Now the question becomes: What will happen when another corporation “too big to fail” (like GM or GE) looks to the government for taxpayer dollars to pay for their corporate losses?
[Chickens come home to roost on Wall St, and Main St maybe next, The iPINIONS Journal, September 16, 2008]
Evidently, GM, Chrysler and Ford, like the big financial institutions, are simply too big to fail. Because Congress is now in a special, lame-duck session debating whether to enact a $25 billion bailout bill “to save the auto industry”.
We … need to make a statement of confidence in the auto industry. We’re not saving those companies, we’re saving an industry. We’re saving an industrial technological and manufacturing base … It’s about jobs in America. (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi)
There’s a high degree of urgency” for federal assistance if General Motors is to avert a full-blown crisis … It’s really time to move on this. (Rick Wagoner, GM’s Chairman and CEO)
Meanwhile, pay no mind to the patently absurd notion that the automakers will be left to their own devises (i.e., bankruptcy) if the Bush Administration does not allow the funds for this bailout to be siphoned off from the $700 billion bailout already earmarked for the bankers.
The $700 billion rescue program was never intended by Congress to assist automakers or other sectors of the economy. It was solely intended to deal with what is an ongoing credit crisis in our financial sector. (President Bush’s Press Secretary Dana Perino)
After all, even if born-again “free-market” Republicans in this lame-duck Congress block its passage this week, I have no doubt that the Obama Administration will work with Democrats in the new session of Congress to enact an even more favorable bill early next year. And, presumably, the big 3 automakers can hold on until then….
For the auto industry to completely collapse would be a disaster in this kind of environment. (President-Elect Barack Obama)
Now the question becomes: Given that the federal government is bailing out all of these private companies, how can it refuse to bailout state governments, like California, that are already queuing up to be rescued from the precipice of insolvency? Especially since they are reeling from the same credit crunch that triggered a global financial crisis and forced bankers and automakers to beg for federal handouts to stave off bankruptcy.
Frankly, I say let’s dispense with the pretense and accept the self-evident fact that a little democratic socialism is good for America:
[I]f nothing else, [these bailouts] should finally destroy the myth that the US is running a capitalist, free market economy. After all, this (and the other government bailouts cited above, which effectively privatized shareholder gains and nationalized losses), coupled with longstanding corporate subsidies, is indistinguishable from the way China runs its socialist, centrally planned economy.
[Chickens come home to roost on Wall St, and Main St maybe next, The iPINIONS Journal, September 16, 2008]
NOTE: Apropos socialism, it seems fitting that leaders of the G-20 nations gathered in Washington over the weekend to organize a collectivist approach to dealing with this global financial crisis. And I must say that I was exceedingly encouraged to see that the world really isn’t all that pissed off at America (because of Bush and for causing this crisis with shady subprime mortgages and other suspect banking practices). After all, not a single head of state, not even Russia’s neo-cold warrior Dmitry Medvedev, boycotted.
Never mind that their summit amounted to little more than a photo op and mere talk. Or that more than a few leaders were reportedly misled into thinking that they would have an opportunity to bond with President-Elect Obama – who begged off attending with the plainly sensible admonition that “America has only one president at a time.”
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Chickens come home to roost…
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