Bailout Opportunity Costs

Every dollar spent on bailing out financial institutions, auto makers, and every other industry whose grubby palms get filled with taxpayer dough means a dollar that can't be spent elsewhere. Perhaps we should we be investing more in technology industries.

Congress has more pressing concerns, in the form of failing banks and automakers. But maybe we should just let the automakers die and pump money into technology instead. Detroit failed because it ignored or dismissed the threat from foreign rivals and kept on making the wrong kind of cars. In contrast, companies in the ever-paranoid Valley are fully aware of the danger they face. They're not pleading with the government for a handout; they're pleading for more investment in education. They're not making excuses for inferior products or asking for protection from competition through limits on imports; they're making the best products in the world and are happy to compete, but need more brainpower to stay ahead.