As a group, microbusiness owners don't appear to be an envious bunch.

They don't begrudge Boeing their billions — largely, I suspect, because they know about some of the headaches attached to all that money.

So, it's not really the bailout money that is causing so many of them to have developed flaming hair issues.

The real problem is this concept of "too big to fail." Few of us are Harvard economists but, as far as many of us are concerned, the phrase is arrant nonsense. There is no such thing.

Whatever the details of time and place, businesses fail because they are managed poorly. Objectively speaking, it does not make sense to invest in poorly managed companies that are poised to fail. Just ask Warren Buffet.

In fact, such companies need to fail. They need to get out of the way, stop sucking up resources from a finite pool of same, and get out of the way of new, vibrant, well-managed entrepreneurial ventures ready to take their place. Otherwise, those failing businesses are nothing more than a drag on the economy.

Microbusiness owners, I have recently discovered, believe in creative destruction.

The politicians (and, if not them, no doubt the economists that advise them) almost certainly know all this as well as we do. However, being politicians, they have to consider the political consequences of fiddling while Detroit burns.

Of course, that is nonsense, too. The choices here are not ‘bailout' or ‘do nothing.' There were other options to be had, other ways Congress could have chosen to help displaced workers that do not include making bad investments with taxpayer money.

Hey, here's a thought: they could have opted to throw a lot more support toward those who were trying to start their own small business. It would have been a lot cheaper and there are tons of data showing that the investment has consistently outstanding returns.

I bet they never thought of that.