By Tim Fullerton
How many times have we heard this phrase in the past couple of year? The insurance company, AIG was too big to fail. General Motors and Chrysler were too big to fail. An untold number of banks were too big to fail. It started in the Bush Administration and continues to this day.
The free market economy is all about winners and losers. The cycles of boom and bust are despised by socialists and communists, whose entire purpose is to even out the economy so no one can win big and no one can lose big. But these cycles are the natural way for the economy to “refresh” itself. As new technologies, for example, reach the market, older technologies must either change or fail.
Should the age of the personal computer been halted because the typewriter manufacturers were too big to fail? Deny automobile companies the right to make cars because it would put the harness and buggy-whip makers out of business?
It's not the job of the federal government to decide which companies deserve bailing out and which ones can quietly go bankrupt. Should “too big” companies such as these be allowed to continue making buggy-whips blithely knowing the government will prop them up any time it looks like they might be in some kind of financial trouble? What does this accomplish in the big scheme of things?
Maybe I should start selling T-shirts with the logo: “Too Big to Fail.” And sell them in only XL and 2XL sizes. If my company doesn't succeed, we can always get a bailout, right?
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