Rewarding Foolishness

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about Ford Motors. The point is that while GM and Chrysler have been able (or are trying) to shed a lot of their debt, by either restructuring or semi-bankruptcy with President Obama as a wingman, Ford, with about the same huge debt as GM, has been responsible and is stuck with it.

So Ford is like a homeowner who planned prudently and can pay his mortgage, while his spendthrift neighbors get their mortgage reduced by some new federal program. ...

But the bottom line is that we live in a world where wisdom can be punished and where foolishness can be rewarded.

Better to be Ford than GM, but I wonder if we are rewarding foolishness too much. The more we reward foolishness, the more we will encourage foolishness.