Capital Gains and Games three days ago:
Would Congress this week have approved assistance for the auto industry had the CEOs of the Big 3 carpooled to Washington for the hearing in a hybrid vehicle instead of flying to DC in separate private jets?
Try to imagine the positive publicity of the trip as they drove through the towns and cities between Detroit and Washington. Instead of the anything-but-friendly welcome they received by the committees, by the time they arrived in D.C., how many senators and representatives might have been waiting for them in a ceremony on the Capitol steps?
The Associated Press yesterday:
Auto industry planning car pool to Washington
By TOM KRISHER
AP Auto Writer
...the CEOs of Detroit's three automakers may end up making their return trip to Washington by car as they seek a federal bailout.
The Detroit area's auto industry, whose livelihood depends on the health of Chrysler LLC, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. spent the weekend e-mailing and discussing how to set up a giant car caravan to seek help from Congress.
I'm guessing they'll travel in an Escape Hybrid
Might as well milk the publicity for all it's worth.
No bailouts: period!
Bailout is an oxymoron in a capitalist system. It would encourage only bad behavior in the future. I have written articles against the Big 3 Auto bailout and Paulson's bailout plan for wall street:
Henry Paulson's Bailout Plan is Bass Ackwards
http://commonsensetopics.blogspot.com/2008/11/henry-paulsons-approach-is...
Big 3 Auto Bailout Will Not Work
http://commonsensetopics.blogspot.com/2008/11/big-3-auto-bailout-will-no...
Selective Service
It's good that they did away with the military draft.
The draft imposed a government agenda upon a potentially unbelieving taxpayer, (a taxpayer possibly too young to vote), all in the name of the public good. When the draft was abolished, the military now pays an attractive incentive to those who would voluntarily enlist. A profit motive of sorts.
It's bad that today's banks aren't given the same profit incentive. Today, banks are given the incentive of failure. Our Treasury is now rewarding banks who fail, so that now failure becomes success. What a perversion!
This reward of failure is indeed a form of Selective Service. Some failures are rewarded and some of the failures are not. Where's the rationale? and where's the measure?
What despot decides which bank gets the taxpayer (bailout), and which bank doesn't?
In our system of government whereby we are presumably allowed to own 'private' property, and we are likewise afforded the freedom to conduct for-profit "private" enterprise, What business is it of the government to buy up private property of those for-profit institutions whose reckless, greedy CEO's bent on turning a profit at any cost made fatal mistakes?
It is the government argument that without the availability of credit that the world would come to a screeching halt, i.e., a kind of financial Armageddon would befall us. This is a cynical view and exists for the benefit of those lending institutions whose bad loans have hurt them. I am not so cynical about the ability of the free market system to take up slack and seize opportunity. Lawmakers are merely bailing their buddies; the buddies whose funds put them in office and whose funds may continue to keep them in office if they will succumb to the bribery.
This 'deficit' in available credit is secondary to a bigger problem; i.e., the problem corrupt campaign financing. Our lawmakers no longer represent the voter. And the solution may lie in the enactment of term limits.
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