Contrary to the familiar movie line – Failure IS an option.  Sometimes it’s the best option, in the long run.

Think about when you learned how to ride a bike. You probably fell down a few times until you go the hang of it, right?  You fall off a horse, you get back on, but until you’ve fallen off that horse at least once, you don’t have a healthy respect for their power to so easily — if accidentally — kill you.

And what did your father always say when you were about to do something stupid?  “Let her find out for herself that’s the wrong thing to do. It’s the only way she’ll learn not to do that again.”

That’s why I’m so vehemently against all these “economic bailouts”.  Let’s call a pig a pig, shall we? Our government is handing out our money to companies that got rich by screwing us over.  They fooled the willing into believing credit was good, like the credit card companies when they try to convince you that having a charge account and carrying a balance is the only way to maintain a good credit report.

Um, NOT.

First, who do you think invented the credit report?  Second, if you want a good credit rating, pay your bills.  Pay your rent/mortgage on time. Pay your power bill on time.  Pay your phone/cable/internet bill on time.  Make your car payments and pay your car insurance.  That’s your credit rating.  No one needs a charge card.  Fool yourself if you have to, but no one NEEDS a credit card.  (don’t get me started)

I’m so sick of hearing “but we have to bail them out, or the companies will fail.”  I say let them fail.  THEY screwed up, they need to fail.  If you’re a failure, you lose. End of story. Fail in a fight, you lose. Fail at war, you lose. Fail in business, you lose.  And what happens when a company fails?  Another company comes along. One that knows how to succeed.

If the auto industry as we know it fails, something else will come along.  Aren’t you at all curious as to what it could be?  Are you so enamored with the planned obsolescence you’re driving now that you really don’t care to find out what someone else could build?

Progress is built on forward motion, and all too often forward motion only happens when a society that has grown lazy and fat is forced into action.  This country grew lazy and fat, gorging on unnecessary credit and bloated values. They called it a housing bubble for a reason, but it wasn’t the only bubble being blown out of purportion, and now we’re all shocked and appalled to find those bubbles have burst.

Failed business = unemployed workers?  Yes, it does. So get out there and find a new way to invent the wheel. Get this country off it’s collective ass. Use the brains you were born with and find a new way to make it work. Roll up your sleeves. The world has more executives than it needs, and not enough workers. We’re rewarding failure, catering to an unwarranted sense of entitlement and enslaving future generations with a debt they didn’t incur.

Our government representatives bailed out the Investment Companies and Banking Establishments because that’s where THEY keep their retirement funds.  If they’d been interested in saving the country, they could have already.

Think about it.  There are (approx)  140 million registered tax payers in the United States. Citizens who file and pay the IRS.  The same United States Citizens who are having trouble paying their bloated mortgage, their unnecessary credit cards. The same US Citizens who aren’t buying new cars because they can’t afford to, or spending money on dinner out or new clothes.  In turn, they’re losing their jobs as car dealers, waitresses, and retailers.

We gave well over 7 billion in bailout money in round 1, and God only knows how much has gone out now, and it hasn’t solved anything.  What would have happened if we’d given each and every tax paying citizen 1 million dollars?

First, it would have cost us taxpayers 140 million, instead of several trillion.

Second, that money would have been spent right away.  People would have paid their bills, refinanced those ridiculously large, adjustable rate mortgages they had no business signing in the first place (a subject for another time), bought new cars, new clothes, new toys. If they were smart, they would also have invested some of that into stocks and bonds and college funds for the kids.  Money that would have gone straight out into the world, supporting businesses, banks and Wall Street.  The result would be businesses that can stay in business, workers who aren’t in fear of job loss, which spurs more confidence and spending, which spurs more business and success.

Atlas is holding the world up on his shoulders, not sitting at a conference table working out how to get someone else to hold it up for him.

The world is changing. Our country is changing. It’ll reinvent itself, become stronger, more secure, fruitful once again.

But what if it doesn’t?