Posted on 06/08/2009 10:06:25 AM PDT by BGHater
Last week, General Motors finally declared bankruptcy. Many in government thought $20 billion in taxpayer dollars would save the company, but as predicted, it only postponed the inevitable. The government will dump another $30 billion into GM and take a 60 percent controlling interest for it. Public officials are now involving themselves in tactical business decisions such as where GM’s headquarters should move and what kind of cars it will build.
The promise that this is temporary and will eventually be profitable is supposed to ease the American people into accepting this arrangement, but it is of little comfort to those who remember similar promises when the American taxpayers bought Amtrak. After three years, government was supposed to be out of the passenger rail business. 40 years and billions of dollars later, the government is still operating Amtrak at a loss, despite the fact that they have created a monopoly by making it illegal to compete with Amtrak. Imagine what they can now do to what is left of the great American auto industry!
In a truly free market, GM would get your money one way and one way only – by selling you a car you want, at a price you are willing to pay. Instead, the government is giving public money to a private company in spite of the market signals it has been sending. Throwing money at GM does not stop it from being an engine of wealth destruction; on the contrary, it simply gives it more wealth to destroy.
Had it been allowed to fail naturally, the profitable pieces of GM would have been bought up and put to good use by now. The laid off employees would likely have found new jobs and all that capital would be in private hands, reinvested in companies that produce products demanded by consumers. Instead, we are all poorer now.
Political pressure, rather than the rule of law, is deciding how to divide up the remains of GM. The bondholders had billions in retirement savings invested in the company, and though they were entitled to nearly three times as much as the United Auto Workers, the bondholders were left with just a 10 percent stake compared to the union’s 17.5 percent stake. For their 60 percent stake, taxpayers have a future of constant bailouts to look forward to.
Comingling public control of private business is known as fascism. While today’s politicians may feel emboldened with all their new power, history will only repeat itself as all this collapses on itself. It is the height of hubris for bureaucrats and politicians to attempt to control the market and the freewill of the American people. In the end, the market always wins out. Maybe one day future generations will wise up and allow free markets to function and thrive without the albatross of government around its neck. For now, it looks like those in charge have not learned the lessons of the past, and have doomed us to repeat those mistakes once again.
The world manufactures 70 million vehicles a year. It has the capacity to make 20 million more than that. General Motors is a small player on the world scale ~ and most of it's factories are old and inefficient.
If the $86 billion being used to bail out GM, et al, were instead spent on buying brand new autoplants from Toyota, we might see some profit from the deal. Subsidizing the old GM stuff will never turn a profit.
Viva the Ron Paul rEVOLution!
Makes it easier to spot a government employee...
Who needs the rule of law? We had that for 230 years and got tired of it, so obama promised change and "the people" (including some dead and fictional voters) chose that change.
Ron Paul Ping
***Many in government thought $20 billion in taxpayer dollars would save the company, but as predicted, it only postponed the inevitable.***
Even if that money had saved GM, it wasn’t money spent by consumers and it was money that necessarily had to be taken from something else. We’ll never see what else that $20B would have gone towards.
Yes, these same public officials, most of whom have never spent a day in private industry and who have already spent the country into deficits that our grandchildren will likely still be paying off, are now trying their hand at running multi-billion dollar businesses ---- with our money!
God Help us!
WOW! RON PAUL? Isn’t he some sort of kook? An anti-semite or something who thinks he knows about the Constitution and all? Doesn’t he realize that The One doesn’t CARE about the Constitution and all that crap from those dead white guys? The One is here now to take care of us all and give us our hearts’ desires. How DARE this Ron Paul fellow challenge The One. How DARE he!!!
Amazing what you can say and do when you only want do what's right by God and for your country, and really don't care what the bozos out there call you!
When I hear Ron Paul's detractors, it always makes think of the line in Rudyard Kipling's poem "If":
...If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools...
You are surely correct, dear lady. But I had noticed a dearth of Ron Paul bashers on this thread so I had to do SOMETHING!!! ;^)
“But I had noticed a dearth of Ron Paul bashers on this thread so I had to do SOMETHING!!! ;^)
It’s early.
Speaking of them: I recognize three main groups of deceivers.
First, I see some who are blind but with potential to see. Mostly out of ignorance, they mimic the imposters. I consider them the unwitting sheeple.
Second, I recognize others who are overt instigators prostrating their dark agenda while masquerading as “true conservatives.” I call them the dark wolves. This group knowingly spreads rumors, lies and deceptions. And as we know, most often with immunity.
Third, I see foolish sheeple who willfully follow the dark wolves. This group is nearly, but not quite as, vicious as the dark wolves. They have been convinced by the dark wolves they are amongst the righteous, and not to worry since the dark wolves will always be there to defend them. That is of course, until they decide to consume them. Which was the design all along.
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