood the market by printing more bills until the dollar is as common as McDonald’s wrappers, and just like the wrapper the dollar is thrown away.

This brings me to my last point. A few years ago I heard about Donald Trump building a casino in Las Vegas and then shortly after that filing for bankruptcy on the same casino. This is equivalent to asking the Government to pay off all the building loans they acquired in creating the establishment. I was very disgusted at Donald’s lack of personal character, what he did was perfectly legal; he didn’t break any laws I mean to say. But it was disgusting still. Watching as these people we elected to run our country give away our hard earned money to companies that treat it with such reverence I wonder, who was the financial genius they turned to for this advice? What is to be done to save our economy?

As difficult as the last depression was there were a great many things we learned from it. We remembered the value of a dollar, the price of a loan, and the reward of responsibility. As we now head head-1st into our next depression I can only hope that somewhere we remember those lessons learned and rather then just ‘throwing money at the problem’ we try to fix it. Stop living on loans, stop living on other people’s money, and earn our living by contributing to the good of our society. Regardless of where we come from our quest in every day we live should be to go to bed a better person then when we woke up, in this we can define the progress of civilization.