It's a sad state to which our society has fallen. And saddest of all is that our government has led this descent into craven pandering. Like starving third-world refugees fighting over bottled water and bags of rice, we witness bankers, union workers, auto executives, business owners, homeowners, community activists, governors, and mayors shove and trample one another in slavering pursuit of government largess. So much for the pioneer spirit of the New World.
And in true entitled recipient fashion, the beggars curse the benefactors all the while...
I realized we had abandoned the realm of sanity when something the Reverend Al Sharpton said on TV yesterday actually made sense to me. He lambasted Bank of America for for laying off thousands of workers after accepting government money. I just wasn't right, he maintained. They took government money so they should be saving jobs, not destroying them.
More vitriol is aimed at GE for taking a government handout and using it to buy Chinese airplanes. Savagely elbowing their way to the front of the line, Angry UAW members (has anyone ever heard of a happy UAW worker?) demand to know why congress shovels trillions to Dirty Hank's Wall Street bandit buddies but denies Detroit a mere $15 Billion?
I stand with Reverand Al and the UAW: Our government has acted in an unfair and immoral fashion. It's all legal mind you, if you ignore the original intent of the constitution, but it stinks of immorality to us commoners. It violates that vague, secular American sense of fairness.
This is what happens when a government becomes disconnected from its founding principles. What are the rules of this damned bailout? It's just one rule: The Golden Rule: They who have the gold make the rules. Our constitution should be our moral code for governance, but it's being used as a doormat right now. Reverend Sharpton, union workers, and underwater homeowners can all rightly cry "foul."
If you're going to pick winners and losers you better have a clear set of rules that all the players understand or you are wide open to charges of fraud and favoritism. Better yet, why doesn't our government tend to getting its own fiscal house in order and leave picking winners and losers to the consumer?
2 comments:
the only thing worse than taking money from govt...is taking orders from govt.
that's probably the biggest problem with any of the bailouts/rescues/loans. once company X takes govt money, govt wants to start making decisions for company X. for a company in such poor financial condition that they needed to be bailed out, allowing the govt to make business decisions is a the final nail in the coffin. they're dead. govt can't run businesses. the entire history of mankind is evidence of that.
i feel some pity for the auto workers...but it's their own union that drove the companies to the brink of bankruptcy. who in their right mind ever thought the jobs bank was a good idea? how could a business or a union ever even consider such an abomination?
the essence of capitalism is creative destruction. sometimes the destruction part is sad and difficult...but it must occur so that other companies can be created.
the internet is killing traditional newspapers. but the world will be better off without them. it's certainly sad for those that will lose their jobs...but that's the price of progress. without such creative destruction, we lose out ability to progress and innovate.
keeping detroit alive only blocks the re-allocation of the misused assets of a dead industry.
Agreed, completely.
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