Friday, November 14, 2008

What happened to Capitalism?

What ever happened to capitalism? With all the critical remarks about socialism against Barack Obama after he made that fateful comment about "spreading the wealth", you'd assume that people in this country were staunch capitalists. Apparently that isn't the case at all. You'd assume at least the leaders of large corporations would be capitalists, after all they're the ones that scream the loudest when it comes to protecting their hard-earned cash. So why is it that the leaders of the big three automakers are suddenly groveling at the doorstep of the government asking for a handout like it's a soup kitchen? I guess that belief in the free market economy is easily set aside when the free market economy seems perched to throw you in the dumpster.

As you can tell, I'm infuriated at the hypocrisy here. I don't think those companies deserve a bailout at all. I think they need to get what's coming to them. They've been outperformed by companies that make better products and have bee unwilling to retool their product to compete. In the free market, that means you fail. What about the jobs, you say? Auto repair shops, auto parts shops, they'll all stay in business. People will still be buying cars in large numbers - they'll still need maintenance. What about the assembly line workers? Well, when Honda and Toyota suddenly feel the windfall of increased demand from the failure of these companies, they'll probably open more plants to produce more cars, and that means they'll be hiring. They already make all of those supposedly "foreign" cars right here in the United States anyway.

So let them fail. Fuck them. Bad business decisions, greedy unions, all of them should get what's coming to them. In the words of Republican senator Richard Shelby of Alabama,

“The financial straits that the Big Three find themselves in is not the product of our current economic downturn, but instead is the legacy of the uncompetitive structure of its manufacturing and labor force. The financial situation facing the Big Three is not a national problem but their problem.”

No comments: