The man is a socialist, plain and simple.
You tell me what else he can be after his administration put a huge load of pressure on the General Motors CEO to resign. The CEO of a private (yes, albeit failing) company.
Let’s look up the very definition of the word socialism from a few sources here.
American Heritage Dictionary:
1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
2. The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved.”
Merriam-Webster:
1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
Encarta:
1. political system of communal ownership: a political theory or system in which the means of production and distribution are controlled by the people and operated according to equity and fairness rather than market principles
2. movement based on socialism: a political movement based on principles of socialism, typically advocating an end to private property and to the exploitation of workers
3. stage between capitalism and communism: in Marxist theory, the stage after the proletarian revolution when a society is changing from capitalism to communism, marked by pay distributed according to work done rather than need
Three sources, pretty much the same definition even though Encarta puts a different twist on it. If the Obama administration’s move over the weekend doesn’t smack of socialism to you, what is it?
To me, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and even poops like a duck…yeah, you understand where I’m coming from.
I honestly hope our President starts executing some more sound judgment and simply takes his hands off the reins a bit to let the market correct itself.
What Obama is doing simply is not working. Nearly every time the man opens his mouth to speak about the economy, the Dow plummets. It happened again today.
If our President can take his hands off of private business and use a little bit of his eloquence to start hammering the importance of fiscal responsibility to us and our children, we’ll already be on the path to recovery.
Obama can be the most eloquent President to date, but words don’t amount to anything if he can’t perform the actions necessary to instill confidence in the economy and America as a nation again.
It’s a shame many don’t realize that. But then again, Israel has their king.
Twitter Updates
I dont see the co-relation……pressuring someone to resign is about being accountable, not your type of government. Its similar to pressuring any crooked politican to resign or pressuring advertisers to pull their sponsorship of a talking head that says something stupid (ie Imus).
You better be careful…you might get arrested.
Let me simply ask this question.
Since when did it become the government’s responsibility rather than those the company is directly accountable to (in this case, stockholders, board of execs, et al.), to pressure someone into resigning?
If I were the CEO of GM, it would have empowered me to stay. I would have sent out a press release saying I resign on my own terms or when the board of directors tells me to.
The day we let government even remotely stick its finger into private business is the day we can start saying peace out to free enterprise.
I’m sorry but even though a Chief Executive Officer may very well be running his company into the ground, the last entity he should be accountable to is 1600 NW Pennsylvania Avenue.
Obama is giving the government way too much control, but that was his plan on along. I’d say he is right on the money. Uh, yeah.
Well I have said for quite some time that I believe the government is allowing this crisis to happen, and helping it, to drive our economy so low that people become seriously afraid. And when pandemonium is about to strike, the big people up top will say, “Wait! We have a fix! Give it all to us and it will be okay.” Plain and simple, we are moving towards a socialist government and will end up no better than Russia. Like it or not, this is your country now.
Another scary thought, the EU and China are both pushing for a World Bank. Hm… What does the Bible say about that? End times folks… Time to get right, quick.
Obama had Rick Wagoner’s ousting as a condition for more stimulus money. Wagoner, the board and the company could have stood their ground, said they were a private corporation and refused any (more) government interference. Doing so would have sent the message that private business in America will fix itself.
But GM couldn’t accept Obama’s terms fast enough. Why? Because they’re desperate. And why are they desperate? Because they went for short-term big bucks (SUVs) instead of developing a viable plan that would help them compete in a world market in an age of wildly fluctuating fuel costs. Detroit has lagged behind Japan for decades because the U.S. is still building the same overblown, high-maintenance vehicles (under multiple names, no less) that led them to success in the 1950s. At the same time, the Big Three have swallowed so many other makers that insolvency is a virtual guarantee. Their business plan was (and still is) based on greed and outdated notions of lifetime brand loyalty.
Lost in all of this tired “socialism” talk is that unfettered capitalism can go too far. We have plenty of government intervention in business, from child-labor laws to wage controls to safety standards. I don’t see many workers protesting those. And I don’t see libertarians protesting the post office, interstate highways, the military, public schools and other socialist entities we’ve had for generations.
Since 1980, deregulation and “voluntary regulations” have given businesses license to do virtually anything they want. Some have dubbed it “steroid capitalism.” I call it “unchecked greed.” This is the result. It’s killing us all – including you free-market purists – and it’s gotten so bad that Obama’s so-called “socialism” may be the only thing that winds up saving our economy.
