Anybody Else Scared? NRR
Horseleech
3,830 Posts
Think about it... In recent weeks the government has obtained legal and financial control, and ownership of: - The banks - The insurance companies - The auto companies - The housing economy And soon, through "green" mandates, the energy market. All because they "have" to. No, I'm not talking about some perceived string pulling, I'm talking straight up ownership. All paid for with money that we (yes, you and me, and our grandkids) now owe to China. And no, this isn't a Left/Right, Rep/Dem issue, it's a people/government issue. Does this bother anyone but me?
Comments
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Yes, but it changes.
That's life.
What exactly does the government actually own outright? Seriously, enumerate it.
We're still a looooooonnnnngggg way from nationalization.
Did you watch the news today? Obama removed the CEO of GM. When you become the majority investor in a company you are the defacto owner. That's what the government is doing with the bailout $$$.
Don't rely on me to post a link, do your own Googling and see.
Sorry, it's not that loooooonnnnggg, it's already happened. You just didn't notice.
Gee, I guess we shouldn't care, then.
So let's look at this: a CEO of an auto company who has taken billions of dollars in gov't aid and is asking for billions more from the gov't was asked to resign.
Big. f*cking. Deal.
Many of the companies that have taken gov't money have had management changes but none of that equals nationalization.
What are you worried about exactly? You think the US is going to turn out like the Mugabe-run Zimbabwe?
Yeah, I don't think so. I may not be crazy with White House policy but I felt that way the LAST eight years, which, to me, seemed a lot more draconian than seeing incompetent businessmen getting run out of their CEO positions as their companies are headed towards bankruptcy without taxpayer aid.
Which helps prove Nietzsche's point that people are happiest when they are following a charismatic madman to their doom.
Can you name another instance when the President/Government fired the CEO of a major company?
I'm not defending the dude they fired, but if you don't see the significance of this, then there's a lot you don't understand.
You could draw parallels between this period and the regulation of massive corporations like standard oil in the early 1900s.
Not really. There's a major difference between regulation and ownership.
My uncle used to negotiate contracts and handle legal matters for a major utility company. He said the government never stood a chance no matter what regulations they imposed, because the utility's lawyers could run circle around the government's.
Not an issue any more.
The government is gaining control of both sides.
After the last 8 years of complete free-market deregulation, and the complete clusterfuck that the private sector got itself into, I'd have more faith in further nationalization, as opposed to further bailing out the assholes who made this mess. You can blame government for encouraging the sub-prime lending, but it seems to me the real problem was that the unregulated free market leveraged these bad loans and gambled to the point that they were able to take down many of these companies.
Helping people own their own homes, while of course imperfect in practice, is something noble to strive for as a society. Using mortgages to prop up a speculative Wall St casino is not. Just like I disagreed with Bushes plan to remove govt from the equation and let social security be invested in the market, I'll trust government to nationalize these companies, play it safe and get them back to actual banking, as opposed to the free market wheeling and dealing shenanigans that allowed these companies to get so big, and so speculative.
I also know enough to know that most of what I've said here are simply things I've read that make sense to me, but that I don't necessarily understand all the underlying issues and factors, unlike some on this site who claim to have ALL the answers. I'm open to reading anything people think brings a different perspective, but this kind of chicken little nationalization scare stuff is not helpful. And please, no Ron Paul "government is the problem" lunacy...
:eyeroll:
take that shit to the mobb deep conspiracy message board
oh
Yeah, the government is so much more evil than these samaritan corporations too.
If no one's already said it then let me be the first to say:
SON DON RISK EET
Does this have anything to do with this?
I know Fiat own Ferrari, but still... "foreign investment". That give you the chills?
Man up.
It's a slippery slope and damn-near impossible to get back up.
It's just the newspeak their media frames stuff with, and I suppose it's no worse than resigned. Maybe they're scared as they have more to lose (American 'interests'), while we're just apathetic as we know it all went down the crapper years ago anyway (poodle-R). But to be scared of sharing common resources... I pine for the re-nationalisation of British Gas, BP, BT, the railways, water, electric, more NHS funding etc etc (plenty of red under my bed).
I guess so.
Thatcher privatised the above mentioned utilities, so nationalisation is certainly NOT necessarily a one way street.