02.26.10
Posted in Auto industry, Culture, Human freedom at 2:07 pm by Administrator
Charles Krauthammer’s column today, “Toyota and the Price of Modernity,” raises an interesting point.
The fact is that progress – technological and industrial advancement – is about moving into uncharted territory, much like pioneers advancing on the frontier (or astonauts stepping onto the surface of the moon). No one can possibly predict all the variables that will come into play when something new is invented or discovered.
It’s as if we’ve crossed some kind of threshold, and now we have some kind of perception that there is a “system,” like rules of a game, by which we can systemetize the forward push of human ingenuity. The fact is that there is no “system.” As Krauthammer says, we should certainly not trivialize skirting of the pontential for peril that a maker of a product has indeed ascertained to be present. On the other hand, it would be refreshing to see our culture once again nod admiringly in the presence of boldness and robust belief that invention basically leads to good.
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02.13.10
Posted in Auto industry, Culture, Diciness of Western civilization's survival prospects, Europe, Food, Human freedom at 4:14 pm by Administrator
In the course of musing on the Audi ad that ran during the Super Bowl, Mark Steyn coins a new term: “Conformo-radicalism.” And, no, it’s not a contradiction.
There’s another ad along the same lines that grates on me to no end. It’s for some butter-substitute product. It starts out showing a throng of fit and beaming Danes sashaying down a Copenhagen street. The voiceover says that Denmark recently banned transfats nationwide. Then the ad sells the product, winding up with a message along the lines of “We’re as smart as those with-it Danes!”
Now it’s hip to piss away your freedom.
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01.29.10
Posted in Auto industry, Energy policy, Socialism at 1:42 pm by Administrator
Henry Payne of The Washington Examiner takes a stroll through this year’s Detroit auto show and notices some interesting phenomena.
Telling indeed is San Fran Nan’s response to a reporter’s solicitation for a response to Ford being the only US car company to turn a profit this year. She sniffed about how commendable it was that Ford lived up to its “responsibility,” whatever that means in her warped totalitarian mind.
Consider the new grant money the broke state of Michigan is going to dole out for more electric-car research.
Then read Payne’s last couple of paragraphs, which have to do with the actual consuming public eschewing the utopian hooey and flocking to the section of the show where the petroleum-powered normal-people cars were.
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09.08.09
Posted in Auto industry, Free-market Economics, Multiculturalism and diversity at 1:45 pm by Administrator
In the inaugural quarterly issue of National Affairs, which has its roots in The Public Interest, there is an important, timely and well-articulated article by University of Chicago Booth School of Business professor Luigi Zingales entitled “Capitalism After the Crisis.”
Among the noteworthy points he makes are -
- the fact that holding lobbyists up as some kind of whipping-boys for free-market economics is a red herring. Lobbyists are motivated to push for advantage for their particular industries or interest groups, rather than see that an absolutely unobstructed arena of free choice exists for all
- the fact that part of America’s exceptionalism is rooted in the aspect of its character we call inventiveness. We make things and our fellows see how those things better their lives. This is how our great enterprises have grown.
- the fact that those great enterprises fall prey to bureaucratic heavy-handedness, which diminishes the inventiveness which was at the very root of their greatness
- the fact that the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley act, which repealed some of the most restrictive aspects of the 1931 Glass-Steagall Act was in fact not responsible for the financial crash last year
A great read. It ends with a strong note of caution about our current juncture.
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08.03.09
Posted in Auto industry, My Other Thrill-Packed Site at 5:35 pm by Administrator
This morning I came across the latest NYT column by Paul Krugman on Real Clear Politics. (I’m starting to get annoyed with Real Clear Politics. I understand that the premise of their daily lineup of columns and editorials is designed to be a cross-section of thought on current issues, as in, “We’re just sayin’ this is the spectrum of what’s out there,” so maybe my problem is annoyance at the mediocrity of so much of what passes for substantive thought on matters of public policy. Seems like lately the daily lineup is getting a bit skewed toward the likes of Krugman, E.J. Dionne, the Center for American Progress and the like.) The column’s overall theme was that Wall Street needs a good beat-down, but he hinges the whole thing on this high-frequency trading phenomenon. I smelled a red herring.
So it was with heightened interest that I then came across Marginal Revolution’s take on high-frequency trading. Upshot: It doesn’t seem to be among the top 100 ethical problems to be found in the world of finance.
(If you’re really interested in Krugman’s piece, Marginal Revolution links to it.)
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06.10.09
Posted in Auto industry, Culture war heroes, Education, Law dhimmitude at 1:38 pm by Administrator
The Federal Reserve and the SEC – with plenty of input from Treasury Secretary Geithner (and you can be sure TCM) – is going to issue “overarching guidelines” to “Wall Street and beyond” for executive pay. The “overarching” part is to let you know that this is above and beyond such measures being applied specifically to TARP-fund recipients.
The first level on which to roar opposition to this arrogation of totalitarian power is the moral one. This is wrong. Never mind for the moment the theoretical and prgamatic reasons why it won’t work. We’ll get to those momentarily. For now, let us be clear that this is wrong. We’re talking about privately owned organizations. What they pay anybody on their staffs, from CEOs to floor-sweepers, is the business of the owners. No one else. If this gets obscured, or becomes subject to ridicule, we are in trouble beyond anything we’ve ever seen.
Now, let us proceed to why it won’t work. For one thing, you’ll drive away the nation’s best talent. Who wants to work somewhere where you know your pay will be capped? People will quit studying fields such as finance and management, trying to find those ever-fewer areas of human endeavor still beyond the reach of the totalitarian state. You’ll then see other countries get a clue and de-regulate their investment and banking sectors and become leaders while e become back-benchers (and become even more in hoc, as we are now to China).
