Broken Not Crushed life as a statement, not an apology

For a free market to work, you must have rule of law and contracts that matter. Neither condition was met with the auto bailouts (just ask Chrysler investors).

Now that Uncle Sam is (ostensibly) getting out of the car business, and reducing its stake in GM to a mere 33%, it’s worth asking: “Were the bailouts a success?”

John Berlau at the American Spectator gives the proper metric for making that call:

But how successful and profitable the new GM will be — and there are still many doubts that linger on the company’s financial condition and unfunded liabilities (see this amazing piece from that right-wing bastion NPR entitled “Reasons to Sit Out GM’s Initial Stock Offering”) — is not the right question to ask if its bailout and takeover were good for the economy. The primary question should not even be how fast or whether taxpayers get their money back (and many experts believe they likely never will recover fully).

As I wrote a year and a half ago on the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s blog OpenMarket.org, “The measure of success should not be how fast Chrysler and GM emerge from this bankruptcy, but the degree to which contracts are honored in an impartial process.” By this measure, due to the precedent set by the government running roughshod over the contractual rights of Chrysler’s secured lenders, GM’s bondholders, and dealers franchised to sell both brands of vehicles, the bailout/takeover is a complete failure.

I couldn’t agree more. Honoring contracts, whether with AIG or Chrysler or your mortgage lender, is the essence of a free market. Even if GM emerges in a stronger position financially, the damage to our free market has been done. What investor in his right mind would invest his money, knowing that Uncle Sam may well swoop in and nullify his contract?

When you are “too big to fail”, you are no longer in a free market.

It didn’t work with Obamacare, it didn’t work with the “stimulus”, and it’s beginning to sink in that it doesn’t work with the EU, either.

Despite the best efforts (and intentions?) of the Left, passing legislation, without first addressing the economic reality on the ground, will not (CAN NOT) solve problems.

The European Union is crumbling before our eyes. Greece, Ireland, Portugal, France, London…all facing serious economic problems that won’t be solved by wishful thinking or kicking the can further down the road.

Can’t we learn from their lesson, or are we destined to repeat the same mistakes?

Full article here.

One sentence clearly spells out where liberalism – including the “Religious Left” – begins to stray off course.

See if you can find it for yourself in this article:

1.3 million unemployed won’t get benefits restored

How’d you do? Here’s the One Sentence (OK, it’s two sentences):

“I challenge you to look people in the eye and tell them that you voted no,” said Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. “Tell them as they swallow their pride that you don’t care, that you don’t have a heart, that you don’t have any feeling.”

So there you have it. If you don’t support a government solution, if you don’t support spending money that isn’t there, if you don’t support paying people for almost two years to NOT work, if you believe that people are capable, creative, and intelligent enough to do what they have to do to take care of their families, if you believe that local communities are better qualified than DC to diagnose and solve problems, then you don’t have a heart.

Never mind the track record of government “aid”. Never mind the moral hazard. Never mind the time-tested principle of subsidiarity. Never mind the perverse disincentives to employment. Never mind the utter destruction of the black family brought on by the “Great Society”. Never mind the condescension and arrogance required to believe that people can’t care for themselves. Never mind the deficit, and the disproportionate effect it has on the poor.

What matters most is having a heart, and only those who support creating and sustaining dependency have one.

And therein lies the problem of governing by feeling.

Best definition of entitlement I’ve ever seen:

the very essence of an entitlement is a claim by those who lack a value against those who have earned it. And government is the only agency that can enforce such a claim.

Every time you think about a Government “benefit”, run it through this filter.

Remember, if you wouldn’t pull a gun on your neighbor and demand he pay for your “needs”, then you can’t support Government doing it AND be intellectually consistent.

Read the full article at the Ayn Rand Center.