Kyle Brady: Blog » Economy

The Re-Privatization of the American Economy [OpEd]

Kyle Brady — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:05:05 +0000

The modern American economy is a tangled web of corporations, various other company structures, and government financed institutions that weave among themselves and allow the public to interact with them on varying levels of inclusion – the benefit to being a corporation, after all, is being publicly traded on the stock exchange. For an increasingly worrisome number of companies, the goal is to incorporate and become public in order to reap ever greater rewards, choosing to focus on goals that will please investors en masse rather than their core products or internal structure.

For a financially safer and more secure future, this must change.

Private companies, including corporations, have legal obligations to their shareholders to perform well, just as public corporations do, but a key difference is in both who, and how many, the shareholders are. Public corporations have to cater to the whims of a very large and fickle market that’s manipulated by financial institutions for their own gains, while private corporations, or other structures like limited liability companies and partnerships, have a substantially smaller set of shareholders or investors that are often the result of personal relationships. Most importantly, private companies need only perform well enough to continue to exist and satisfy their investors, rather than continually attempting to post record profits every quarter – this can result in considerable investor leniency, market tolerance, and flexibility.

Whether these private companies are family owned or run by a group of business partners is irrelevant – it is not necessary to become a publicly traded company to be a financially successful enterprise, which a long list of examples supports. For when a company becomes focused on increased earnings rather than product quality, employee happiness/compensation, or ethical behavior, volatile behaviors begin to appear: the replacement of executives due to a single slow quarter, short term market focus, and mass layoffs.

This is not to say, however, that public corporations are inherently evil, although they often me be. There exist public corporations, theoretically, that treat their employees well, have a long term focus, and do not dwell on the daily gains or losses of their stock value, but this is far too rare of an occurrence. The current economic strife was largely caused by a lack of vision and ethics in an interest to perform extraordinarily well over short periods, without regard for the future – these behaviors are despicable, and yet they linger in the halls of most of the well-known American corporate structures. As if proof was necessary for such a claim, investment banks are seeing record profits and wishing to pay out, once again, exorbitant bonuses for short term performance, less than a year after being rescued by taxpayer money.

The solution should be quite obvious: de-emphasizing the public corporation in favor of private companies with varying incorporation structures. Neither President Obama nor Congress could likely affect such a change through legislation or decree, so it will have to come from within the private sector by those who care about the nation’s economic future. There is no true correlation between corporate success and being publicly traded, even on a global scale, so it seems entirely absurd to assume this practice is necessary - the process of an Initial Public Offering (IPO) is akin to enslaving the company itself at the hands of millions of money-hungry individuals who do not honestly care for the company’s success or integrity, but only for their own financial gain.

If such a change is to come, it will be slow and quiet, unti America will one day realize that their economy has been re-privatized, taken far away from the woes of the stock exchange, and the country is substantially more stable than in decades before. It is incumbent upon the young and future business leaders to think carefully and fully about their company’s status and structure, not to mention long-term future, rather than searching for the fastest way to become wealthy.

Because that’s exactly what landed the world in such dire straits.

The Marginalization of North Korea [OpEd]

Kyle Brady — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:05:07 +0000

North Korea, Kim Jong-Il specifically, is known for its blustery antics in the world theater, and the past few months have not been unique. The anti-Western rhetoric and threats of war tend to come at times when North Korea needs something it can’t provide for itself: food, money, or other forms of aid. The country itself is very poor, and the people outside of the military have a restricted and stringent existence, even compared to other totalitarian regimes.

Theirs is a culture of extreme disinformation where the United States is an “imperialist regime” interested in adding their country to a roster of conquered peoples, any so-called “journalism” is state sponsored and controlled, and their military might is both considerable and formidable. In reality, Kim Jong-Il has succeeded in only embarrassing himself militarily, proving time and time again anything more than short range missiles are beyond their technological reach, especially after having a satellite launch fail spectacularly in the public eye. Still the tirades against the American way of life continue, most recently celebrating the anniversary of the Korean War while openly threatening to bring war to the Western World – the American military believes a long-range missile may be launched towards Hawaii on July 4th as “test”, and is acting proactively no matter how laughable the threat.

