The news tonight is that President Obama has fired the present CEO of General Motors (GM). You say that you did not know Obama had the authority to fire the CEO of a private company? Shows how much you know!!!!
This is arrogance on a major scale. Timothy Geitner, Obama, and the entire Federal Government (including Congress) are asserting the "right" (because of "taxpayer's money", as if that gave them the competence/ability to do it) to run all of these businesses down to the samllest detail (who is CEO, bonuses, salaries, "retreats", and product liine). Yes, this clearly applies to GM, AIG, the banks receiving bailouts, and many other entities (with Geitner seeking authority over many more--basically every big business in America). What you may not realize is that the Obama Administrations is seeking complete control over every aspect of your economic life, in a million different ways--killing off industries they don't liike and advancing industries (and products) they do like (as well as always advancing the interests of themselves and Big Government, which they perceive as the same thing).
You should ask yourselves: Have any of these people previously shown the ability to compete in a private economy by building, or even running, a successful private company producing either products or services which are used to enhance productivity (thus excluding lawyers, accountants--to a degree--and others not really contributing to productive goods and services). A trucking company--like that of my brother's which failed--provides a service. But it is a service what is part of the free market economy, where it is necessary to compete in the free market to survive. Lawyers, like myself, provide a service--a necessary one--but it is the kind of service that does not necessarily help business productivity or involve the kind of production and marketing of products and services involved in a manufacturing company, a software company, a trucking business, or even a bank. Now I think conservatives tend to underestimate the function of lawyers in a free market, but the point here is that merely training as a lawyer does not qualify you to run a non-law business (and often not a law business, where non-lawyer managers may make many of the business decisions). Even at that, President Obama has never managed even a law firm. Ditto, I think, for Timothy Geitner (who was one of the people getting us into this economic mess in the first place, as head of the New York Fed heavily involved with Henry Paulson and the initial Bush Administration panic).
The arrogance of these people should scare you to death. Central planning has never worked, in the history of the world, and cannot theoretically work (in the absence of God being in charge--unfortunately a comment that will only encourage Obama). Even if central planning the economy made any sense, and it does not, why would you ever believe that these particular people had the ability to take on the task--to the point of determining what kind of vehicles the auto companies should be producing and further determining every detail of the operations of our economy and the companies in it?
This is insane. I am getting more and more afraid that we are doomed. And this entry has not even yet mentioned the out of control spending (inefficient spending being one of the inevitable results of central planning and Big Government).
Yes, this is economic fascism, defined as: "socialism with a capitalist veneer". Yes, as Hillary Clinton said in Mexico, the Obama Administration (Age of Obama) is looking for a "partnership" between Big Government and Big Business to run this country. However, this "push out" of the GM CEO shows again, as the AIG debacle has shown, that the dominant "partner" in such a fascist arrangement is always the government--or at least the people in power who control the government and end up controlling Big Business.
Now this blog has shown, in many blog entries since October, that Wall Street, and our financial system (especially the big financial companies), have become the Stupidest People on Earth--including Wall Street traders. Thus, I was reluctant to include banks and financial institutions in the "capitalist" corporations competing to provide productive goods and services in a free market. Henry Paulson came from Goldman Sachs, and he is the worst failure in the history of world finance. That is not a coincidence, as it is not a coincidence that Timothy Gieitner comes out of the same environment (but without even the experience of being a business CEO). These big financial institutions have long ago lost all moorings in a free market economy. You can even sympathize with Ron Paul's fixation--to the pint of almost a conspiracy theory--with the Federal Reserve as the source of all of our problems. These people, including the Fed, have become so addicted to computer games, and ridiculous central planning theories, that they no longer have any respect at all for the free market. That is both arrogant, and extremely dangerous.
Let us digress, although not really. Do you think GM can survive? Of course it can't. What makes you think President Obama, or someone chosen by Obama, Geitner, or whomever--under their supervision--can really run GM in such a way as to "save" it? If so, you are as nuts as these people about to lead us lemmings right over a cliff and into the sea. I say this as one who believes--correctly-that GM management may be the worst single management in the history of free markets. Doesn't matter. President Obama, or his designeee (under government supervision) is NOT going to be an improvement.
The stock market rose last week to ABOVE the levels (as far as the broader averages are concerned) to which the stock market sank last October (okay, not very far above). Ask yourrself another question, while still shuddering over asking yourself whether President Obama is "qualified" to run GM or any other company: Are the PROSPECTS (not the present level) of the economy BETTER now than they were in October? Who says? And to the extent anybody is saying so, is it not mere words not supported by concrete facts?