Ian–
Honestly the only solution I see to the financial crisis is to let institutions fail and then rebuild everything from the ground up again. You cannot renovate a house that is built on a sliding hill…the house will still look good but the earth is going to eat up that pretty home.
Where is the plan for educating Americans about the value of their money?
Why is there no impetus to tighten our free-for-all credit markets?
How is Obama going to accomplish his goal of solving our economy’s problems by rejecting private businesses’ recovery plans?
I’m sorry but I don’t see him helping, I see him trying but hurting us more in the process.
What I don’t understand is why we should let private businesses – THE VERY SAME ONES THAT FAILED – both accept public money and draw up the terms of using it. Are you kidding me? Just write a blank check! I have zero problem with Obama drawing up harsh terms if they want the bailout money. They don’t HAVE to take it. Magic of the free market and all.
I support smart government intervention because – as much as I hate to admit it – these businesses cannot afford to fail. Yes, I don’t think these greedy CEOs deserve their jobs after this; but millions of jobs are at stake. These jobs employ people who did not have their hands in the trough, and who we cannot afford to put on our already bloated unemployment rolls. We’re going to pay for this one way or the other, so I’d rather see my money keep these people employed. And that’s why I don’t think they should be left to fail.
But when we as a nation have subscribed to fiscal irresponsibility and spending what we don’t have for quite some time, a concept that has extended well beyond personal fiscal issues and gone straight to the top of our financial system, do you really think the prudent solution is to try to keep encouraging that by government intervention?
It would be absolutely catastrophic if millions lost their jobs, but what if it needs to happen so we can rebuild from the ground up and ensure we all keep our jobs later?
A broken economic model that our nation has run on for years simply cannot continue, be slightly modified, and the people expect everything to be hunky dory in the end.
You said it in your last comment. It’s a broken economic system with slight modifications. The economy has run this way for generations, we are just now seeing some of the gory insides. But it’s nothing new. Therefore, Obama isn’t some radical. He’s more or less par for the course.
“be slightly modified” — as in the President and Congress (starting with Bush last year) trying to throw more funny money at a system where there is none.
You have to be careful in defining the financial system. It’s important to separate the greed of management and the failures of lax regulation from the workers and clients who make the system work. I don’t think the system so irretrievably screwed that we have to start over, nor do I think bailing out the companies with Obama’s regulations is giving them a free pass. In fact, Obama’s conditions demand changes in leadership and business practices. The idea is to salvage what’s good about the industries while preventing a repeat of the corporate failures.
If nothing else, it’s more palatable than asking millions to forfeit their jobs for a libertarian ideal. I doubt that would gain much traction.
The financial system is screwed over and will inevitably fail whether it be in our lifetime or a future generation’s. As long as management is greedy and the average consumer continues to borrow money they don’t have, we are on a jet-powered Harley ride to the fiery pit.
Let me ask a question here.
If you are in a house and have been told to evacuate because it is about to slide off a hill that has eroded for so long, and it is finally sliding off its foundation, do you go about re-painting and renovating that house in the deluded hope you get a longer life out of it?
Of course not, so why would we do the same to our economy?
But that’s a straw man, Chris (forgive the Three Little Pigs association). I think a better analogy would be that the house has been renovated for years by crooked contractors, and now the shoddy worksmanship is becoming undeniably apparent. And someone – possibly a relative, benefactor or insurance agent – is offering money to redo the house. Of course, a provision of the money is that YOU GET BETTER CONTRACTORS. You see if they can’t rescue the house before you decide to write it off for a loss. No point in being thrown onto the street otherwise, right?
I guess what I’m saying is that we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Can’t be the contractors if the foundation was unstable to begin with. No amount of work on the house can fix that.
Simple fix. You let the house slide, grieve over it for awhile, rebuild and your life comes out better than it did before because you learned not to build your house on the hillside.
While the house is lost, in the interim you put your faith in good neighbors and friends who will step up to the plate and assist you in your time of need. And the people helping you relocate come from all walks of life, there only to help with no ulterior motives.
Maybe that’s a pipe dream but you see where my analogy is going.
That is a pipe dream, I think, because not everyone has the support network to make that happen. Not everyone has a family, a church or even friends. And of those that do, many of them are also feeling the burn.
I’ll never support the idea that we need to punt people from jobs on principle, any principle.