Swan dive into the abyss
Rush Limbaugh, who famously said in January that “I hope Obama fails,” may yet get his wish — thanks to Obama himself. I don’t see how the president’s unprecedented involvement in the car industry can result in anything other than failure. A spectacularly expensive, popularity-plunging, economy-tanking failure.
And that’s my optimistic analysis. My gloomier scenario involves the purchase of small-arms ammunition by the crate and the storage of sacks of rice in my crawl space.
I’d be happy if somebody could explain to me how it’s a good thing to put General Motors, the legendarily inefficient and change-resistant industrial giant, under the supervision of a politically driven, cumbersome federal bureaucracy. How do profits and efficiency emerge from that combination? It’s like deciding you’ve had enough of the unproductive antics of the Three Stooges, so you’re gonna make them answerable to Bart Simpson. Yeah, that’ll work.
Here’s David Brooks of the New York Times on the subject:
The Obama administration and the Democratic Party are now completely implicated in the coming G.M. wreck. Over the next few months, the White House will be subject to a gigantic lobbying barrage. The Midwestern delegations, swing states all, will pull out all the stops to prevent plant foreclosures. Unions will be furious if the Obama-run company rips up the union contract. Is the White House ready for the headline “Obama to Middle America: Drop Dead”? It would take a party with a political death wish to see this through.
… The most likely outcome, sad to say, is some semiserious restructuring plan, with or without [bankruptcy] court involvement, to be followed by long-term government intervention and backdoor subsidies forever. That will amount to the world’s most expensive jobs program. It will preserve the overcapacity in the market, create zombie companies and thus hurt Ford. It will raise the protectionist threat as politicians seek to protect the car companies they now run.
Unlike Rush, I don’t want Obama to fail. And I take no joy in seeing him march heedlessly toward Waterloo after just three months on the job.
April 1st, 2009 at 7:48 am
Dan, you are so right on this one. The government should just stay away and let GM continue to enjoy the profits and efficiency they’ve proven so good at creating on their own.
April 1st, 2009 at 7:53 am
I too want Obama to fail. In the sense that I don’t want to live in the socialist state he envisions for us.
April 1st, 2009 at 8:58 am
Nobody wants to see our President fail, honestly folks it would be the house he keeps if he fails. Remember he’s not God.
April 1st, 2009 at 9:14 am
At the expense of not sounding appropriatly loathing of all things Rush, I would point out GD, that thou dost contradict thyself. Rush said he wants Obama to fail because he wants Obama’s (read Liberal) agenda to fail. You seem to espouse a fairly fiscally conservative viewpoint consistently at odds with what Obama’s agenda is. So, Rush has the balls to call a spade a spade. At least Rush, for all his failings, has the balls to clearly and simply state his position, without parsing it with politically correct qualifiers.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Oh we of little faith. Three-score and 19 days ago, Barrack Obama brought forth upon this nation an audicity of hope. Are we prepared to bail on him already?It appears Wagoner wasn’t the man for the job at this unique time in history. And it ain’t like he hasn’t had aple opportunity to right GM’s ship. Let’s see if The Messiah and his boys can start making contact with the steady diet of curve balls they been getting. If he can bitch slap some sense into that UAW guy, maybe we’ll see some progress with the new, improved General Motors.
There are literally billions of new customers in India and China clamoring for cars. Ford can’t produce ‘em fast enough to saturate those markets. GM’s gotta step up to the plate. A great American company must be saved.
And I seem to remember Dubyah catching plenty o’ shit about usurping our civil liberties with the Patriot Act. In retrospect, it appears to have done a pretty good job of PROTECTING US FROM TERRORIST ATTACKS. Desperate times people. We’re there. Let’s give the measures a chance.
Cojones (courage) and Rush Limbaugh. Let’s contemplate that for a second. That’s long enough. Limbaugh is many things. Brave isn’t one of them. Fallible? Sure, aren’t we all. Talented? I suppose. But he’s no more courageous than Jon Stewart. Each an entertainer and each held to the same account for their rants - that is to say, not at all.
And I’m still waiting for those in positions of actual leadership (the loyal opposition in Congress) to get off their asses and present an alternative to Obama’s. That 19-page joke John “Man Tan” Boehner was waving before the camera last week was a bit short on substance, don’t you think?