I’ll keep this simple and brief.

First of all, to those who don’t know me, I’m a conservative capitalist who despises big government. I’m a free markets guy and I’m not a fan of government intervention by any means, including oversight. I believe that oversight should be coordinated by private firms in a model much in the same way rating agencies operate. I believe this is worth a shot given the corruption we’ve seen in government oversight.  I believe that without governmental input markets are completely efficient. I believe that our markets did perform efficiently for a number of years and many people and institutions made a tremendous amount of money-making decisions based on “perfect” information - prices. With that said, I believe efficiency is nearly impossible to achieve when market participants are making their decisions based on governmental policy, not price.

What is going on America? Did you throw away personal responsibility?

Welfare and Entitlement - We have been on the fast track to creating as many money sucking programs as we can in the last 40 years. In 1969, total welfare spending was 0.8% of GDP (GDP = consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports) and today, in 2009, total welfare spending is budgeted at more than 3.2%of GDP. In January 2009, the stimulus bill contained $787B in new welfare spending according to a report by The Heritage Foundation.

Personal Responsibility - I’ve asked a number of people with whom I’ve worked about personal responsibility and if they can explain it. From a demographic of individuals from 25 years of age to 40 and all earning more than $50K per year, I received some interesting responses.  Most of the responses focused on how an individual’s actions affect the same individual later down the road (what goes around comes around). Only three people out of 30 talked about personal responsibility from the perspective of others. This is profound. To me, personal responsibility has always been about understanding how your actions affect others. But it’s clear we live in a society where looking out for number one is more important - period.

I said I’d keep this short, so in conclusion I just want to bring your attention to the Joan Didion quote at the top of this post. I believe self respect is achieved through consistent personal responsibility. And it’s your willingness to accept responsibility of your own actions (knowing how you and others will be affected) that makes you great.