It was just my brother and I out visiting a popular men’s store yesterday. He was in town for carpal tunnel therapy and stopped by after to chat and take a short break before his 70 mile drive back home. So off to the men’s store (commonly known as Northern Tool) to do in person research of their corn burning heaters. Yes, it’s spring and an odd time of year to be looking at heating equipment. That is except he experienced an unusually expensive heating season and with the current economics next fall and winter could be more. Plus this could be the best time of year to buy this type of equipment. But mostly it was a good excuse to get into a popular men’s store and daydream.
While on our way the conversation moved to the resignation of GM President Rick Wagoner. My brother made it clear he looked at it more as the head of the US government firing the head of a private US corporation. There was banter back and forth which in the end indicated we agree that even though it wasn’t quite President Obama firing Mr. Wagoner it could be viewed that way. Especially in light of statements from the administration and legislative bodies about what demands will be made of GM in order to receive bailout funds. To paraphrase my brother, it will be more like the government owns GM rather than the shareholders. To which I mused it sounds as though it will go from being called General Motors to Government Motors. The simple fact is if your business is subsidized by the government it will be tightly regulated by the government and you will not be allowed to manage it as you believe best.
He drove along while neither of us spoke for a couple blocks. I broke the silence and said ’so this is where we’ve gotten to, the government can now remove corporate heads, subsidize with huge amounts of capital, regulate to suit the whims and fancies of the government and put enough propaganda out there to convince around 50% of the populace it is being done for our benefit. Welcome to communism brother, you’re going to love it’.
We shared an uneasy laugh before he responded that it’s a good thing we are old enough we won’t probably be around to see the full implementation of it here. Gosh, I guess I’m hoping he’s right about that. But then I recall telling him less than two years ago we’re looking at a major economic breakdown. His sincere and repeated response then was this is the US, we’re the strongest and richest nation and we’ll be able to fix it. He just got laid off from his job and he isn’t nearly so confident of that now.
In the meantime I’m going to keep driving my 2000 Ford pickup and if I’m alive still in 2015 I’ll see what the new Government Motors vehicles have to offer. Boy, is that scary or what?
