Wednesday, April 21, 2010
GM coming back
Polistra is happy to see General Motors coming back toward profitability and repaying the bailout. She believed from the start (well, almost from the start!) that GM deserved a bailout if we were going to do bailouts at all. Wall Street deserved jail, not bail.
And events have turned out predictably. Wall Street is using the money to re-enrich and re-bonus the same handful of criminals, while GM has used the money to re-tool two factories, giving new jobs to Americans.
Polistra is especially cheered to see that one of the re-tooled plants will be Fairfax, the easternmost point in Kansas. (Fairfax bulges just a little beyond the straight line of the Kan-Mo border.) Fairfax began as an Army airfield in WW2, served for a while as the KCK downtown airport, then served GM for many years. KCK has always been an industrial city, and richly deserves to have its plant running full speed.
= = = = =
Incidentally, this is one of the few questions where American politicians show real differences, and where the meaning of Populism can be quantified neatly.
We have two binary choices (Bail Mafia, Bail GM) forming a total of four combinations.
The Republican establishment voted to bail only the Mafia, and has gone on to defend Toyota and mock GM, showing themselves to be complete and total criminals, complete and total traitors.
Many of the lower-level Republicans voted to bail neither, which is a consistent ideological choice that agreed with most voters at the time.
Obama and most of the Dem establishment voted to bail both, which is also a consistent ideological choice though it disagreed with most voters.
The Populists (eg Marcy Kaptur, Elijah Cummings) voted to bail only GM, showing their loyalty to America and their correct understanding of what makes an economy run.
= = = = =
Or, hitting the same point from a different angle.... Republicans are constantly quoting the obsolete dictionary definition of Socialism as "government ownership of the means of production." This definition was always a distraction, never described the real difference between Soviet brutality and Western freedom.
In fact govt-owned industry can be better than privately owned or it can be worse. This has become especially obvious in the details of various health care systems. The best countries include private non-profit, mixed, and pure govt systems. The worst (ours) is a mixed system. No correlation between ownership and quality.
The important variable is not the ownership or the name of the system. The important variable is the motivation of industries, how they measure their success. For the last 30 years we have allowed our industries to use share price instead of profit as their motivation, which led to the collapsed mess we have now. Worst of all worlds.
GM's current motivation is to pay back the gov't and get back to profitability. Historically this is an unusual goal, but it turns out to be a lot better than share price! ¶ 7:40 PM
Polistra is happy to see General Motors coming back toward profitability and repaying the bailout. She believed from the start (well, almost from the start!) that GM deserved a bailout if we were going to do bailouts at all. Wall Street deserved jail, not bail.
And events have turned out predictably. Wall Street is using the money to re-enrich and re-bonus the same handful of criminals, while GM has used the money to re-tool two factories, giving new jobs to Americans.
Polistra is especially cheered to see that one of the re-tooled plants will be Fairfax, the easternmost point in Kansas. (Fairfax bulges just a little beyond the straight line of the Kan-Mo border.) Fairfax began as an Army airfield in WW2, served for a while as the KCK downtown airport, then served GM for many years. KCK has always been an industrial city, and richly deserves to have its plant running full speed.
= = = = =
Incidentally, this is one of the few questions where American politicians show real differences, and where the meaning of Populism can be quantified neatly.
We have two binary choices (Bail Mafia, Bail GM) forming a total of four combinations.
The Republican establishment voted to bail only the Mafia, and has gone on to defend Toyota and mock GM, showing themselves to be complete and total criminals, complete and total traitors.
Many of the lower-level Republicans voted to bail neither, which is a consistent ideological choice that agreed with most voters at the time.
Obama and most of the Dem establishment voted to bail both, which is also a consistent ideological choice though it disagreed with most voters.
The Populists (eg Marcy Kaptur, Elijah Cummings) voted to bail only GM, showing their loyalty to America and their correct understanding of what makes an economy run.
= = = = =
Or, hitting the same point from a different angle.... Republicans are constantly quoting the obsolete dictionary definition of Socialism as "government ownership of the means of production." This definition was always a distraction, never described the real difference between Soviet brutality and Western freedom.
In fact govt-owned industry can be better than privately owned or it can be worse. This has become especially obvious in the details of various health care systems. The best countries include private non-profit, mixed, and pure govt systems. The worst (ours) is a mixed system. No correlation between ownership and quality.
The important variable is not the ownership or the name of the system. The important variable is the motivation of industries, how they measure their success. For the last 30 years we have allowed our industries to use share price instead of profit as their motivation, which led to the collapsed mess we have now. Worst of all worlds.
GM's current motivation is to pay back the gov't and get back to profitability. Historically this is an unusual goal, but it turns out to be a lot better than share price! ¶ 7:40 PM
