George Will rooting for failure
I’ve long admired the craftsmanship in many of George Will’s columns, even if I disagree with the opinions expressed therein. But in his latest effort, he basically announces that he wants GM and Chrysler to fail, at the cost of tens of billions of dollars to the taxpayer, and many thousands of jobs filled by his fellow Americans.
He’s not only rooting for that outcome, he wants his readers to help make it happen by buying from Ford and avoiding — for political reasons — GM and Chrysler produc ts:
“This is so because Ford has, so far, avoided becoming an appendage of the government. And because the national interest will not be served by GM and Chrysler flourishing. It might cost taxpayers more in the short run, but in the long run it will be less costly for the country if the government finds its confident plunge into industrial policy so unpleasant that, sadder but wiser, the incumbent professors and others will flee from such adventures in extracting sunbeams from cucumbers.”
Apparently, it would rock Will’s world if GM and Chrysler survive and even thrive and manage to pay back billions in government loans. There’s something fundamentally cynical and smug about that attitude.
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210 comments Add your comment
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 7th, 2009
3:15 pm
I’m a Ford man but not for his reasons. I’d like to see all three survive and proper. It would be good for the country over the long haul, I think.
Copyleft
May 7th, 2009
3:20 pm
Nothing new there, Jay. It’s the same sentiment as we’ve been hearing from the secessionists–”If we can’t run the country, the country must be destroyed. Waaaaaahhhh!”
Mike
May 7th, 2009
3:29 pm
Wow! Jay attacking a conservative pundit? Didn’t see that coming.
George Will actually writes columns about ideas, as opposed to Jay who just exists to bash people who aren’t on “his side”. We need more thinking pundits like Will and Nicholas Kristof and less tedious partisans like Bookman and Hannity who have no purpose beyond partisan warfare.
Wes
May 7th, 2009
3:30 pm
Jay,
Think about what success for the government means. That we as individuals or as private companies are not as successful at handling our own business as government is.
You may feel that some of us are being malicious. I personally like a certain level of freedom. I’d like to believe that in the vast majority of cases I can handle life without government intrusion.
There is also the issue of rule of law. Financing works because of property law. If bankruptcy is overturned whenever the government feels like it how many people will commit to financing?
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 7th, 2009
3:30 pm
That should have, of course, said “survive and prosper”.
Susan Myers
May 7th, 2009
3:33 pm
Don’t be fooled by these Republican snake-oil salesmen. There’s only one reason they want the Big 3 to fail, and it’s all about destroying one of the most powerful labor unions in the country. Then they’ll blame the failure on those outrageous living wages the union demanded and use the propaganda to go after the rest of the labor movement.
Kamchak
May 7th, 2009
3:34 pm
Play the ad hominem attack card. Nobody will see that coming either
Midori
May 7th, 2009
3:39 pm
LOL, Kamchak!!!
took the words out of my mouth
Brian
May 7th, 2009
3:40 pm
How many are aware that Crysler will no longer have to pay pack the tax payer money due to their bankruptcy filing?
md
May 7th, 2009
3:44 pm
Ever been in a union Susan? They need overhauling too, just as management compensation needs overhauling. Neither does the company they represent any good. And more often than not, you are I are that company.
And the article stated 2, not 3.
Mrs. Godzilla
May 7th, 2009
3:44 pm
George Will….lost me in that last little climate denial dust up at the NYT.
He is an elitist idealogue and mightily uptight to boot.
DebbieDoRight
May 7th, 2009
3:56 pm
Think about what success for the government means. That we as individuals or as private companies are not as successful at handling our own business as government is.
We the people of the United States ARE the government. We don’t live in a kingdom or Nazi society.
MD: And more often than not, you are I are that company.
Huh?
Bosch
May 7th, 2009
3:59 pm
Debbie,
“We the people of the United States ARE the government. We don’t live in a kingdom or Nazi society.”
Funny. Good one.
Dave R
May 7th, 2009
4:00 pm
I think George Will has a great idea going. Let’s show the world that Socialist programs don’t work. Kill two car companies that can’t compete in the free market and put a big ol’ stake in the heart of the UAW at the same time. (BTW, Chrysler does great when selling Jeeps, muscle cars, minivans and trucks. Where do they LOSE money? On Government-mandated, fuel-efficient sedans)
How’s that workin’ fer ya, libs?
Bosch
May 7th, 2009
4:05 pm
Dave R.,
“Chrysler does great when selling Jeeps, muscle cars, minivans and trucks”
I’m no economist, nor do I play one on TV, but if they does so great selling those cars – then why the hell are they in the financial trouble they are?
And can you for the books please explain to me how any of the dealings at Chyrsler is Socialist – has Obama announced that he plans for the US government to own the company for eternity and I missed it all while I was out just now? Do I need to turn on the news?
md
May 7th, 2009
4:06 pm
Deb,
“MD: And more often than not, you are I are that company.
