VERDANTLY impractical, dangerous and unprofitable: We the taxpayers will never get our money out of this. Kudlow continues:In other words, taxpayers are not going to get their money back. Yes, we the people will be left holding the bag for the mistakes of GM’s management and labor leaders over the last four decades.
And with CAFE mileage-standards ratcheting up -- all while GM is going down -- Team Obama’s green vision for the economy will soon be crystal clear. With President Obama in the driver’s seat, we’re going to get little green two-door cars that most folks won’t want to buy.
Even worse, UAW chief Ron Gettelfinger has made it plain that his powerful union won’t let these cars be manufactured in low-cost non-union plants overseas. The result? Obama’s little green cars are going to be unprofitable as well.
But it’s the bigger picture that has me most concerned. What does Government Motors say about the direction of the United States? Historically, we don’t own car companies --or banks or insurance firms. But we do now. Tick them off on your fingers: GM, Citi, AIG. Oh, and let’s not forget Fannie and Freddie, those, big quasi-government, taxpayer-owned housing agencies.
California is broke and likely headed to bankruptcy. Will we the taxpayers own that, too?Altogether, we’re talking about hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars that will never be repaid. This is the stuff the Italians used to do, and the Brits before Thatcher, and the Soviets a long time ago. But it’s something very new and very different for America.
Is this onslaught of government ownership an attack on free-market capitalism? Yes it is. Call it Bailout Nation or Ownership Nation, it’s an unprecedented degree of government command, control, and planning, all in the name of a tough economic downturn.
I don’t pretend to know all the answers to GM’s problems. Neither do I know all the miscues of the banks and insurance companies. But I do know this: The present level of government control over the economy does not bode well for this great country.
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To which I ask: Larry, have you ever heard the words secession, tax payer revolt, consumer revolt, storming the Congressional Bastille? Somehow, we can not let this madness continue indefinitely. We must not; we can not.
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I am stunned you would post such foolishness, particularly after having just been to Scotland. Did you happen to notice the cars people drive 'round Glasgow? See many SUVs? 20 years ago when I was in Scotland they drove teeny tiny cars unlike I'd ever seen, same thing in Paris and other parts of Europe. It's worked for them for decades now.
ReplyDeleteOf course, conservatives are the opposite of proressive by definition: regressive.
Let me get this straight: I am expected to see then desire and want to buy and drive cars that I see driven in another country?
ReplyDeleteI am stunned that you're stunned that I'm stunned.
What's more (do you have your smelling salts ready?) I'll walk, hitch hike, jump rope, dye my hair purple, drive a tractor, kayak to New Orleans, crawl, stay home, have a root canal, and ride a bicycle backwards before I'll put my little toe in one of these little.... these....these little....fugutations!
Give me regression or give me death!
According to some, we here in the USA are so dimwitted that we think the rest of the world is just like "us". That viewpoint is considered narrow-minded and bad. Is the antidote to be just like "them" in Europe? How is that different?
ReplyDeleteThe entire way our country's transportation and living/working systems are structured depend on being able to travel long distances easily, comfortably, and quickly.
For the most part we don't live in small towns or villages with everything in walking/biking distance.
We transport our goods in huge tractor trailer rigs on the same highways where we transport ourselves and our families.
We (at least some of us) also believe in something called freedom. If someone wants to purchase and travel in a large vehicle, who am I to forbid it?
What should be the maximum size of a personal vehicle? Who would get to make that decision?
Under a free market system, if such choices became undesirable, people would, of their own volition, stop buying those vehicles. The manufacturers would then produce what the customers demanded.
Precisely. Well said.
ReplyDeleteEllen unthinkingly repeats what she is told to think. Magically wanding labels around establishes the fact. This is so tiresome.
ReplyDeleteGoing further down the wrong road is not progress. It's stupid. The quickest way to real progress is to turn around. (paraphrase C.S. Lewis).
Are "progressives" so insecure and fearful they have to have someone telling them what to do all the time? It's a cultic tendency on a government level.
If Europe wants to drive their gov't-mandated tin-cans, let them.
I think what Ellen is getting at is that most people who drive SUVs don't need SUVs. It's wasteful and I say this as an owner of a Ford Expedition. It's for, as the word indicates, UTILITY. And that does not mean daily use. Utility is special purpose - towing my boat several times a year, or carrying a load of mulch in a trailer, or my motorcycle. I commute regularly with a motorcycle that gets 80 mpg, or a 20 yr old Honda Civic that gets the same mileage as the new ones - 38 mpg. The point is, there is no excuse for cars to be getting the same mileage today as they did 20 yrs ago. This is the reason car companies are suffering.
ReplyDeleteLeave it to the Europeans to find a better way and you can be regressive if you like but I'll someday enjoy driving my German Loremo that gets 120 mpg and can run circles around your American behemoth and is every bit as safe.
Allow me to speak on behalf of all progressives and answer your question: yes, progressives are insecure cultists who rely on uncle sam to make every single decision for them. For example, I had to call the government to tell me what kind of cereal to feed my kids this morning. Also, we progressives hate America and are retarded, or as the uber-patriots on the right like to call us, "libtards". At least that's what the head of the GOP, Rusty Limbaugh, says. Talk about repeating what you're told to think!
ReplyDeleteIf you want to purchase a $100K vehicle that gets 9 miles to the gallon and costs you $125 bucks to fill up the gas station, please, be my guest. No one will stop you - not B. Hussein Obama, not Al Gore and his merry band of eco-Nazis, hell, not even George Soros - and he tells every progressive what to think every day. But do it quickly before we get the EVIL LIBERAL AGENDA fully in place!!!!!
"Give me regression or give me death?" Seriously??? Oh man, please, please, PLEASE make that the new GOP slogan.
Yes fine, William. However the government is not the one to tell any of us what we need, don't need or should want. If you or I decide to drive an SUV and pay the price and someone else doesn't, then that's each of our own business and no one elses. It's free markets in a democracy.
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