Failure is such a harsh word. I have to wonder why. After all, don’t we learn more from our failure than our successes?

Capitalism lives and breaths by failure and success, and the fact that you are given the opportunity to succeed is what makes America great.

For that, I’m sorry to say that I felt a little bit of relief to learn that the Senate today killed a bill that would have bestowed upon judges the power to cut interest rates and principal on troubled mortgages to help desperate borrowers trapped in sub-prime mortgages keep their homes.

The fact that naive people were taken advantage of on the front of our housing problem is frustrating, no doubt, and this will surely not be the last time you hear of that happening. But to think that those same people would gain more from this by allowing the government (and hence the all mighty tax payer) to come in and bail them out of bad decisions is a disservice to us all… in the name of capitalism.

To a certain degree, we all have a vested interest in the success of the free market. Your car, your toys, your house. Place upon an article a value and you will see the free market at work.

This period in time is teaching us all a very important lesson: no one should have a better understanding of your finances than you. Allowing people a get out of jail free card only white washes that lesson.

I’ve said it many times on this blog, especially when it pertains to our government, but most generally when it’s time to do “something”, it’s often more appropriate to do nothing at all.

I’m all for allowing people the opportunity to get ahead; to make of life whatever they want, by their own decision. Reinforcing the importance of your financial decisions is the job of the free market, not the government.

Eliminating failure from the equation will only bring the value of success to the same level.

Tags: fiscal policy | government | housing

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