The Big three destroyed themselves, they were in deep trouble financially long before this crises hit.
They have inefficient production methods, mostly crappy products and unionized work force that makes the cost of production uncompetitive in the world market, let alone their staggering pension liabilities.
Bush did not destroy this industry, it committed suicide.
That he wants to save some jobs, against Republican orthodoxy, reveals what a human, if not pragmatic politician he is.
Fuck I hate it when frogen is right.
But he is. SORT OF. He is dead right about who killed these businesses.... SORT OF. Yes, they did it to themselves, BUT.... they are not dead yet. Arguably these businesses have been so grossly inefficient precisely because they knew they were too big to fail, and that they could rely on a corrupt congress to syphon tax money into their huge, greedy pockets.
I mean, a huge fat man who is eating everybody's lunch can complain that he can't run and is in danger of a heart attack, but that doesn't mean he isn't eating your lunch while he cries. He is still eating your lunch. He isn't dead yet. Arguably he became so fat because he was eating your lunch because he was crying and everybody felt sorry for the fat fuck.
So I don't like all this talk about the "grave danger" to the economy if the big corporations go under. Show me the "if".
And Frogen is also SORT OF right about Bush wanting to save some jobs. Bush doesn't want to save jobes, he wants to be hated less. So, ergo, he doesn't want to see lines of homeless people as his legacy.
But that doesn't mean he gives a fuck about the jobs.
Going back to the issue of the auto industry, and whether it will "die", surely the industry can't die just because some companies go tits up? I mean, don't bad business models go tits up in every industry, every day? Isn't that the market in action?
My understanding of the unseen hand is that it works to promote efficiency and productive capacity precisely because mistakes are rectified.
The theory is that people invest capital, and sometimes they get it wrong. Sometimes the decision to invest was wrong, and the capital is not productive. Or, capital that was productive becomes a loser, due to changes in various aspects of the world, manifested as the changing demand in the marketplace.
Now as i understand the theory of the unseen hand, and the argument against socialism, when people are free to reinvest their capital, mistakes can be rectified QUICKLY. So bad decisions are expected. But the efficiency of free markets is due to the speed at which mistakes can be rectified. That is an important point. Free market theory DOES NOT seek to perfect the decisions of men in a changing market. It seeks to allow mistakes to be rectified.
Now consider the huge centralized economies of a socialist state. In these models, decisions about capital investment are made by members of the party. So, straight away, you have political careers rather than profitability as the driving motive behind decisions. Not only that, but when mistakes are made, you have people's political careers at risk if the mistake is admitted and rectified. So the rectification of the mistake must wait on the political considerations of the party. Hence it is no surprise that capital which is invested into mistaken schemes stays there, and indeed often more and more is pumped into the same schemes, for purely political reasons.
And so then you have the characteristic inefficiency of socialist states, and the predictable reliance, by the party, on huge numbers of slaves working in grinding poverty, in order to balance the books.
So that is the theory, and I guess JW understands it. Sort of.
But turning now to the current situation in the USA and Europe, and beyond, how does the bailout work?
Surely bad ideas and loser investment schemes are being propped up by the state? Surely this is for political reasons? (people keeping loser jobs is political, even if it is humane in the short term)
And so...... and so we must expect to witness huge numbers of slaves working in grinding poverty so that the politicians can balance the books.
Those slaves are going to be your children.
When the dust clears, the baby boomer generation, the idiot TV generation, is going to be remembered as the corruption of modern society.
These sad sacks had the misfortune to exist between reading books and the internet. I suspect that there will never be another generation as stupid as they are, due to the outrageous ignorance brought on by the power of television propaganda in the absence of available reading material.
But what the baby boomers have done now..... it beggars belief. They have already saddled their children with crippling debt in order to retire at the age of 33 with 8 million in the bank, three holiday homes and five jetskis. And that is for the window cleaners.
Now they are trying to pay for the phoney wealth they stole with MORE schemes to steal from their children. But at the end of the day.... it is just a bunch of laws. It isn't real.
The way I see it, the baby boomers have lived beyond their means, both materially and intellectually, but they have not created anything real. Just a bunch of tax laws and paper money that can be repealed and made worthless in a single sitting of parliament.
And that will happen. Mark my words. The tax debt that is being thrown around by the US congress at the moment simply cannot last. People will not work in the legitimate economy if they are expected to work for nothing.
Now I left Australia to come work and get qualified in Europe because I was sick and tired (at the age of 28) of being taxed into the ground and having to listen to socialist fuckheads, none of whom had ever achieved what i had achieved, lecture me about the world and take my wages, BECAUSE THEY BELONGED TO THE POLITICAL PARTIES. I live in Switzerland now, and I am grateful for the low taxes and sane democratic process here.
But I know how it is in Australia, and America seems headed the same way. You work and you work and you work and your wages get taxed to the point where you can't afford to own the shitty house you live in. It doesn;t matter what wages you are offered, because by the time the government drones have taken their bites, there is nothing left.
THAT is what demoralized the Russians to the point where the soviet union collapsed. THAT is why most of south America and southern Europe sit around all day and refuse to pay attention in school or work hard at work.
And that is why the paper castles of the baby boomers are so very, very flimsy. They are trying to ;ay for their own sloth by enslaving their children. they want build a legacy of wealth and power by stealing it from the paper labyrinth of the modern corporate state.
It will take one man about fives minutes to set out the reasons for the repeal of this legacy, and another fifteen to explain who will have their corporate fortunes destroyed in order to repay the debt incurred by the baby boomers.
I suspect that NATO will not be in any position to defend the corporate property rights that underpin the current frauds, in about..... 15 years.
I figure 15 years (maybe 25) of taxes to pay for the bailout (s), and America will be crippled and ruined just like the soviet empire of the 1980's, a hollow shell of a great power, unable to get the gears of its military machine working in sync with the needs of its economy, unable to fund the defense of the resources that sustain the empire. At that point, the empire disintegrates and the paper empire of the baby boomers will blow away in the wind like so much confetti.
If you were born between 1940 and 1970, history is going to write your name in very small letters.
