I’m sick of our government fawning over big corporations. The truly sad part of the Chrysler story is that no new US companies grew to make a bid at joining the big three. Our mercantile system made it too difficult for new US start ups to develop and grow.

If there is one thing I would like to hear from either of the 2 major party candidates that would give me hope, it would be to state that we need to make sure that we encourage the creation of new businesses in this country, not bail out failed ones.

When you know what’s going to happen next and there’s not a damn thing that can be done about it, what makes our country any different that the worst sort of dictatorship! What the hell do we have to do to change such an obviously rotten system? We should apologize to the UK and tell them we were wrong about not wanting tyranny!

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/10/29/lopez.man.shot.in.yard.kcal

What I gathered this morning was that his family is pretty pissed because it appears that the unnamed cop made have had him drop his club and move away then shot him.

I do not want to imply that this is what was reported, but it is what it appears happened.

Especially given that in the Couric interview, she was asked obvious questions.

Did you really think the folks preparing her thought the financial crisis or her lack of foreign policy experience wouldn’t come up? They probably prepped her extensively on exactly those issues and she still came off like a high school kid BSing a book report.

There’s gaffes and then there’s not knowing what you’re talking about.

Paul is tainted goods by reason of some of his less savory associations, which making rallying around him someone difficult (and mainstream political suicide ).

Rep. Jeff Flake out of AZ might be good though, for the Republicans, if they want to be less statist.

The government did make money off the 1970s Chrysler bailout and averted some serious problems in Michigan/Ohio.

That does not mean that it was a good idea.

If Chrysler had gone under it would have forced all the major players in the industry to reexamine their assumptions.
-GM and Ford would have to had considered their management and business strategy, instead of producing lower quality, lower price products, under the protection of tarriffs, regulations, and government favors.
-The UAW and other unions would have to had addressed unsustainable salaries/benefits/rules.
-Michigan and Ohio would have to had addressed tax and industrial, tax and labor policy.

Because Chrysler was saved, there was no need for the US auto industry to face these challenges, and they spent the next 30+ years mostly doing the same thing that they had been doing before, and focussed on political rent seeking over innovation and quality.

If Chrysler went down in the 1970s, there was two other much stronger companies to pick up the slack. 2008, we are not just talking about Chrysler, but all three of them in significant trouble, and with much stronger international and domestic competition (e.g. Toyota, Honda, BMW, Kia etc in the USA). e.g. GM market capitalization !2.7bn; Oprah Winfrey ~2.5bn

Its like not amputating a gangrenous leg: you might be very pleased to save the leg, but you could soon find the whole body riddled with disease.

The other issue is that saving Chrysler taught companies that they too could be “too big to fail” After Chrysler, we had airlines (still a mess), savings and loans, etc etc. Now banks and insurance.

Do you really think saving Chrysler was such a great idea now?

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue gives Korean automaker Kia a sweetheart corporate welfare deal to open a plant in the Peach State.

If the Georgian taxpayers are being asked to pay extra money, which will end up in the pockets of Kia, like taxpayer-funded sports stadiums, I’d agree with you. The solution to that would be to make the corporation pay its own way and stop stealing by proxy.

But if Kia is just getting tax breaks that others don’t get, that is not welfare. It’s just screwing everyone else. The solution to that is not to take more from Kia, but to take less from everyone. I don’t know if you’re doing that here, but too many people who mention “corporate welfare” make that hideous moral equivalence.

Electing Sanford should be the focus of the libertarian movement for the next four years.

I’d actually vote Republican if they trotted out Sanford and Flake.

This is anarchy with privilege, or anarchy only for the ruling class.

In a world where every individual has equal standing among others (pure anarchy), the limit imposed on the police officer in this case would be a revenge killing by the victim’s family (who would have to act with discretion to ensure that the revenge cycle did not perpetuate). Those who undertake to prevent crime or act the way the officer did in this case would do so with the foreknowledge that if they did not act in a responsible manner, their own life would be forfeit.

There are many examples of this occurring in the real world: the Dutch traffic engineer who designs what appear to be “dangerous” roads without signs or signals that actually decrease accidents and fatalities, and open-carry laws or concealed-carry laws for handguns that create a sense of unease and confusion among criminals. I see no reason why this would not work if the State monopoly on murder were rescinded.

You hear it all the time. Last thing we want to do is: kill innocent people; convict innocent people; let guilty people go free.
However, It’s clearly NOT the last thing polcie want to do in any of those cases cuz they happen all the time. Maybe this cop wasn’t going all commando killing machine on whoever came into his field of vision, maybe he was scared and panicked, but whatever his reasons firing was obviously not a last resort in this terrible, sad case.

Cops want to justify their actions by saying these are the last things they want to see happen, and that the job is so tough. Bt they would never dream of extended similar justifications to the actions of those they chase and arrest.

Blog on the topics I think are important, dammit! Or I’ll impugn your motives!

For what it’s worth, I think the government investigations into Mr. The Plumber are deplorable. I just haven’t had enough time to read up on them to offer a detailed opinion.

But I guess I should have devoted 10 paragraphs to that yesterday, instead of to the far less important issue of the Louisiana Supreme Court denying pro se appeals in 2,500 murder cases. You know, just to prove the political neutrality I’ve never claimed to possess.