The US government bailout is taking an ugly turn. It seems to me that nearly every time the govrenment tries to fix something they make a bigger mess. Here’s an article everyone should be very aware of straight from the liberal New York Times.
The paper discusses government involvement in these companies after the bailout. Oversight they say.
But what Mr. Obama went on to describe was a long-term bailout that would be conditioned on federal oversight. It could mean that the government would mandate, or at least heavily influence, what kind of cars companies make, what mileage and environmental standards they must meet and what large investments they are permitted to make — to recreate an industry that Mr. Obama said “actually works, that actually functions.”
For those of you who are liberal readers of my blog, consider that these are the words we have heard from (the much scoffed at) Rush Limbaugh for years. He and other conservative talk shows have repeatedly pointed out that liberals want to control everything in our lives. They want to tell you what kind of cars you can drive, what foods you can eat, what to teach your children, what medicine to take etc….
Well it’s coming true thanks to those who didn’t understand what was at stake. Now our glorious government hopes to dictate what kind of cars we can make.
Look at it this way, when the government tells american auto manufacturers to make whatever car and Toyota figures out that the market wants something else, who wins? Will the government move quickly enough to allow the production of cars according to demand?
If they wanted to make manufacturers viable, the unions needed to be stripped of their stranglehold on the market. Companies cannot pay $75/hr for unskilled labor (ours sure as hell won’t), it isn’t viable. But this plan has nothing to do with making manufacturers viable, there are other reasons.
Another quote which is astonishing in that it comes from the NYT paper, because this is after all what the socialist left stands for. How could they be so surprised.
“We’re at this moment in history, in which the Chinese are touting that their system is better than ours” with their mix of capitalism and state control, said Mr. Garten, who has long experience in Asia. “And our response, it looks like, is to begin replicating what they’ve been doing.”
Can anyone guess why the government industry would want control of what kind of cars to make? Here’s a hint — It doesn’t have to do with global warming.
An article from the Guardian which I enjoyed reading.