Issue 219 Don't reward failure December 3, 2013

A society that rewards failure is a society that is doomed to fail itself. By allowing those who fail to continue as they have been doing will only result in the same failures again and again. We have seen this stupidity with the Bank bailouts in the United States and Europe, and even with children who are passed in class because their grades were inflated to move them through the system. So let’s go over these two examples.

Bank Bailouts: When the United States and Europe saved the banks, it was in an effort to stave off a financial collapse. One problem, the collapse kept going regardless. However, those same banks despite new rules (many of which are unenforceable) keep trudging along as if nothing has occurred. However, if another collapse does occur, then they expect to be bailed out once again. Yes, that is right; they are in the position to be able to screw up as many times as they want as the taxpayers money will be used to save them once again. What the fools in Washington D.C. and in the governments of the world fail to realize is that failure is the primary motivator to keeping these businesses in check. If a bank or any institution knows that they will not be saved, then it forces them to think twice about taking an action. And if that action seems too dangerous, they will not continue. Those that will risk it will either succeed or fail. As such, those that succeed will be mimicked and progress will result. Those that fail will be seen as a learning experience by the others as to what not to do with the world and business still progressing forward. But the governments did not allow this. They kept those who line their pockets in power because they feel that they needed to save them and us from a threat. It is a typical human reaction to want to do something, but those that fail in the business world are replaced. People who lost their jobs typically get them back in a year as those who are seen as an asset will be snapped up by other businesses looking to use their talents. In the free market, this notion of failure and replacement is known as creative destruction. It is the main tool that will ensure that any damage in the short term is turned into a positive in the long run. As such, the government must not interfere in this for they inherently corrupt the market and thus create monopolies that snuff out the weaker businesses that would have replaced them if there was no interference in the first place.

Schools: Children are being rewarded for not being good enough. They have their grades upped by redistributing them to their academically weaker classmates. In my old high school and even at the college I attended, grades were raised up in this matter to artificially make students performance look better than it was. Thus, I say with all truth, that I probably did not deserve to pass some of the classes I took in high school and at least one in college. As such, it caused me to be a little behind when I moved further up in the education system. Thankfully, I was book smart and did decent in most everything else, but my fellow classmates suffered in many instances. Many were not prepared to move up in the grade levels and as such were forced to rely on this system of inflating grades. This is apparently getting worse. I saw this as a trend in my final years of high school that even if the answer was wrong, that the student would still get points for showing work. As such, a student could get a number of answers wrong and still pass. Now this foolishness is being set as a standard in the common core curriculum as now under that system 2+2 can equal 6 under certain circumstances. This same grade inflation was used to make schools look better than they really were. These same scores that make schools look good also dictate the aid they get from the government as well. As such, in America today, there are a number of students that cannot read properly nor do math while schools reap rewards. These same students who are moved up before they are ready are also more likely to resort to criminality according to some studies. By rewarding failure here, we are risking the future of our entire country. We are regressing.

Conclusion: Any reward for failure will result in negative consequences. We see this in the creation of government sponsored monopolies and in the decline in America's children's education. The more this occurs the further America as a whole will fall into depravity and hopelessness. Stop rewarding failure. Let bad businesses fail like they are supposed to and teach children properly by moving them up when and only when they are ready. Stop America failing by stopping the rewards for failure.