What's best for America?

For years, we've heard how America is the greatest nation in the world.  We've been told we have the strongest economy, the greatest people, the best government, and so on.

Now we find ourselves in a pickle.  The American financial industry and the American auto industry are in trouble. 

How did they get there?  There is no one easy answer to that question.  Some blame government regulations; others the lack of government regulations.  Some blame corporate management and the greed of executives, while others blame unproductive workers.  Certainly poor decisions from the top down are, in part, to blame. 

But what now? 

The only solution to the problem that I'm hearing is that corporate America needs no less that 700 billion dollars to survive.  

It seems to me, that the best thing that could happen to corporate America would be to let these companies fail.

That's not going to be a popular suggestion.  What I'm suggesting is corporate darwinism.  Survival of the fittest.  Why prop up corporations that are incapable of surviving on their own?  The most likely outcome of that is that they still fail.  We only put off the inevitable.  

The problem is that we all want the quick fix.  We don't want to look at the long term.  We live in a world that looks to the next quarter, or the next year, or the next election cycle for making decisions.  If we don't do something now, the stock market will be down for the next few quarters or the next few years.  If we don't throw billions of dollars into these corporations now, the economy might still be down during the next election cycle and members of congress risk losing their seats.  CEOs and elected officials, not to mention the rank and file employees of these companies aren't interested in what's best for America in the long term.   They don't care about where we are ten years or twenty years from now.  They risk losing their control and power now.

And all of us taxpayers foot the bill.

We are mortgaging our future and the futures of our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren so that a handful of powerful people can remain powerful.

.... and we're going in a handbasket.