Posted by
Patrick Bohan on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 9:48:44 AM
Mistakes or errors are generally not a big deal, and in a lot of instances mistakes are a good thing because that is how we learn. Humans have learned throughout history by making mistakes, and evolving by not committing them again. The biggest mistake a person can make is not admitting when they commit one or being afraid to make one. Our government has no problem making mistakes, however their biggest sin is not learning from past mistakes. Obama is making all the same errors that his idol FDR has made. With one FDR social program (social security) on the verge of bankruptcy, what does Obama do but proposes yet a bigger socialized program for our health care system. Cap and trade policies have been tried in past without success, but that has not stopped Obama from pushing his own version. Mandates and regulation on the financial and auto industry has gotten us into trouble in past by making it easier for individuals to buy a home and aiding in the bankruptcy of the auto industry. What is Obama’s response to this? He has levied more mandates and regulation of these industries such as higher CAFÉ standards.
During my career, employees who were afraid to make a mistake were tentative and generally would not become good engineers because they would not learn from making mistakes. A boss who ridicules employees over modest mistakes is out of line. If a boss creates an environment where mistakes are not acceptable at any cost, the result will be a worker force who will not admit to making a mistake. This is an unhealthy work environment to create. It should be acceptable for employees to make mistakes as long as they admit it and learn from them to prevent future errors. Since most supervisors or managers discourage making errors and some did not even want to hear about them, it generally created a poor work environment for both learning and teamwork. In this environment, engineers tend to not only become tentative; but are not proactive in their work tasks. The only time a supervisor should become angry is if an employee continues to make the same mistake. This is why Americans should be outraged by Obama’s policies of making similar mistakes. Most politicians seem to suffer from amnesia and not only fail to recall errors in our history, but fail to recall errors they have made. For example, Barney Frank is proposing to loosen the requirements for individuals to obtain a loan to buy a condo. Just last year, lax lending guidelines bankrupt Fannie and Freddie. This is incompetence and bad problem solving skills.
Another common error our government continues to make is to try to resolve problems and issues by throwing money at them and not solving the root cause of the problem. Examples include welfare, social security, and other social programs. And Obama has already thrown more money at problems than any president in our history if he gets his way with a socialized health system. Obama has spent trillions on stimulus and SCHIP health care spending. Money is only one variable in solving a problem. For example, we throw more money at education than any other country in the world. However, throwing more money at failing school districts does not correct a bad curriculum, bad teachers, bad administrators, and a plethora of other variables. Thus, more money will not necessarily solve the problem. That is why throwing money at a problem is about the worst way to solve a problem. As another example, throwing money at a socialized health care system will not do anything to lower the rising costs of health care. Also, it will not make Americans healthier and so forth. Hence, a new socialized health system will not stop the rising costs of the medical industry and it will bankrupt the government. Thus, throwing money at the problem is nothing more than being irresponsible with taxpayer money. Throwing money at entitlement programs will not improve the education or the environment that the poor endure. In order to solve a problem, the government should learn from past mistakes of throwing money at the problem. Instead, they should resolve problems by first reforming the situation and only throw money at the problem as a last resort after the problem as been thoroughly investigated.
My Book: Is America Dying? (Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com)