In the past, sanctions have been imposed only half-heartedly, as North Korea toys with the idea of nuclear weaponry and the sale of such munitions to other unfriendly parties, with aid eventually being given in exchange for concessions – likely what they wanted in the first place. This time, however, things may be different: China is actively decrying the actions of their Korean neighbor. China and Russia have long given North Korea the blind eye, with Russia often encouraging their communist brethren – but China is now interacting heavily with this problem country in terms of trade, and perhaps due to extra scrutiny from outside eyes, are interested more in their own red state future than needling bothersome Americans via proxy.

All seemed to be progressing as best as could be expected, considering the circumstances, until last week – the United Nations was once again criticizing North Korea, America and her allies declared embargoes as well as intentions to inspect ships if necessary, and, as previously stated, China publicly sided with the rest of the world. Kim Jong-Il had the attention he wanted, but perhaps not the intended results since no aid was forthcoming. But due to a slew of celebrity deaths in America, Michael Jackson in particular, and the potential revolution in Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea largely faded from the public eye.

This is, as shown by numerous occasions throughout modern history, quite dangerous. All out war is not to be desired with the DPRK: the Western Allies are decidedly superior in military prowess, and could likely end any conflict via air support only, but disaster would undoubtedly ensue as South Korea, Japan, and potentially even China receive military strikes in one form or another, destabilizing the entire region. The DMZ in Korea remains a particularly hostile location, but armed conflict hasn’t been seen in decades despite almost constant threats - the U.N., American Presidents, and other international leaders have all acquiesced to demands of aid for fear of military retaliation over the years, all at times where North Korea had appeared to fade from all modern global relevance.

Once again, the DPRK seems to have faded quietly into the political background, only a few short days after threatening war on one of the most powerful countries in the world. This, perhaps, is not the best place for the global media to be placing such stories, since Kim Jong-Il is nothing if not attention hungry. Less than a week remains until July 4th, where actions will speak louder than words – will North Korea launch a weapon, targeting a region within the borders of the United States? If so, will such a launch even be successful, thanks to their proven three-state rocket booster failures?

Time will tell whether or not the ailing dictator will try to be remembered with a memorable final-days military conflict against his most hated enemy, but America is ready – it’s not as if such an attack would be a surprise, either calendrically or technologically.

The Decimation of a Generation’s Future [OpEd]

Kyle Brady — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:00:12 +0000

My generation, which I think of as children of the 80's and early 90's, is supposed to be the future. We're supposed to be the generation that guides computing and technology to the edge of physics; the generation that is widely thought to be the first to see civilian space travel and the beginning of the colonization of space; the generation that many are depending on to solve the many global problems like hunger, poverty, and inhuman regimes. Not to mention being heralded as the future conquerors of sickness and disease, along with a host of other issues we're told will be eradicated in our lifetimes.

But there's a problem: if current trends continue, all of this will be impossible. The even scarier fact is that we may be the first generation in decades (centuries?) to see a reversal of intellectual progress.

Take a look at the state of the Western world. Over the last two decades, at least, wheels have been set in motion that are all but impossible to stop, and the situation is only worsening. For the sake of familiarity and semi-simplicity, I'm going to focus on America - but the following applies just as easily to the state of the Western world as a whole.

Politics

One of the central, and continuing, problems is politics. Not the idea of politics, nor the institution, but the people that have come to infest the system over the long arms of Time: rich, old, white men are elected to Congress and abuse their powers; lobbyists for shady corporate interests largely control the discussions and decisions of said Congressionals; the only issues discussed or addressed properly, at every level of government, are those that will win a re-election or bring in campaign financing... the list goes on, and it's not news to those who pay attention. For the last twenty years, this has worked for most issues simply because there were no major crises or crucial decision points - besides the "war on terrorism", the country has only had to address trivial issues.

Within the last year we've seen crisis after crisis, a systemic failure of Old World industries and ideas that have caused cascading problems. But when the time comes for Congress to help the American people they claim to represent, they banter over party politics, point fingers, and go crusading over the most useless of points - every time. Even appointing a rather uninteresting and uncontroversial individual for a Supreme Court position takes months, thanks to the arbitrary opposition and accusation.

Furthermore, these same politicians spend government money on pet projects for their financial backers, the largest and most pervasive of which are so-called energy ("oil") companies, the healthcare industry, Big Tobacco, and copyright terrorists like the RIAA or MPAA. But the real issues get pushed around (as seen by the bailout process), or ignored completely. Education funding continues to be cut while salaries and benefits for many government employees rise, and specific educational programs are discontinued to make room for activities like hunting down marijuana growers or prosecuting 10 yr. old children for allegedly downloading a song or two off the internet.

