Why is it that when you put money into stocks it is called an investment and when you put money on a blackjack table it is called gambling? I don’t know, but I do know that both have the same risk. You can lose whatever money you put into either enterprise, albeit at a different rate with each venture. I could not help to think while I was watching the whole “sub-prime” debacle that each person who lost money somehow with the sub-prime mess, it seems that we all have in some manner, went into their investments with their eyes open and that there was a risk involved. Why is it, then, that governments felt obliged to “bailout” these institutions and investment banks that lost inconceivable amounts of money? I am not a complete laissez faire capitalist, but I do feel that if an investment is made with the knowledge that there is a risk of perhaps losing your investment, and it is lost, then you should have been prepared for that outcome. When I go to Las Vegas and lost $20 on blackjack there is not an IRS agent there to hand me $20. Economic downturns and busts are like forest fires, they purge what probably should not have been there in the first place. If a financial institution was not prepared for or cannot cope with such turbulent financial times than they should be allowed to fail. The term “too big to fail” makes no sense to me. Everyone can fail and it is failure that often pushes the greatest successes. Michael Jordan said, “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career.
I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” We should let people fail, for it is failure that breeds success.
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