Huh?”
We the people own the gov’t and we the people also own many companys – Stockholders.
And many people do not even know which companys they own. Pension plans of teachers, police, firefighters, everyday americans, etc.
We.
Bosch
May 7th, 2009
4:06 pm
Oh and Dave R.,
“On Government-mandated, fuel-efficient sedans”
And is this also a news flash I haven’t heard of yet? Will they be discussing this on the evening news later?
md
May 7th, 2009
4:08 pm
and “you and I” would make more sense, wouldn’t it.
ty webb
May 7th, 2009
4:09 pm
Bosch,
I liked your 3:59 post directed at debbie. Just to clear something up, that was sarcasm, right? Sometimes it’s hard to tell on this board.
Dave R
May 7th, 2009
4:17 pm
Let’s see, Bosch. Maybe it is the government giving taxpayer funds to a private enterprise that cannot make it in the free marketplace.
Maybe it is the re-writing of legal contracts to put the unsecured UAW pension plan ahead of secured creditors.
Maybe it is the government forcing the current CEO out at GM and picking their own man at the helm.
Maybe it is finally proof that Government-mandated fuel-efficient programs cannot make a car company a viable concern.
N.J,
May 7th, 2009
4:23 pm
Again its a proof that when Americans do something it does not work because of Republican efforts to hamstring them, and when Europeans do so it works fine. The reason that everyone drives European and Japanese cars is basically that both those nations had social welfare type conditions when their car companies started their boom, and American car companies had to face Republican style economics.
When Toyota and Nissan were starting to invade the American market, their corporations had government mandated cradle to grave job benefits for their employees. Europe had its social welfare state. America had its Republican tax cuts. Didnt work. Both Europe and Japan’s governments backed their auto industries to the hilt and backed employee benefits to the hilt as well.
The heyday of the American auto industry was of course in the pre-Reaganomics years. And American autos were the best in the world.
Bosch
May 7th, 2009
4:24 pm
Dave R.,
Chrysler isn’t a private enterprise anymore? When did that happen?
Number 2 and Number 3 on your list isn’t Socialism
Number 4 – are you a Seer now? Do you have a crystal ball? LOL!!!
ty,
I thought it was funny. I just envisioned Shrek for a moment and got a chuckle.
Bosch
May 7th, 2009
4:30 pm
ty,
In other words – nope, no sarcasm – sorry bud – I agree with her.
DebbieDoRight
May 7th, 2009
4:30 pm
Bosch:
Paul
May 7th, 2009
4:33 pm
I return, and oh, what fun!
If Jay and the Southern Baptists can agree on something, then it’s high time for Democrats and Republicans to get their act together.
My thought on this: we’ve heard the administration say one reason for the financial bailout was because we let certain companies get ‘too big to fail’ and we must not get into that trap again. The “too big to fail” was also used for GM; Chrysler, not so much. So I’m wondering what’s in store, not just for the financial industry but for GM. Are they going to remain too big to fail or is something else in the planning stages for them?
Taxpayer: unfinished from down below. I do not really think you want me to tell you how much it costs to buy silverware at Gitmo. Your original question was, given all the $$$ DoD has, why not just fly the detainees out and be done with it? I replied DoD isn’t free to spend on whatever they want. Fed Appropriation Law holds funds are available only to the extent specifically authorized by law. That’s when you came in with the silverware question. I referred you to a brief that explained some of the concepts. I never said I could provide detail to the nth degree. But if you really want to know, in brief (I have this on pretty good authority):
- The Defense Appropriation becomes law.
- Navy, AF, Army, Marines get their budget
Congress gives them the money in different appropriations: construction, pay, operations and maintenance, etc.
Money from one appropriation cannot be used for purposes covered by another appropriation.
Within appropriations, Congress sets specifics. Each and every building built is specifically authorized by Congress. Each one. Each major weapons system is authorized at each stage of development. Once developed and in the pipeline, limits on numbers that can be bought are set.
Within appropriation, Congress sets limits. Take your silverware appropriation, Operations and Maintenance. General guidelines are given (they don’t specify copy paper, laser paper, pens, etc). But there are “shalt nots” like: no going away presents. No bottled water. Taxpayers don’t pay taxes so government employees can give each other presents and food.
Then there are a whole bunch of subdivisions to track expenses to the nth degree. Thank Robert McNamara for that. So you can know what it costs to run an organization, like Gitmo. Or if something unusual, nonstandard, comes up, they can use a special tracking code to track all the expenses. Which is why reporters tell us it costs more to feed the detainees than our soldiers in combat zones.
