Saturday, May 30, 2009
Story of the week – and it wasn’t Judge Sotomayor
Supreme Court picks occur every four years or so. But nationalizing nearly an entire industry is a once in a life-time occurrence (unless the government ‘gateway’ plan for health care accomplishes what it’s designed to do by supporters, i.e. eventually force out private rivals and pave the way for a government ‘single payer’ system). … I loved this anonymous Obama administration quote: “We’re very excited about this (G.M.) as a company.” I assume it was spoken by an optimistic administration official in Washington, probably within the White House itself, a thousand or so miles away from Detroit and reality. ...
A couple of people have emailed me the story/blog posts about how mostly GOP car dealers are getting shut down. I tend to think it’s just the latest manifestation of right-wing paranoia. But you don’t have to be paranoid to point out that a Democratic administration has just taken over an entire company and flipped 17 percent of it to a Democratic interest group. That to me is the obvious partisan angle and scandal here. ... One last point: If I was a Ford executive, worker, stockholder or bond holder, I’d be pissed. Is Ford’s billions-dollars debt going to be wiped out? Are needed work-place changes going to be implemented at Ford? Will Ford get a six-year guarantee of no strikes? Probably not. Because the government doesn’t own it – yet. Ford, which played by the rules, is now at a competitive disadvantage. …
Supreme Court picks occur every four years or so. But nationalizing nearly an entire industry is a once in a life-time occurrence (unless the government ‘gateway’ plan for health care accomplishes what it’s designed to do by supporters, i.e. eventually force out private rivals and pave the way for a government ‘single payer’ system). … I loved this anonymous Obama administration quote: “We’re very excited about this (G.M.) as a company.” I assume it was spoken by an optimistic administration official in Washington, probably within the White House itself, a thousand or so miles away from Detroit and reality. ...
A couple of people have emailed me the story/blog posts about how mostly GOP car dealers are getting shut down. I tend to think it’s just the latest manifestation of right-wing paranoia. But you don’t have to be paranoid to point out that a Democratic administration has just taken over an entire company and flipped 17 percent of it to a Democratic interest group. That to me is the obvious partisan angle and scandal here. ... One last point: If I was a Ford executive, worker, stockholder or bond holder, I’d be pissed. Is Ford’s billions-dollars debt going to be wiped out? Are needed work-place changes going to be implemented at Ford? Will Ford get a six-year guarantee of no strikes? Probably not. Because the government doesn’t own it – yet. Ford, which played by the rules, is now at a competitive disadvantage. …