Those that are elected to represent us do not resemble, at all, the demographics of our country or interests. In fact, they are more akin to the million-dollar executives of corporations than they are the average citizen, and their actions show this. Issue after issue proves to be another failure for the interests of the people, for which the only option seems to be waiting for the current set of politicians to be eventually replaced by the next generation - gay marriage is a perfect example of this. My generation is largely indifferent, at worst, about the issue, but it has yet to be legalized: the older generation, and a religious fanatic subset (more on them later) are preventing this.

But politics are just the beginning.

Intelligence

There was a time when it may not have been "cool" to be a nerd (unlike today), but intelligence as a whole was valued. Parents watched over their children to make sure homework was completed, school teachers pushed their students (instead of catering to the lowest common denominator), and graduating from college was actually an achievement (aka "difficult"). Books were read, theatre was intelligent, and issues were discussed among ordinary people.

No longer is this true.

The public school system caters to the dumbest of the class, aiming only to get more funding than the year previous - essentially teaching for the tests. A common topic of discussion among ordinary people is the previous night's episode of a reality TV show or brain-numbing "drama", rather than world news or even politics. Entertainment itself has degraded, with the majority of TV showcasing idiots and their adventures, and plays are no longer witty satire, instead choosing to produce stage versions of movies or books.

Even more frightening is that books are not considered a valid form of entertainment any longer - which shouldn't be a surprise, given the average reading level of today's people. Instead of reading news from the source via the Internet, newspapers, or slightly-biased publications like TIME or Newsweek, people choose to watch CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC, where the goal is not to inform you, but to make advertising money.

Semi-legitimate outlets like CNN or MSNBC focus largely on American politics, with a sidedish of celebrity news and the occasional sensationalized humanity piece - not exactly the real issues of our society. Considerably worse is the insult on intelligence known as Fox News, parading crazy and irrational opinion pieces as news and fact - with many people not able to differentiate. The BBC does a better job than American news outlets by an order of magnitude, but the real gem is NPR, where they provide both views/sides to a story and feature issues the American public typically don't even know exist.

Perhaps worse is the perception of intelligence - nerds may have been finally accepted by the general population, but any show of intelligence outside of a mob-ruled norm is seen as elitism. We don't need to crucify the intelligent members of our society, let alone force them to make excuses for their knowledge and insight. But this social perception has trickled-down for long enough that high school children no longer are interested in math and science (a problem seen during the beginning of the Cold War and the Apollo-era), and are instead interested in banking, business, lawyers, and sports. Need proof? Just look at college graduates - there has been a recent rise in sciences and engineering, but the net result is still negative. The majority of graduates from universities and four-year colleges are focused in areas of business, finance/economics, or pre-law. Not engineering, pre-med, or the sciences.

President Obama would like to fix this, and has made a few small babysteps towards funding such an educational retooling, but government spending is just the beginning. As Intel has so appropriately stated in their recent commercials, "rockstars" of the programming/engineering world are not like John Mayer or Axl Rose, but they're nonetheless important... something our society needs to quickly relearn. Instead of idolizing a mediocrely-talented female popstar that gained success via a series of TV-based exploitation, we should be idolizing, or at least recognizing the brilliance of, our scientists and engineers that continue to push us into the technological future.

But just being interested in science or engineering isn't enough... our economy needs to be organized to once again support such endeavours.

Economy

Countless American business icons have created small business ownership as part of the American Dream for many modern citizens, including the part where "small business" becomes "large conglomerate". This is not a bad thing, especially given that America is essentially a long string of innovators, inventors, and entrepreneurs over our short history. Where it takes a turn, however, is the recent focus on banking, retail, and food services as the industries of interest.

Most of our modern society is based on complex electronics, and yet many people seem to disregard this fact. Why should we care about being able to implement, maintain, and innovate the very basis of our lives? I hope you caught the sarcasm.

Silicon Valley used to be a bastion of computer and electronics excellence, as little as ten years ago. Nowadays, it's a mess of imported immigrants, manufacturing/production outsourcing, and short-sighted idealism, where profits, IPOs, and trendy acronyms are more important than true innovation. And it's not alone.