But an organization can’t take money they’ve been given to build a building or maintain airplanes or send guards to training and use it to transport, feed and house detainees. Which is why Congress was even talking about a separate line item for moving detainees out of Gitmo.
And why the brave Democrats cut it.
Trust me on this.
DebbieDoRight
May 7th, 2009
4:34 pm
Maybe it is the re-writing of legal contracts to put the unsecured UAW pension plan ahead of secured creditors.
Huh? When did that happen? Got a link for that one?
Maybe it is the government forcing the current CEO out at GM and picking their own man at the helm.
Isn’t that what all the Republicans SAID they wanted? I remember distinctly the republicans stating that “Whichever CEO of a company gets a bailout, that CEO should forfeit his job”. Not verbatim, but isn’t that what the Always Right wanted? So, if you got what you wanted, then WHY are you still crying about it?
Taxpayer
May 7th, 2009
4:34 pm
So, has Mr Will been courageous enough to openly profess a desire to see a similar fate for every other person that received financial assistance during this credit crisis/recession. I mean, if AIG had failed, for example, and none of those CDS’s had been covered and the domino effect from that had been left to run its global course and if Freddie and Fannie had not been bailed out and… well, I wonder how he would feel about deposits not being insured for the increased amount and what if a few money market funds were left alone to break the buck and what about the impact on the PBGC and all the pensions they cover. I wonder if Mr. Will has really thought this thing through. Then again, I wonder if some of these people are even capable of a thought process at all….
md
May 7th, 2009
4:35 pm
First car produced by Gov’t Motors:
http://tr.youtube.com/watch?v=2yNJIsbzAHc
N.J,
May 7th, 2009
4:36 pm
and lets look at the current affairs in the Japanese auto industry:
Is this Fair? Japanese Government To Step In And Help Pay Idled Auto Workers
Thousands of Japanese car workers will soon draw part of their pay from the government under a scheme to prevent redundancies at companies hit by production cuts.
Mazda and Mitsubishi Motors, respectively Japan’s fifth and sixth biggest carmakers, have applied for the employment adjustment grants, according to industry officials, and others may follow soon.
The grants are available to struggling manufacturers of all types but the particularly sharp downturn in the car sector, combined with a recent expansion of the programme, has made carmakers eligible for large levels of support.
Mitsubishi, for example, plans to build passenger cars at its main plant in Okayama prefecture on just seven days next month. On the other 14 weekdays, the plant’s 3,000 full-time workers will stay at home but receive 85 per cent of their wages, half of which will be paid by the government.
http://www.autospies.com/news/Is-this-Fair-Japanese-Government-To-Step-In-And-Help-Pay-Idled-Auto-Workers-40324/
mike
May 7th, 2009
4:36 pm
“Play the ad hominem attack card. Nobody will see that coming either”
You don’t seem to know what an ad-hominem attack is (although you employ them frequently). Criticizing Jay’s writing as tedious is not an ad-hominem attack.
Got a cackle out of Midori though. So kudos for you.
Bosch
May 7th, 2009
4:37 pm
Dave R.,
Yeah, and what Debbie said at 4:34.
jasper
May 7th, 2009
4:37 pm
At the end of the day, GM and Chrysler can not make a product that is comparable to non-union car manufacturers in quality or price. And we don’t hear these workers at non-union car companies screaming of management mis-treatment or lack of job security.
At what point will our government start tilting the field toward its dependents in the form of purchase incentives and tax credits as additional effort to prop up these companies.
Let the UAW have GM and Chrysler. Would love to see how long that lasts. Its no coincidence that GM, Chrysler, and the UAW can not exist on their own merit. They know this, and have to rely upon tax payer handouts, and lobbying for unfair legislation.
Don’t buy Union!
N.J,
May 7th, 2009
4:37 pm
The above is pretty much how Japanese and European automakers remain “profitable”
ty webb
May 7th, 2009
4:37 pm
Oh well, That’s okay. Wishful thinking on my part. Ha!
N.J,
May 7th, 2009
4:39 pm
Good, for the first time in a long time, the government is putting the real engine of the American economy, the worker, ahead of the investor.
Bosch
May 7th, 2009
4:40 pm
ty,
Sorry. Ya’ know – I try, I really do.
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 7th, 2009
4:42 pm
Maybe it is the re-writing of legal contracts to put the unsecured UAW pension plan ahead of secured creditors.
My question is why have companies been allowed to make pension promises to their workers for decades without funding them?
I Report :-) / You Whine :-(
May 7th, 2009
4:43 pm
Of course bookman leaves out the reasoning and whines only about the solution-
The UAW will own 55 percent of Chrysler, so perhaps the union will sit on both sides of the table in negotiations. They should go smoothly, although the UAW may think it has made sufficient concessions, such as the one that says henceforth overtime pay will not begin until the worker has toiled 40 hours in a week.
