Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Brooks on the GM deal

David Brooks writes in today's New York Times about why the Obama plan for GM is fated to fail.

Here is just one of his many excellent points:

"Fourth, the Obama plan dilutes the company’s focus. Instead of thinking obsessively about profitability and quality, G.M. will also have to meet the administration’s environmental goals. There is no evidence G.M. is good at building the sort of small cars the administration demands. There is no evidence that there is a large American market for these cars. But G.M. now has to serve two masters, the market and the administration’s policy goals."

This is what happens when you nationalize industry. It bastardizes the purpose of business into worrying more about political considerations than business considerations. Which ensures it fails, since it has to compete with companies that have no such dual purpose.

This is so very sad.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sad? This is good news.

Soon we will have the 5 year plans coming from the Central Committee for all industries, not just the banks and autos.

And we need some new laws that outlaw opposition parties, term limits, and the constitution, and we can call it done.

All hail the Chief of the new USSR (United States Socialist Rep).

Me said...

"G.M. now has to serve two masters, the market and the administration’s policy goals."
This is what happens when you nationalize industry."

Worse yet it won;lt matter how poorly the arrangment performs. There will never be any authentic assessment, recognition of failure or admition of heading down the wrong path.
It is a will be a enormous problem which the goverment, any congess and any administration will and can only make worse.

Precisely like every other huge problem.

This is what happens when goverment gets too big to function or to stop growing itself

Roadrunner said...

Rob,

When are you going to address the juvenile behavior of your ideological allies?

It would be one thing if it were a few isolated incidents, but rude behavior is ubiquitous among bloggers and commenters on the right.

Yes, some on the left are rude, but it appears not to be the SOP on the left as it is on the right.

Anonymous said...

What?

Is your post pertinent and appropriate to this thread? Where is the misbehavior you wish to police within this thread?

Grow up.

Roadrunner said...

Anon 12:05,

Just look at the ad hominem in Anon 12:19's post from two days ago.

Yes, compared to the comments in other threads here it is very mild. It is a general pattern of behavior, though, of people on the right--the first instinct is to use personal attacks rather than rationally looking at the issues.

Look at the discussions that occur on Blue Oregon versus the discussions on the COBRA blogs. Very little in the way of name-calling from the left on BO (most of it coming from right-wing commenters), with name-calling the norm on COBRA blogs, including in the original post.

At some point, the adults in the conservative movement, if there are any, need to step in and say "hey, you people are hurting our cause."

Rob has not done that, which suggests that he approves of the juvenile behavior.

Alinskyite said...

Roadrunner, I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it is you who is hurting our cause.

Conservatives know not to follow Progressives' advice. They know McCain was a Progressive and look where it got them.

It's the RINOs we need to keep working on. Perhaps you are confusing this with a RINO blog. It just shows how ignorant you are to proceed before checking.

Why don't you come to some of our organizational meetings and start doing us some good, instead?

Hamilton Burger said...

I will do everything I can to ensure GM fails. I will not be purchasing their vehicles and I will be bad mouthing , ridiculing and jive talking their cars.