StalinMaoPolPotMugabe couldn't have said it better. All Hail the Collective (mass grave).
Posted by onar at June 7, 2008 08:33 AMStalinMaoPolPotMugabe
What part of $1.1 TRILLION dollars in corporate welfare this year isn't socialism?
GM really is a good example of the failures that accrue under the United States rigged capitalist system. Remember back in the 80's when the big three automakers got Congress to levy a $1000.00 tariff on Japanese cars so that the big 3 could be competitive with foreign prices? Remember what they did? Raised the price of their cars by $1000.00 dollars. Remember GM lobbying-up a 5% corp-whore-ate tax rate in the 80's? They still have it.
Poor GM. Stuck with a bunch of gas-sucking poorly built products in America...and employee debts related to benefits their employees paid for and GM promised but never bothered to accrue the money for. Those employee benefits were a pyramid scheme in the worst sense.
But never fear. GM is still a big player, and somehow is able to play in a global market without corporate welfare. Plants closing here? No problem. They are busy building new plants for efficient small cars on a world wide basis. 9 plants in Russia? Excellent, comrades!
Posted by phidipides at June 7, 2008 09:36 AMA generation after diminishing the role of engineers in automobile design, corporate execs and champions of the free market turned around and blamed the late seventies collapse of the American auto industry on the cost, the laziness, and the poor workmanship of union labor. That excuse allowed sales division fast-talker Lee Iacocca, among others, to take a second shot at wrecking an automobile company.
The accountants at Ford, in their quest to cut manufacturing costs, eventually wouldn't even pay for an ersatz shine so Iacocca got the boot. Iacocca managed to land in the top spot at the failing Chrysler Corporation. Backed by government financing, Iacocca settled in with his stupid idea that the company's new mid-size economy K car needed to be tricked out and sold as a luxury model. The K car flopped. However, for reasons having nothing to do with Iacocca, the Dodge Caravan, the first family MPV, came on line and became the hot seller which saved Chrysler.
Of course, Lee Iacocca was hailed as a genius. He was seen as a hero in the era of Morning in America; one of those captains of industry from whom all blessings flow.
American manufacturers went right back to developing luxurious, unreliable gas guzzlers. In the early years of this decade they wrangled tax breaks for consumers who would buy their boats on wheels. And here we are again with an American automobile industry on the brink of extinction but this time these incompetent corporate execs don't have the unions to blame.
Posted by CMike at June 7, 2008 11:28 AM
Obama is not up to the job of saving us and McCain it to Republican to do us any good. We're boned
Posted by at June 7, 2008 11:52 AMThe auto industry (global, not just the US) has no future because it has no future energy source. Nothing can plausibly take the place of gasoline, and there's around 32 years of known world oil reserves at current consumption rates, assuming all such reserves could be recovered, which they can't. And we use oil for more than gas.
So there isn't going to be a crappy mass culture of driving crappy cars around for more than another generation, and it will be a pastime for only the wealthiest people in less than 20 years. Who will all be Repubs.
What's going to happen to the American Auto "Industry"? The same thing that's going to happen to the "commercial" US airlines---bankrupty and oblivion. The ash heap of history. Our major "contribution" to world culture, the personal auto. Gone.
And for far-flung, gas-guzzling, gas-wasting, car-happy BushAmerica, there's going to have to be some major new approaches to ordinary life, to which we will have to be dragged kicking and screaming. We'll likely prefer to kill millions to keep drivin' our fat suburban asses around to repulsive malls and loathsome burger shacks. Hell, we're already doing it!
I suppose killing off the rest of the human population on earth would postpone the reckoning and "save" Detroit. Then we'd be the "Shining Guzzler on the Hill". Perhaps KKKarl Rover can make this a new Repub "vision"! Konservatives for Mass Killin'! Yaaaay!!
Cheney: The American Way of Life is not negotiable! (tm)
McBush: I hate war, that's why I dream of new ones!
Posted by euzoius at June 7, 2008 12:44 PMWhew, what a bunch of sorry individuals.
Were it up to you, we'd still be using a horse and buggy.
Why is it that the Nutroots are always so miserable?
Come over to the bright side, come over to the Conservatives where people are happy from working for a living.
Have a great week.
Why the hell aren't the pols talking about mass transit?
Posted by Sharon at June 7, 2008 05:29 PMGreat rebuttal, malarkle.
Yeah, come on over to the "conservative" side, where the denizens don't know anything, but are absolutely certain about whatever it is they are utterly ignorant of.
Where everyone is a dead loss as a thinking citizen....
Posted by euzoius at June 7, 2008 06:30 PMBio-fuels. Hemp is a surprising little plant.
Because there are no facts, there is no truth
Just data to be manipulated.
Don Henley-The Garden of Allah
Posted by Radix at June 7, 2008 07:52 PMCapitalism is messy but it is the best option available. The failure of planned economies and fabian socialism in the past century have proven this beyond question.
It is hard to see the effects of Creative Destruction. It really hurts real people but it provides the greats good for the greatest number of people overall. It just is turbulent and the uncertainity of it all can make us a little queasy.
Posted by Tex at June 8, 2008 08:32 AMCapitalism is only acceptable with strong government regulation, strong unions, and a strong judiciary to compensate those harmed by defective products/practices of korporations.
Posted by gay veteran at June 8, 2008 09:36 AMTex, "real capitalism" is certainly not practiced in BushAmerica, we have crony capitalism and gub'mint bailouts for the rich and powerful---AFTER they have made a fortune via a variety of illegal means. The Fed's bailout of the various Wall Street banks is only the latest scam. So much for "creative destruction".
Privatize the profits and socialize the losses---that's American "free market" capitalism, and it's a scam all around.
Posted by euzoius at June 8, 2008 03:58 PM