Raining

Gloomy and wet. That's how I would define things around here the past few days. It's been raining here and the moisture is making it wet and muddy. Not a particularly bad thin, just miserable to deal with. It's too late in the year for the moisture to be much good but we are storing it up for next spring. With the start the grass got this fall and all the moisture in the ground for spring, the grass will really grow next year and the cattle will do great.<br />n<br />nSomething that isn't doing great I have been hearing about lately is the big 3 auto makers and the troubles they are in. Losing money like mad, they are looking for the government to bail them out of their troubles. What exactly are their troubles? I know they are bleeding money, but why are they bleeding money? Is it because of bad management decisions or is it simply the recession, or is it a mixture of both. If we the government, hand out money to them, aren't we just enabling bad management to keep on making poor decisions? There is talk about tying strings to the money that will force the automakers to make more fuel efficient cars. Will this actually help the situation? Will there be a demand for these fuel efficient autos if they are built? <br />n<br />nMy local community recently built a new jail they just knew would be the job and money creation opportunity of a lifetime. After they built the jail, they found that there was no demand for the beds in the jail and the jail still sits empty while local leaders try to figure out what to do with it. I tell you this because the local leaders used the philosophy of, "if you build it, they will come." They did not try to discover if there was a demand for jail beds, they just built it and assumed there would be.<br />n<br />nThis is the same thing that will happen if Washington mandates the type of cars the big 3 should make. The cars might get built, but will anyone want them? Putting the cart before the horse doesn't work, why should we even try?<br />n<br />nRaining cash down on failing companies makes no sense. Why should we keep rewarding failure? Shouldn't we let the market decide who lives and who fails? These companies aren't "too big to fail" as the newest catch phrase has it. Somebody will step in and pick up the slack if they do. That's how things work out in the long run. I don't get to make the decisions though. The people in Washington do and since they don't listen to us little people I will just watch my money rain down on the big 3 auto makers and watch the big 3 destroy the capital as they have been destroying capital for years now.<br />n<br />nWe live in very interesting times, don't we.<br />