Capitalism? Rugged individualism! Heroes - the businesspeople who "bet the farm" on a project and see it through! They take the risks and enjoy the returns! Not for these the welfare state. No way. You wouldn't catch them skulking to the state, cap in hand, hoping for a hand-out. God forbid!
Ironically, for small and medium businesses this picture is actually not far from the truth. Investors in businesses that, despite everyone's best efforts, go bust - lose their shirts.
The picture for big money is somewhat different. The present "credit crunch" and financial crisis is leading to a situation where international capital is being bailed out with buckets the size of aircraft carriers! Northern Rock, wrecked by its management, has enjoyed £30 Billion or thereabouts of taxpayers' hand-outs - a sum that is about the equivalent of the US trade deficit in goods and services!
The US Federal Reserve (ie, the state) has just reduced interest rates by an almost unprecedented 75 basis points (0.75% to you and me) - which provides a credit lifeline to the erstwhile "Masters of the Universe" and which led to a (no doubt temporary) "market resurgence" today. And "fiscal measures" are also in train (in the US at least) - multi-billion dollar tax cuts.
And, if all this wasn't sufficient, this week's edition of the Economist headlines on its front page (here) the way that so-called sovereign-wealth funds (ie the state) are "buying up Wall Street". And what's worse is that these are (I can barely bring myself to say it) foreign states! As the Economist says, "On January 15th the governments of Singapore, Kuwait and South Korea provided much of a $21 billion lifeline to Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, two banks that have lost fortunes in America's credit crisis... They have deftly played the role of saviour just when Western banks have been exposed as the Achilles heel of the Global financial system."
When you buy shares, doesn't it say on the packet that prices may go down, as well as up? This is as it should be, surely, in accordance with the rules of the "invisible hand" and all that. What big business appears to be saying, though, is that when it puts money on a horse, and the horse turns out to be a nag, it wants it's money back!
Remember this next time someone complains about welfare scroungers!
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