GM/Chrysler were in financial trouble in large part due to mis-management. So, what does Chief Lots-o-dough do, gives them plenty of money to continue to mis-manage. Taxpayer reward: a loss of about 11 billion. In his quest to bankrupt and unemploy all the people who work in coal-fired power plants....under the veil of "reducing our dependence on foreign oil," they throw money at an industry, which its business model has yet to be proven sustainable or profitable. I wonder if they even do a market analysis on the companies they single out to throw money at, or they just choose them because they're "green" or "progressive." "These folks are really trying to do something here...let's give them some money to help them ramp up their business"....all the while, their inventory is busting at the seams. All of this is straight out of Atlas Shrugged: you have govt. propping up bad businesses at the expense of the taxpayer. KEENE: Obama blows another billion on green fantasies - Washington Times FBI raids solar panel company hailed by Obama - Washington Times
That's the critical problem here...... all that 'money' that bobo the clown and his cronies toss to these flawed companies isn't THEIRS to give! Since they have no connection to it, it doesn't hurt them to lose it. We NEED to devise some method of PUNISHING these government flunkies when they screw the pooch that bad........ Something beyond just 'firing' them to live on their life-time pensions and perks. We need to make THEM HURT. In a non-violent way, of course.
Ayn Rand is absolutely right.... The rational thing to do...would be to allow GM/Chrysler to fail....investors would do the rational thing and lose confidence in the US stockmarket / currency markets and parachute their assets into safer havens than US domestic investments....the US would go into depression and the cycle of rational investment decisions (aka capital flights) would continue until the US goes down the sh1te chute...makes good rational economic sense actually. Your government has a tough job keeping the economic house of cards still standing...I am not altogether convinced that replacing a Democrat bozo with a Republican bozo is going to change that fact. I doubt that anything but fundamental structural fiscal and economic reforms will change things...and I doubt that either party has the stomach for it...and anything that changes the existing power structures won't ever have a ghost of a chance of getting up. I'm all for letting inefficient business fail...tough titty for those workers who have invested their lives in such enterprises for a weekly pay check...what they have risked is obviously worth much less than some speculator who's merely playing the market to turn a quick profit. The difficulty is that corporate America is addicted to government interferance when it suits it...Privatise the profits...and socialise the losses seems to be the mantra... It concerns me when I hear someone quoting from the manifesto according to Ayn Rand...as much as it concerns me to hear someone quoting from the manifestos of Lenninism /Marxism. I wonder if you have some original ideas of your own in solving America's economic problems quite apart from wailing in impotent rage at the iniquity of it all?
At this stage of evolution in our governance, most (if not all) of the theories tested mostly made things worse, obviously. My own thinking indicates a return to the days of self-sufficiency, ethics and morality would be beneficial. I'm resigned to accept that will not happen without a significant disruption of the status quo. What form that disruption will take isn't visible in my crystal ball.
I agree with your analysis Ghrit Some of my comments were tongue in cheek digs at the "rational self interest" elements of Objectivism. There are some interesting ideas nestled within the objectivist philosophy...if indeed it can as such be considered a philosophy...however, just like Biblical, and Marxist / Lenninist ideologies...it has its flaws, and when considered from a viewpoint of dogmatic belief...those flaws can become invisible to the dogmatic belief beholder.
My poor dogma got run over by the Political Machine long ago. The poor critter never had a chance. Both sides of the Hallowed Halls of Congress have been raping and robbing us so long, that I truly believe that the fall is both inevitable and necessary. Once we hit rock bottom, like the recovering drug or alcohol abuser, we can begin the true recovery. Hopefully crafting a better system. One of the very few things I agree with Chell on - doesn't really matter which side is in the Whitehouse.... they are all crooked puppets.