Billions of dollars have been spent in "saving" industries, only to have them fail at a slower pace - this is investing in the past, not the future. The stock market only facilitates the problem, punishing companies that dare to take risks and don't manage to post continual profit gains.

And, as companies continue to fall like dominoes, no-one thinks to question the system itself.

Capitalism

Capitalism is a brilliant idea in theory, but true laissez-faire capitalism is likely to never work - this is something we're discovering only now, after a century of work and a decade of deregulation. It is a mix of appropriate government regulation and capitalism that would be most likely to work (look to the era of FDR for a precedent), but the country is loathe to move in this direction.

Deregulation of industries has resulted in unadulterated chaos: telcos have free reign to largely operate as they wish; broadband providers of all types filter traffic, while claiming they don't, and operate de facto local monopolies; a privatized for-profit health care system refuses to provide the most basic of services to those that pay for them; a banking system built on trust and basic intelligence has collapsed on itself thanks to greed and tunnel-vision.

These are facts, and no-one will dispute that they have occurred. However, in all the discussion of our current state, people are reluctant to discuss the regulation of industries. President Obama has mentioned it in terms of healthcare, and the FCC has expressed interest in regulating broadband+telcos, but the conservatives are immediately lashing against it on principle - despite that it is an attempt to reverse our recent declines.

Regulation across all industries is neither appropriate nor feasible - our current stance on the precipice is a combination of deregulation and corporate greed, but uneven regulation is just as much to blame. The heavy regulation of certain industries, and the complete disregard of others by the federal government, causes a dangerous climate of government (non)intervention.

As an example, heavier regulation of manufacturing could bring untold jobs back to the United States in countless industries, where they currently reside in China, Japan, India, and South Korea. This would, almost overnight, solve the production outsourcing problem.

But the debt being accrued at an alarming rate to "fix" what is solidly broken is going to prevent this.

Debt

Count up the money spent within the last 10 years, look at the income of the country as a whole, and then take a look at American debt - both federal and personal. How are we supposed to repay this?

Personal debt is usually assumed to be paid off sometime before the debtor's death, despite the credit revolution being relatively new and having no precedent. But the reality is that children (my generation) are going to likely be stuck with their parents debt after they die, adding to our own personal debt accrued by going to school, living out of our means, or any number of other sources.

The federal debt isn't that different - it's not going to be paid back quickly, and it's going to require taxes staying as-is, if not increasing (rather than being cut) for a number of years. The money is being dispensed like candy to small children, and it's being done so by a group that may not even be alive 15 years from now - let alone be concerned about dealing with the debt.

By being in such massive debt, there are going to be consequences. We've already seen the beginnings of this at the state-level, as California goes broke and will not be able to operate independently for much longer. What happens when the federal government, the glue that holds the states together, falls into a faulty relationship and has to question its very existence?

Programs are going to be cut, funding to states lessened, and our dreams shattered, since all of history shows us the lawmakers will protect themselves and their interests first, and be concerned about the general welfare of the population at a later point. NASA, the ultimate embodiment of American frontierism, is already on the chopping block, with massive budget cuts and restrictions likely coming down the pipe - despite being a crucial part of our future, both in terms of space exploration and technological innovation.

And it will likely be a vicious cycle. Funding cuts results in less interest and progress, creating less gains in a given area, which, in turn, will result in more funding cuts.

However, money and intellectualism are not the only worries.

Religion

Religion is not an inherently bad concept, since it helps group people together (an evolutionary survival tactic) and gives hope/relief in some situations. But it can be a devastating force, as the Dark Ages have shown us.

For a time, it appeared that religion had peaked and was on the way out - as the previous century progressed, people became more concerned with themselves, rationality, and society than with the metaphysical. TIME Magazine even ran a feature on "the death of religion". Sadly, that period has passed, giving way to a recent resurgence in religion.

Christian, Muslim, Hindu... the classification and specifics are irrelevant, the important point is that religion can get in the way of intellectual pursuits, and, when encouraged, can eclipse it. As the need for political correctness grew through the last few decades, religious tolerance took on an extreme definition, where the mere criticism of religion was not allowed - even when the religious were allowed to criticize non-believers or those of competing faiths.

This has led us to our current situation where whole states, not just individuals, are attempting to pass off their beliefs as science, contradicting fact and solid theory with creation stories and a "we have a right to believe what we want" mentality. We've seen where this road leads before, and it needs to be stopped.

