Bailouts and the American "Work Ethic"

Used to be that the United States rewarded success. The "hero's" in this country were held up as examples to the rest of the world as innovators & visionaries - people who had changed the lives of all mankind. "Titans of Industry" they were called. I'm talking about men like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Orville and Wilbur Wright, John Moses Browning, and more recently pc creator Bill Gates. When I was a boy growing up, my Swedish immigrant parents preached to me constantly, that "in America you can achieve anything as long as you're willing to work hard and never give up!"

For all of these men and countless other men and women who did something that no one else had previously done, failure was a closer "friend" to them than success was! Which one of any American boy or girl hasn't learned the following rhyme before they were 6 years old? "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!"

• Edison is said to have tried more than 4000 times before successfully "inventing" the light bulb.
• Henry Ford went bankrupt 5 times before succeeding.
• The Coca-Cola Bottling Company sold less than 500 bottles of Coke the entire first year in production.

I keep thinking that the work ethic my Mom & Dad preached to me and my sister about, has been replaced by a "hand out ethic." What I mean is, when folks today make a bad decision and fail, many times they go running to someone they hope will solve the problem for them - many times this comes in the form of holding out their hand so someone can put some money in it!

Back in the late 20's, 30's and 40's when families went on Public Assistance...i.e.: "welfare and/or unemployment," many people PAID IT BACK after they returned to work! Do ya think that would ever happen today? During the depression years, company owners and their workers alike who had lost their jobs - took jobs sweeping their local streets and sidewalks for a few dollars a week, or dug ditches shoulder to shoulder - in order to put a little food on their family tables. Can you see this happening today?

When this years first bailout occurred a month or so ago, I worried that Pandora's Box had been opened! Then came the auto industry exec's with their hands out. (The MOST unbelievable aside to the auto industry fiasco, is that the Unions won't budge and don't recognize their culpability in the demise of the industry! UNBELIEVABLE!) And just the other day I heard that a number of States are making noises that they need a bailout from Washington! Where will it end?

Either on Election Day or the day before, I heard a radio interview with a "woman on the street" segment. I don't remember how old the woman was, what city she lived in, or what her employment status was, but when asked who she thought she was going to vote for she said, "Well if Barack Obama is going to pay my mortgage, make my car payment, and pay off my student loans, who do you think I'm going to vote for!" Once again..."hand out ethic" rather than "work ethic."

Seems to me that the definition of "bailing out" anything, is the act of trying to save something that's failing. The easiest example I can think of is bailing out a boat as it sinks around you. You may succeed - but would you be stupid enough to get back in the boat without proof that it's been repaired first? In that regard, bailing out the auto industry, or a State, or AIG, or Fannie Mae, or an individual mortgage holder equates to rewarding failure! One could argue that there might never have been an auto industry, or a light bulb, or the pc if their respective inventors hadn't failed numerous times before succeeding! Would Edison have even attempted the 2000th experiment if he had gotten compensated for 1,999 failures? Maybe he would have figured it was just easier to give up!

What Congress is asking us to believe is that we have to bail out these institutions - or individuals. Nonsense! Company's and people recover from bankruptcy. Is it easy? NO! It's not supposed to be EASY! It's supposed to change organizations and people so that failing again DOESN'T HAPPEN. Furthermore, if you would save them without first gaining assurances that they would never get in that situation again, you are only perpetuating the "hand-out ethic" in both company's and individuals.

Is that what we've become? Is that what we want?

Dum Spiro Spero!