But the point is that we’ve got the hood up and maybe the engine out on the national economy. That’s a bad situation on a lot of fronts. But it’s also the opportunity to really change things. Not just fix things on the margins but make the big changes. As long as we’re talking about sums of money in the tens and hundreds of billions of dollars, let’s not restrict ourselves to considering whether we throw Detroit a lifeline that keeps them in motion and employing their workers through the current recession. Maybe we need to invest 50 billion dollars in having a mass market fully electric car in five years. I don’t see anybody who doesn’t agree that whatever the costs of letting GM go under, that it’s management who drove this company into the ditch with a lot of terrible decisions and unwillingness to change. So maybe we take GM into some sort of managed restructuring, push out management, clean out the equity holders, and use the ‘company’ as the vehicle for leapfrogging the US into the 21st century, non-hydrocarbon auto industry.
It always annoys the shit out of me during political campaigns when somebody will bring up a government program that costs 3 cents per capita and use it as an example of why we can’t pay for education or health care or veterans’ benefits or other stuff that costs so very much more that it’s almost a joke. We’re not capable of doing big things, is the message, we’re only capable of the small, and even then, not doing it that well. It’s like we all have collective amnesia about World War II and the moon landing, like we’ve internalized so much of the Republicans’ crap about how government can’t do anything so just sit and have a Cheeto feast and bitch some more that we can’t even comprehend the possiblity that our national will can be focused on anything other than war.
You don’t lose people as supporters because you ask them for too much. You lose them because you ask too little. Let me tell you, in every nonprofit organization I’ve been involved in and I’m currently up to my neck in three, it’s the ones that need my help that I help. If somebody isn’t ringing my bell, hell, I’m a busy girl, call me when you have a job for me to do. I think for so long our phone just hasn’t rung that when we do hear the noise it might weird us out a little at first.
A.
After years of ignoring anti-trust laws and regulations we now have many “too big to fail” businesses. So, letting them all fail just isn’t a solution to anything. One thing that is a solution is to nationalize those “too big to fail” businesses as they approach failure.
This gives us an opportunity to clean out dead wood, trim the surplus executives, replace the board of directors, downsize or re-size the company, and head off in a direction that benefits the nation and not the stockholders. This is called “socialism”. Maybe it was the fear of having their toys taken away from them that led the movers and shakers to propagandize so vigorously against socialism for so many years.
Alternatively, we can always bust apart the “too big to fail” corporations into “not too big to fail” chunks and continue with capitalism. That is my favored approach.
Shit.
I saw “Big Changes” in the RSS post list and I thought I was going to see “Mister and A and I are moving to New Zealand to ranch ferrets and pygmy hippos. It’s Jude’s blog now. Ciao!” message or somesuch.
But yeah, big changes. Like the old poster (shutup) says, “We Can Do It.” I am under no illusion that it is going to be pleasant. Hell, I’m not even under the illusion I’ll have a job.
But I know we can find a way through to the other side.
i expect a BETTER govt for the money toot sweet.
I’m with Josh. If we’re going to make that big of an investment, let’s make it a worthwhile investment. Let’s get something positive for the United States as a whole out of it.
And hold the dickwads who got GM, et al, into this mess accountable. Fine them the equivalent of their last two years’ salaries, and use that to pay several replacement CEO-types a rational wage.