Feeling the pain now or later?

Do you believe in “Government Interventions” aimed at propping up the economy? I don’t; I’m neither a hard-core capitalist nor a hard-core free-marketer, but it seems to me that institutions that don’t have enough cash reserves to survive a downturn, or are not healthy enough to survive Chapter 11 reorganization should fail. We shouldn’t have bailed out AIG, investment or regular banks and continue to do so while these entities could only blame their own incompetence for their troubles. That’s the way it would be for me if I failed in my business endeavors and I don’t see why it should be different for big corporations. Neither Kodak nor the musical disc industry asked for bailout money when their business model was blown-up by the digital world. We’ve clearly become a country adverse to pain and the just like using invasive drugs, this financial bail-out may bring “temporary relief” from harsh pain but will leave deep and unfathomable suffering for generations to come. By wanting to have it “both ways,” we’ll end up paying much more for the problem in an endless and protracted manner. Of course, governments don’t care as their time horizon is generally no more that a few years, and this goes to show that politicians should focus on regulating business instead of trying to stimulate activity…