The Goodness of Pain

In our 24-7 media world where politicians attempting to get votes can gain access to the public at will, common sense approaches are sometimes lost for everyday problems. Politicians are always trying to win over a vote or two with their new big plan to fix our economy. Good pro-Capitalist economists (the only ones that are good) make lousy politicians because the truth is not fancy and not attractive to voters unless those voters understand history and economics. Since our public has inadequate knowledge of both those subjects, economist usually waste no time pursuing politics.

The fact is, good economics would allow the auto industry to go bankrupt like the free market has desired it to do. The free market says that some auto makers make us vehicles we like and others do not. Those who make what we want and do it efficiently are making money and not close to going under. Those who have made bad decisions are close to going out of business. There is nothing wrong with that. Politicians argue that our economy could not handle that happening right now. What about the milk man that use to deliver milk? What about the man that use to deliver large blocks of ice to your house? What about the majority of the population that use to be farmers? Should we have saved all of their jobs when grocery stores seemed more efficient? What about when ice makers were put in refrigerators and freezers? Or when capital was created to farm quicker and more efficiently, should we have stopped that from happening so that all those farmers could have kept their jobs of working on the farm for 14 hours a day?

It seems scary to think of such a large sector of our economy going out of business. It seems scary to me to think of life without refrigerators, ice-makers, machinery to do farming, and grocery stores with tons of food at pretty cheap prices!