Obsolete Industries

When is it right to "bail out" industries that are being made obsolete? "I guess we owe J.S. Abbot and Lewis Downing an apology for letting them down. Too bad for them they weren’t 'too big to fail.' You see, in 1885, when German engineer Karl Benz invented the world’s first gasoline-powered automobile, it was most certainly the death knell for horse-drawn carriages. Although the makers of such carriages, like the Abbot-Downing Company-producers of the high-ticket Concord-did not go out of business immediately, eventually they did. Stagecoaches simply could not compete with automobiles. Pure and simple." The same thing is true of the buggy-whip industry. Why should we try and keep such industries in business when demand for their products has disappeared? Yes, people suffer. Just as "Mom and Pop businesses" fail when such as Wal-Mart move into their towns. But they can go to work fort Wal-Mart and often make a lot more money than they made as a "Mom and Pop business." I'm sure the buggy-whip makers diversified, as did the stagecoach makers and might have even prospered. (
Robert Romano)