There are many companies that have, or could develop, the capacity to deliver mail in the United States (UPS, Fed Ex, etc), but yet no one has. Why? Because the government has declared itself as the only entity allowed to deliver mail. It doesn’t matter to the end user – as long as they get their mail in a reliable and timely fashion, who cares who delivers it? It matters a great deal to the many thousands of government employees who have a stake in how the mail is delivered now. In a free market system, the players have to compete against each other. When the government is also a player, they don’t need to compete with anyone.

All this is a long way of saying that just because the government would suck at making cars doesn’t mean that other car makers will be better off for it.

“Let’s avoid the euphemisms and have the courage of our supercharged Keynesian convictions,” writes Neil, once again stimulating the flow of “free maket ideology gall.” “By nationalizing GM, we can aim the company’s astonishing resources at one of the biggest public-policy problems we have: oil. Restructured and refocused, GM could build green vehicles by the millions in a few years and still have the capacity to build gasoline- and diesel-powered pickups (which we’ll still need) … and maybe even some Corvettes on the side.”

I think you answered your own question in the next paragraph. Ford will be able to compete quite nicely with a mismanaged, politically motivated car maker like Dan Neil is proposing. Just because you make fuel efficient cars of the future doesn’t mean people will want to buy them; something that Mr. Neil doesn’t seem to account for in his analysis.

When the government intervenes in the market, it is usually to protect the weak. The system then cannot work. The weak struggle on, using precious resources that cannot feed the strong. We all lose.

It’s like a well-meaning child who helps a chick by cracking open its egg and letting it out into the world. The chick needs to crack the egg itself, making its own efforts and on its own time. Playing mother hen, when even a hen will not intervene, goes against nature and results in harm not good.

The government cannot help here. Let GM and the others struggle through however they can. If they die, that is life. If they live, so much the better.

I for one think that no company like GM with revenues over $100 billion a year is going to disappear without a trace. Let’s let the market system work – without the government stepping in – and see what emerges.

“Based on the governments ability to build mechanical things, like space craft and weapons cost-effectively, what makes you think that the world is ready for a $200,000 Oldsmobile? I can’t see how this could possibly be a successful strategy.”

“If you lower taxes, you get puppies and kittens and rainbows, and everyone holds hands and sings kumbaya all day long.”

Laughed out loud. Sure would be nice if life were that simple, wouldn’t it?

Harper thinks things are that simple.

Dan Neil is missing a marketing plan, and it’s not Buickman’s “selling” plan, called Return to Greatness. One has to separate the tactical (selling) from the strategic (marketing), something M’sieu LaNeve at GM has not quite figured out in all his years of work. He has one title, does nothing at all to justify it (Marketing) and spends his time sending out selling plans to his poor, be-nighted dealers, who each have 10 times the experience at flogging cars and trucks than LaNeve will ever have.

Making GM into a Federal Company in a country not used to nationalized for-service companies (except the USPS)would be an utter waste of time.

No more to be said.

The best part of all this is how, just a few years back, big business was asking–nay, begging–governments to cut social programs because it would result in lower taxes, which always makes things better. If you lower taxes, you get puppies and kittens and rainbows, and everyone holds hands and sings kumbaya all day long.

And now, tax-provided healthcare is a competitive advantage? Really?

What it comes to, really, is this: rich people don’t want to pay taxes, or pay for employee benefits, or suffer any kind of restriction on their ability to earn more money. Expect the return of indentured servitude (or full-on serfdom) in the next century.

Proposition 2: GM is “very” big

Ergo: GM must not be allowed to fail.

Huh?

This is a bogus argument that he could just as easily applied to Canada. I refer to it as the “free lunch” argument – as in the government comes in a pays for free medical care. FREE, FREE, FREE. Isn’t that wonderful.

Too bad we all know there is no such thing as a free lunch or free medical benefits. The simple fact is the workers in Canada (and Japan, et al) pay for their medical benefits through higher taxes where in the U.S. the company (i.e. shareholders) pay the cost. Assuming Canadian and U.S. autoworkers get similar gross pay, I expect the after tax take home of the Canadian auto worker is less.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Leyland

The problem is GM offered awesome plans that it can no longer afford. Unless the plan is to refuse to let workers bargain for better benefits, a universal health care system wouldn’t have stopped it.

As far as money goes, those companies are paying for their workers health care, the only difference being whether the check goes to the government or to the insurance company.