If this ain't bad enough, then I sure as hell don't know what is...
President Barack Obama has effectively FIRED Rick Wagoner, the CEO of General Motors.
What this means is that the United States federal government has pretty much nationalized and taken over a private company. It's likely not going to be called that officially, but the policy is still the same.
Has a President of the United States ever done anything like this, in the history of this country? Certainly not in recent memory. The closest I can think of is what happened between Ronald Reagan and the air traffic controllers' union... but not Reagan or any other President in living recollection ever seized enough control of a company to call the shots about who it hires.
Scary stuff.
Asian markets don't like it: they're all down down down. Dow futures for tomorrow are off. Could be a stock market bloodbath.
ReplyDeleteWhat is your solution? Let them go under? Bail them out and leave the leadership the same? When you come begging for taxpayer subsidies does that constitute nationalization? Who are you upset with, the government for bailing them out, GM for building crappy cars, or the unions for negotiating huge costs of labor? Did you think Wagoner was doing a good job and is a victim of Big Brother? Just wondering.
ReplyDeleteObama seized control of the biggest U.S. industrial company.
ReplyDeleteThink for a moment what that means.
If the business was failing - no matter how "big" it is - then it should have been allowed to fail, just like any other. There's a reason why buggy whips aren't as big an industry as they used to be...
ReplyDeleteIt was wrong for GM and any other company to come begging for a "bailout" and it's just as bad for the government to have "rescued" them.
That doesn't change the fact that this is a horrible, horrible precedent that has been set by Obama.