I have this friend ( a friend of a friend really) who is just the nicest person you’ll ever meet in your entire life. But that doesn’t make this person “right.”

Let me explain in a little personal story…

There was a cupcake place close to where we lived. It was new to the area and recently took the spot of a local favorite milkshake place. The cupcake place… was freaking terrible. Generally speaking, I’m not really one to want a cupcake (as I think many people aren’t) but we had tried it once just to see what it was all about. It stunk. BIG stinker. The flavor was bad, the cake itself seemed stale, and it was overpriced. Everything about this place was terrible.

The only redeeming quality was that that lady behind the counter was super nice, which is where my nice friend comes in. After we left and ate our terrible, terrible cupcakes, he said something along the lines of “these are awful but I feel so bad for the owners.”

I didn’t. I felt like I got ripped off.

A week or so passes by and my friend, out of the blue, suggests we go back to that cupcake place. “LOL WHAT!?” I said. I couldn’t initially tell if it was a joke but turns out he was serious. I asked why. The response I got was “well I just feel bad and I hope they’re getting business.”

This is gonna make me sound like a jerk but this is how I responded, “I hope they’re not getting business… As a matter of fact, I hope we were the last customers they have.” That comment was met with a predictable response. “What? Dude that’s so mean.”

But it’s not it’s not mean and I explained my case. When businesses are bad, they should fail. That’s what I believe. If the market does not want a product or a service, the business selling that product or service should no longer be in business. And while I understand why that might be a difficult pill to swallow, it should also be noted that it’s better for the business and its owners too.

Ask anyone who’s ever started a business (or several in my case) they’ll tell you the ABSOLUTE LAST thing that a business owner wants is ambiguity when it comes to the outlook of that business. In other words, if the idea or the product sucks, I want to know as quickly as possible. What I don’t want is to barely struggle through for years on end because people thought it would be nice to keep me afloat. No. I want to know as soon as possible that I should move onto the next idea.

So while it seems like it might be nice to “help” a struggling business, you’re really doing the opposite. Bad businesses should fail. Literally, everyone involved is better off when they do.

This is the free market. But what’s even more damaging is when the government artificially controls business: when good businesses fail as a result of impossible government regulations (think COVID lockdowns), and when bad businesses succeed (think government handouts).

Big Gov will play on your heartstrings, the way this nice person’s failing business played on my friend. Politicians takes note of this phenomenon, and push policy in concert with our emotions.

Think critically about business, otherwise we will ALL be ripped off by calculating lobbyists.