The point here is that the MAGNITUDE of the stock market rise over the past two weeks has been IRRATIONAL. There is no excuse for a 15% rise in the stock market at this time, THIS FAST. These are the Stupidest People on Earth.
There are too many disasters waiting out there. GM is going under (I virtually guarantee it, although the government may simply refuse to let it go under, at our expense). The government is doing its best to make sure AIG ultimately goes under (who, in his right mind, wants to work there, if he or she has any reasonable alternative). History give us no reason to believe that we can SPEND our way out of severe economic difficulties. Even in the Great Depression, government spending did not work. Now World War II worked, but that is a different matter.
The stock market should not be making these irrationally large up moves. Oh, you can argue it was low enough, and should be pretty much bumping along the bottom (instead of making big, irrational DOWN moves, absent more evidence). As I have said repeatedlyh, I do not say what DIRECTION the stock market should move. I simply say--correctly--that the MAGNITUDE of these moves--especially to the UPSIDE--is irrational. It conclusively proves that the people on Wall Street are the Stupidest People on Earth.
You want to know how STUPID the people on Wall Street are, including stock market traders? It is possible that the stock market will go up based on the "firing" of the GM CEO. That is because it will be hyped as a "positive" step showing Obama's determination to "save" GM. It will be further hyped as providing "change" in the abysmal leadership at GM. The reality, of course, is as stated above. GM has no chance, at least in part because of the regulation of the Federal Government--regulation that is getting wrose instead of better, as the automakers are instructed to make vehicles Americans do not want (and which they can't cost effectively make).
A final question to ask yourself: If GM management was so bad, as it was, then why are the taxpayers bailing the company out, even to the point of the President of the United States taking over the management of the company? There is no excuse for it. GM continues to LOSE several thousand dollars per car sold, and increasing the number of vehicles sold will not necessarily help. The bigger vehicles are actually the more profitable vehicles, and these are the very vehicles that the government is discouraging. Tax "credits" for people to buy GM "green" vehicles merely, of course, represent another kind of subsidy for the auto companies--albeit also a market distorting subsidy for car buyers.
Nope. To force the survival of GM, at any cost, and no matter how much it distorts the free makrket, is a terrible mistake. That mistake alone is bad enough to cause a rational stock market to go down, as it should because of the naked exposure that incompetents are now running economy, and every business in it (to the extent they can).
I cannot tell you how bad this situation is. If your reaction to Obama forcing out the CEO of GM is "good", then I am sorry for you. The management of GM should have gone down, in bankruptcy, as should the management of AIG. It is absurd to suggest that President Obama and his minions can do better, whoever, in doing something (running private businesses) that they have never done before.
This is so absurd as to suggest that President Obama knows exactly what he is doing: conducting a government takeover of our entire economy because he wants the government to run everything, with him and/or leftist Democrats in charge. You can't get any more arrogant and stupid than that, but I am afraid that is where we stand in the Age of Obama.
P.S.: If you think I adequately proofread the above, you are probably insane enough to believe that it is a positive development that Pressident Obama has openly taken over management of GM (despite there being no obvious qualifications of he or his minions to do so), or insane enough to believe that Obama and the Federal Government have not taken over management of GM. I did take a stab at "spell check". I would bet I missed several highlighted spelling errors/typos. As I have said before, pay me and I will do better. I do think the above contains some important stuff, even though it may be somewhat buried in verbosity and redundancy.
P.S. 2: I am perfectly aware that the "law" is supposed to be a "profession" rather than strictly a business. At least that is what I was taught when I went to law school. That idea has been exposed as something of a fiction used mainly for the benefit of lawyers, and against consumers of legal services. Nevertheless, I don't think training as a lawyer teaches you to be a manager in a business like GM, or even a manager of a McDonald's. Some lawyers have become excellent businessmen, but it is not because of their training as lawyers. Nor does practice as a lawyer substitute for management of a business that is not a "profession", although some lawyers are able to move from one slphere to the other. I am willing to state bluntly: Neither President Obama nor Timothy Geitner is qualified to manage a McDonald's--much less General Motors. What I think of the qualifications of most of Congress in that regard, or other Federal Bureaucrats--or Fed bureaucrats--cannot be printed.
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