On your second point, weaker businesses probably shouldn’t get a lot of governmental assistance, since keeping weak businesses afloat does not make the US more competitive. One example that comes to mind is the auto industry. The big three are suffering so much because they have a poor product and have even worse marketing. In short, the recession is revealing how poorly run these companies truly are.

That said, it is a difficult balance in in maintaining efficiency and effectiveness in our economy while simultaneously keeping jobs safe. It is probably best that certain businesses be left to die, but even the strong businesses could die if too many become unemployed. The sad truth with making decisions of this magnitude is that there is no right answer.

If you’re providing true value to your customers, and they have a need for what you provide in your life, then even the hardest of recessions won’t stop them from coming to you. Recessions have the ability to filter out the gunk in our business world.

That’s why it annoys me that the Government is so worried about “preserving jobs”. It’s a very backwards way of thinking for me that we’d rather save jobs that aren’t providing value than to restructure and make the jobs more effective. If jobs were more effective and provided more NEEDED value, then we’d get out of this recession pretty darn fast.