Natural Consequences

Is it just me, or has the rest of the world forgotten a fundamental principle of business... and life...??? I'm talking, of course, about "natural consequences..." that "sister principle" to the Darwin Awards.

You remember that term... "natural consequences"? We try to teach it to our children. "If you do a bad thing, a bad thing will most likely happen. If you do a good thing, a good thing will most likely happen." It's not rocket science... unless you're 14 and have ADHD. But I digress.

Apparently, some in our country have never gotten this particular memo. I remember the old days, where your success as a business was based on your skill as a leader and the quality of the decisions you made. Not who was President. If you blew it, you blew it big-time. The "little people" paid dearly for it. As did you, when the Board of Directors got through with you.

In the old days, when businesses failed, plants closed, and masses were laid off, the pain was palpable... but transient. Those affected moved on, found different opportunities, and soon all that was left of the poor choices of management were bad memories. It was survival of the fittest in the most bone-jarringly honest sense of the phrase. Poorly-run companies died. Well-run companies succeeded. That simple fact created competition for jobs at well-run companies... they wound up attracting the top talent. Everyone knew the stakes were high, which caused those in power to take pause when making critical decisions. Lessons were learned (hopefully) from competitors who failed. Business paradigms shifted... albeit slowly... to accomodate these lessons so that similar fates could be avoided. It was the American Way.

Not anymore.

Today we just hop on our private jet and fly to Washington to beg for a bailout. We not only have NOT learned from the "junk mortgages" that wound up sinking us in the first place, we're now giving "junk mortgages" to Big Business on an exponentially larger scale. And it's going to have the same effect on us as a nation in the end. Our unwillingness to allow the natural consequences of monumental business blunders will financially enslave our children, and our children's children, for decades, if not millenia, to come. And they simply don't deserve that.

The pathetic part of all of this, of course, is that it was entirely avoidable. And there is more than enough blame to spread around. Coupled with Detroit's unwillingness to develop more efficient vehicles earlier is the rampant greed and entitlement mentality of the UAW.

Ask anyone who works for any of the Big Three and belongs to the UAW. Not only has their union, the UAW, strong-armed the Big Three for obscenely high wages, but they have all but destroyed any semblance of meaningful productivity. A more-than-typical example would include workers who, for instance, didn't even work the last couple of years they were employed. They just take "sick leave." And then retire at 95% of their normal salary.

The labor-hour cost for the Big Three is over $75/hour. Compared to $35/hour for Toyota and other foreign automakers. No wonder they're in trouble. When hourly laborers are paid on the same scale as MBA's, physicians, and dentists... without that pesky education to show for it... something is terribly, terribly wrong. Darwinian wrong. Epically wrong.

And in these extreme times of crisis... one would expect the UAW to step up to the plate, and offer deep concessions to "do their part" to help save Detroit from going under, right? No way. Not a dime, not an inch. Instead of being the Worker's Advocate, the UAW is quite content to roll the dice with the possible outcome being the untimely demise of the tens of thousands of jobs and the ensuing financial devastation that would cause. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face. Anything but having to actually sacrifice. That simply won't do. And that's the sum total of the mentality of our nation now. Sacrifice just "won't do."

I'm against the bailout. I'm against anything that gets in the way of natural consequences. I'm for those who have been wise, who have been frugal, who have been prudent... to succeed. I'm for those who have exercised poor judgement, unbridled arrogance, and limitless greed... to fail. Epically, if needed. That's how we learn, as a nation. And that's how we grow, hopefully avoiding the same mistakes in the future.

Unfortunately, the "bailout mentality" only breeds... MORE corruption... MORE greed... MORE carelessness... and MORE poor judgement and decision-making. It's a vicious, spirally cycle. After all, what motivation is there to actually do their jobs and LEAD? The government, having set the standard now, will always be there to follow after them with a super-sized broom and dustpan.