At one time, the consensus would have been for a car company, who’s ownership was set up specifically to reward a politician’s contributors, to fail, so that it would not be tried again, but that time was before the socialists and their media lap dogs became kings of their little fiefdom America.
Now, in this day and age, common sense is routinely demonized without good explanation.
Goebbels would be so proud.
Bosch
May 7th, 2009
4:44 pm
NJ,
@ 4:39 -
Dang. I wish I’d wrote that. Good point.
Tom
May 7th, 2009
4:47 pm
Ahh, George Will. Another Republigoon long time “hero-of-hatred.” Another dull uncompromising zealot of the middle-right. Another
patriotic Murcuhn clothed in the flag of dishonor. You go guy!
Taxpayer
May 7th, 2009
4:53 pm
Paul,
As I recall, we were heading down the course of determining exactly what Congress approves regarding budgetary items, line by line sort of stuff. You know, if the Congress has to approve the funding for transporting these guys to the state, then they must have to go line by line and approve funding for every single item unless I’m missing something from your posts. I can go back and do a little digging through the earlier posts just to make sure if you need me to do so. I just don’t want to pick up the matter and take it in some different direction than where we were originally going since that would be a whole different line of thought. You know what I mean.
Paul
May 7th, 2009
4:58 pm
Taxpayer
Sure. And it’s really not that big a deal. I was trying to keep it to the ‘big picture’ in the last post.
You are correct. Congress does go item by item with some things, which I tried to illustrate. Building buildings. Buying big weapons, even developing them. Amount that can be paid for salaries – number of military authorized. As I said, a matter of law is DoD can’t just take money and say “well, no one said I COULDN’T spend it on this…” The law is, they get the money and ask “Is this authorized?” (It’s a two-step process, something gets authorized – Congress says they can do it or buy it, then they vote the money for it).
On some things, office supplies, it’s more like “yeah, reasonable items to do your mission. But not food. Or things inherently personal, like uniforms.” But they can’t get money for running their own organization, say the Gitmo food hall or personnel office, and use it to pay travel expenses for people who aren’t part of their organization.
So it’s a mix. Trust me.
jewcowboy
May 7th, 2009
4:59 pm
People don’t buy small Chryslers because liberals force companies to comply with environmentally friendy fuel standards?
Then why do people buy fuel efficient Hondas?
Kamchak
May 7th, 2009
5:01 pm
Mike @ 4:36p.m.
“Criticizing Jay’s writing as tedious is not an ad-hominem attack.”
Didn’t say it was. You pull that card out everyday that you post on this site. It’s a passive/aggressive way of crying “boo-hoo you are picking on me ’cause you don’t like me.”
Paul
May 7th, 2009
5:01 pm
Taxpayer
Oh, and trust me on this: there are plenty of people at some high levels in DoD with a lot of years in who don’t have a clue about what I just wrote. That brief I referenced you to? It appears it was prepared for the COMMANDERS – probably full colonels and generals, on just what the rules were on how they could spend ‘their’ money.
Amazing, yes?
I Report :-) / You Whine :-(
May 7th, 2009
5:06 pm
PITTSBURGH (AP) – Authorities in western Pennsylvania have accused seven people who worked for the community group ACORN of falsifying voter-registration forms.
The seven have been charged with either forging, illegally soliciting or illegally filling out voter-registration cards in the lead-up to the 2008 election.
Told ya.
How about we carefully check Minnesota’s voter registration records, now that would be interesting.
eewwwww
jewcowboy
May 7th, 2009
5:07 pm
Another Republican who says he loves America, but really just hates Americans.
Taxpayer
May 7th, 2009
5:08 pm
As I recall, Waffle House, another fine southern tradition, is one of those employee ownership companies. Wal-Mart pushes their employees to be partners through employee ownership of shares. I think one of the airlines, maybe Delta?, worked out some sort of stock ownership agreement with the pilot’s union while they were in bankruptcy. Speaking of bankruptcy, does anyone really believe that something magically different, other than expediency and a minimization of negative impact on employees, suppliers, creditors, etc., would have happened with Chrysler if the Obama administration had not stepped in and they were left to go through the regular proceedings. Just curious, in the end what would be different. For example, wouldn’t the government have been out just as much revenues as a result of the extra losses in jobs, court costs, etc.
ty webb
May 7th, 2009
5:10 pm
jewcowboy,
your 5:07 was profound, are you in the bumper sticker business?
GOP is gone
May 7th, 2009
5:13 pm
Well Jay, if it is any consolation my very wealthy Republican brother told me last night he was going out to buy a GM car for his wife. My response to him was “your brave”. He then pointed out that Obama had given him a warranty. He was not a fan of Obama, plenty of debate at get togethers.