Chevy Volt a Failure - GM to Layoff 1,300

Nobody can definitively tell you the future of a road not taken. You can just turn around and say, "prove it"? Although in the specific case case of GM, I have a lot of history proving that centralized-planned economic activity has never worked.

I do know the road we have taken, overall through fiscal spending (the pork barrel debt spending that people call "stimulus"). And I do know that economically we are in the crapper, not going to get out anytime soon (despite promises along the way). And I do know those promises relied on the feckless fiscal and monetary measures we have taken since 2008, which people should have known were short term flailing attempts to put off the inevitable, and have now made the situation worse, not better -- by putting us in an untenable debt situation. Our national debt load has increased by more than $6 trillion and unemployment has risen for that money spent. Monetarily, we have debased our currency to nothing, with interest rate policy and three rounds of quantitative easing which is criminal, as our Federal Reserve creates a huge mess. We have put an albatross around our economy, for attempts at short-term "fixes" that come with huge long-term costs.

As for GM specifically, the stock got down as low as $18 and change. It is now up to $22.75. It would have to get to $53 a share for our Federal government to just break even -- and that doesn't take into account the cost of the money until it reaches that point, if it ever does, because we pay interest every minute the government is intertwined with its nationalized auto company.

They took a private problem and made it into a public mess. That is not good for our country, and it is patently unfair. It put government in a role that we once would have considered unconstitutional, because it was a case of cronyism or favoritism; meddling with private economic activity to pick winners and losers. How many companies have gone bankrupt in the last few years without the Federal government stepping forward to bail them out (at all of our expense) from their uncompetitiveness by making American taxpayers responsible for their losses and debt? How many people's jobs have gone poof, without the political bullshit argument that their jobs were essential? All those people who have lost their jobs -- their jobs were "less" important than a GM worker's?

They handpicked a favorite, and it was done by politicians to buy off a political ally, the UAW, which was a huge part of the reason GM wasn't competitive in the first place. They not only did that, but they stole from investors in GM's debt to give more to the UAW -- as much as it upsets people on here everytime I point that out. And now, of course, with a government bureaucracy in control of the company, it is not competitive.

GM being run by our Federal government is as much an auto company as VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau was. That was the state run company that made the East German Trabant. A nationalized GM is taking a page from the East German / Cold War Eastern Europe economic playbook. Of course our economy is much more free than East Germany's was on the whole, but when we emulate any form of centralized-planning, we hurt our economy.

 

Yet another equivalency that moves us away from GM and the Volt. Fair enough, I guess, since I made the comparison to the Trabant (even though I did point out that our economy floats freely, for the most part, unlike East Germany's).

Japan subsidizing vehicle sales just weakens their economy. And with the latest $3.8 billion subsidy ending, vehicle sales are going to plunge next quarter. It had the same effect as a government putting itself into more debt (Japan is drowning in debt) and taking the money and mailing checks to people. It isn't economic activity. It is living off a credit card.

It's certainly not a formula anyone should try to emulate. The thing is. ...in actual dollar terms, the amount the Japanese government has wasted is actually quaint compared to what we did with GM, which was an actual takeover of the company (GM was much more costly, and it was in worse shape than any Japanese automaker -- GM was bankrupt).

What Japan did by saddling its people with more debt was bad. Amazingly, with that said, I wish our government had actually been as restrained as Japan was.

I am also less focused on Japan, because I am not Japanese. I am American.