by Sarge
Bail-out is a term used when there’s sufficient cause to abandon a position or as originally used, to jump from an airplane, preferably with a parachute. Now, in financial circles it means to be covered by governmental funds ensuring that your failure and incompetence as a business person doesn’t adversely affect the economy. Money is supplied from public funds (taxpayer dollars) to prevent the guilty from suffering the consequences of their actions.
Years ago I tried to sell insurance. I was a better writer than I was a salesman. Some people rate insurance salespeople slightly above used car salesmen but, they work hard at selling a service/commodity so many people believe they have no need for in life. Nothing could be further from the truth. No matter what the case, your loss will remain a loss without insurance to buffer the financial damage and replacement costs. Insurance once was a matter of taking a risk based on Actuarial Tables (statistics) to gauge the relative risk of issuing the policy. Risk is the factor, thing or element or course of action involving uncertain dangers. Action: you fly – Risk: you might crash.
Simple don’t you think? Not anymore.
Now people expect guarantees. They want assurances of success. They accept few challenges without the acknowledgement they’ll not fail. It’s like nobody has the stones to try anymore unless Mommy and Daddy will make it better if it flops like a fish out of water. And more and more Mommy and Daddy are teaching the kids the mess will be cleaned up by somebody but not necessarily the guilty party.
This aspect of interference in the element of social and fiscal Darwinism is a relatively new proposition. Prior to the 1970s, you tried and won or failed on the merits of your competence and drive to succeed. Sometimes you failed because the time was wrong for the endeavor. Sometimes you won in spite of your own incompetence, naiveté or ignorance. But you were allowed to learn from the effort. Maybe you came back swinging or you bowed out gracefully. But, you were attributed with the truth of your actions.
The truth of the action was where the character of the participant was defined. Win with grace. Lose with humility but pride in the attempt. The participant defined the effort and the participant learned (and sometimes taught) the lesson by their actions. Now we don’t do that.
We “bail-out” the incompetent members of a class of hyper-educated but practically challenged individuals sucking their reputation from the past and history of family connections and position. Corporations do the same thing as in General Motors (GM) being “too big to fail”.
I failed many times. Nobody died as a result of my failures. Nobody suffered as a result of my actions to any great extent. No taxpayers were expected to pay the price for multi-millionaires granted exorbitant bonuses for having driven the company into the dust. I failed on my own. I suffered on my own and I arose to try again, on my own. Nobody bailed me out.
Where does the government get the idea industry is “too big to fail”? What gives them the right to assist the incompetent mogul, caught in the infamy of their hubris and self-destructive ways? Why do we as taxpayers have to help stupid people?
There’s a disconnect between the “haves” and the “have nots”. If you’re politically connected, have a college education, can self-proclaim expertise in some field and bamboozle people into believing it: you too can potentially get a grant, a bail-out, a reprieve or whatever you want to call it, to stay afloat in a game you may not be good at. If you have none of these, your chances of survival are diminished.
It’s a terrible thing to note the devaluation of the human spirit in favor of “guaranteed success by bail-out”. It’s a terrible thing to note the sweat of your brow is no longer seed capital for success in this country.
You have to be connected by the umbilical to the government’s pocket-book to survive in business today. And it was never meant to be that way in America.
Thanks for America
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