The main point, though, is that this is about as egregious an affront to human liberty as we’ve seen so far out of this regime, and that’s saying something.
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03.24.09
Posted in Auto industry, Culture war heroes, Education, Energy policy, Law dhimmitude, Pakistan at 5:17 pm by Administrator
Geithner’s up on Capitol Hill, pressing the case for the federal government to be able to seize non-bank financial firms it deems too big to fail.
For anyone who ever thought BN gratuitiously indulged in hyperbole or went over the top with dire asessments of what the modern-day Democratic Party in the United States was all about, we have come to the juncture about which this blog and many another voice of freedom tried to warn.
UPDATE: This transformation is gaining momentum by the hour. Now Freedom-Hater Senator Cardin of Maryland wants to give the nation’s newspapers non-profit status. Spews the kind of candy-coated poison about how they “serve the public interest” and how their “industry is dying” (cry me a river) sure to appeal to the sprout-munching fluff brains who go in for that common-good hooey.
Where to start with what’s idiotic and dangerous aout this? Shall we start with the government playing favorites with yet another industry? How about what happens to our national discourse and our culture when all our media has the tone and agenda of NPR and PBS? How about what happens to those who currently own the nation’s newspapers? How about the “too-big-to-fail” meme becoming further entrenched? How about how papers such as The Washington Times would fare?
There is a swath of America that still understands what it means to be free and still chrishes that freedom. It’s not going to sit idly by forever.
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11.25.08
Posted in Auto industry, Ideology at 11:21 pm by Administrator
A mugging by reality being, of course, the transformative experience involved in the definition of a neoconservative put forth by pioneer neocon Irving Kristol (father of Weekly Standard editor Bill), himself a former Marxist.
Larry Kudlow is not alone in his glowing assessment of the economic team Obama is assembling.
Along with the tone of being encouraged, though, sources such as Kudlow acknowledge that it remains to be seen how all this translates into legislative relations once the conversation along the length of Pennsylvania Avenue turns to levels of taxation. So many options for limiting human freedom and confiscating Americans’ hard-earnd money: to look like a fairly sharp and wealth-friendly guy and let the W tax cuts run their natural course and sputter out when scheduled, or stay more true to the Fher promise: repeal those evil, oppressive cuts right away, or – Heaven forfend! – betray the base and do what makes imminent sense to anybody with half a brain and institute yet deeper cuts in taxes on income, corporate earnings, and capital gains?
And on the spending side? So many beleagured elements of our recession-ravaged society. How to decide the most deserving of bailouts? Then there are those crises the FHers have been ranting about for decades: health care, the global climate, infrastructure.
Are they crises or not? If so, we don’t spare the largesse just because we’re in this icky financial meltdown, do we?
That debate will come up, however grown up the members of this economic team. The Chicago Marxist will be the moderator, given that he’s now the boss of the whole shootin’ match.
Where will he personally come down on the whole deal?
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11.12.08
Posted in Auto industry at 5:54 pm by Administrator
From the get-go of this bailout approach to the frozen-credit debacle which has now metastasized into a general meltdown, it was clear that a basic truth would soon manifest itself – that being that when desperate people smell easy money, they stampede toward it.
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09.25.08
Posted in Auto industry, Culture, Free-market Economics, National Security, Radicalism in high places at 3:42 pm by Administrator
As of this writing, congressional leaders of both parties, both presidential candidates, and economic advisors are meeting in Washington to discuss the bailout plan W outlined in last night’s address to the nation.
The idea is that it will restore the financial system’s health quickly enough that the American taxpayer will realize a return on its outlay of $700 billion. Sounds good, but also quite iffy.
It doesn’t look like a purely free-market solution to this is in the offing, since this catastrophe has its roots in a fuzzy melding of the public and private sectors. That said, I hope and pray there will be a camp within the assemblage meeting with W that will press for the way forward that comes the very closest possible to such a plan.
As every grown-up knows, the other side of the freedom coin is responsibility. Underneath the layers of bundled mortgages and deals and cleverly wrought instruments for growing wealth and government guarantees against failure lie actual exchanges of money for for promises to pay it back at a given interest rate. Someone said, “Yes, I’ll loan you this amount of money on terms involving this amount of time for paying it back at this rate of return,” and someone else saying, “Okay, is this the dotted line where I sign?” If either of them thought it unlikely that he or his organization could make good on what they were freely obligating themselves to, they’re not particularly wise individuals, are they?
Now, compound that by all the subsequent operators who saw home prices rising and said, “Hey, man, even if a lot of these loans are risky, bundling them together in this favorable market is a cool way to make some cheddar!” We have to presume that the folks on this level understood the degree of risk in what they were doing as well. Don’t we?
It looks to me like our culture’s zeal for ever-more slickly designed gizmos, with ever-more bells and whistles – think iphones and Blackberries and voice-activated GPS devices – permeated the financial world. The main difference, it seems to me, is that microchips and plastic and steel and aluminum aren’t inherently risky substances. You combine them into this product or that, and you can rely on them to do their thing as what they are. Mortgages and other loans, in contrast, may, shall we say, decay over time. They may fall prey to slow payment or even default. This makes designing super-fancy financial products out of them kind of a shaky proposition.
So what I hope gets trumpeted loudly at the gathering in Washington today is this: Let’s determine to the best of our ability who is responsible for each of the various aspects of this mess and hold them accountable as much as possible and minimize the burden to the American taxpayer, who needs to see his or her overall burden reduced anyway, as much as possible and as soon as possible. Free people keeping their own hard-earned money is the real key to moving pst this perilous moment.
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