The Dark Ages was a period of extreme Christianity, and it discounted all but the most basic of scientific tenets. Islam has gone through such a period a few times in their own history, and has resulted in such extremes in portions of the modern Middle East - one needs only to examine the ideals of any Muslim-oriented extremist organization to discover this.

Islam and Christianity both laud values of selflessness and a number of other likable human qualities, but can quickly eschew their own value sets for extremist actions. Religion has a place, and that place is outside of politics, outside of science, and outside of a learning environment - especially for highly impressionable children.

Unless something changes, the Evangelical Christians, and other such high intensity believers, will win their war thanks to political correctness and an aversion to criticize another's beliefs. Their winning this war is not going to result in a good situation for any other than the ignorant, as science will quickly become pseudo-science where the "theory" ("we made it up") of Creationism sits alongside the theory ("we just don't want to call it fact yet") of Evolution. It will eventually bleed into politics and government, turning our mostly-agnostic government into a full blown theocracy.

Does this sound beneficial to our future? A future that is going to be science dependent? No. And any concessions to the hardcore religious, of any type, in a scientific, political, or government arena will ultimately be just one more step towards our imminent doom.

Division

The final major issue contributing to the decimation of our future is the gross divisions appearing in our country on a geographical basis. The reasons behind the divisions run the gamut from politics to religion to race, but the results are clear.

America has long had internal strife and division visible in specific locations, and as one crisis follows another, they are quickly reappearing. Even though the Civil War ended, much of the South has harbored feelings otherwise, and the concerns, interests, and divisions are strikingly similar to the ones Abraham Lincoln had to address.

We have successfully elected America's first black President, Barack Obama, much to the horror of the Southern states. The predominant Republican stronghold exists in the South, which was stringently anti-Obama... and has refused to let it go, continuing to attack with nonsense items, and encourage extremist behaviors, even violence.

And yet other portions of the country, like the West and the Northeast, are strongly Democrat and polar opposite to the Republicans on most issues. Only the Midwest isn't strongly in favor of one side or another, and merely from political party associations, lines can be drawn to divide the country into four distinct sections.

Now consider where the majority of the vocal Christians reside, along with the battle against Creationism, and a host of other issues. A unified country after 9/11 has quickly become an association of entities that are strikingly different, only a few years later, where many residents of one location do not like those from another, let alone want to exchange and discuss ideas in a civil and rational manner.

America is supposed to be a country grounded in freedoms and intelligence, but these divisions are working against us. Just as important as the other major issues, America needs to stay unified in order to not devolve into lesser, poorer states ... the former U.S.S.R. was an abject lesson in deunification.

Conclusion

The conclusion is this: America is facing a host of crushing issues, all of which have to be navigated carefully, appropriately, and properly in order for us to not only continue to exist as a free-thinking, independent, and powerful society, but to have a future at all for the younger generations that is not bleak and depressing.

President Obama, I believe, is intelligent enough to recognize this, and has already mentioned a few of these issues in terms of our future. But it will take more than the polices and appointments of our current President to do what needs to be done: corporations need to act appropriately; government needs to work for and with the people, instead of for the highest bidder; science needs to be once again emphasized and encouraged as the predominant, rational method of thinking.

I've made my case, America. Now step up.

Why Congress Needs a Reboot [Old Content]

Kyle Brady — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:48:46 +0000

I'm sure you've heard of all the in-fighting and bullshit that's been going on in the last week or so over in D.C.

But it gets better.

I don't personally agree with another huge check cut by the government to give people money, because this is something that will solve itself fairly quickly if people stop being stupid, but the whole process has truly frustrated me.

Take a look at what got "cut" from the bill, courtesty of CNN.

My first question is: WHY ARE THOSE IN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Congress loves to add "pork" to bills, which has always annoyed me, and this seems to be no exception. Even when they're crying about the cost of the bill, they add stuff to it. This makes sense. If I ever meet a Congressman, I'm going to, in a totally nonviolent way, slap him silly because what's more important?

"Fixing" America so we can continue as a great nation

Lining your own pockets and those of your supporting groups

I'm pretty sure it's #1, although many Congressional shinyheads may disagree.

My second question is: If they cut ALL THIS, what ELSE is in there?

I'd like to know what percentage of "pork" got cut from the bill, and, probably more importantly, what's left. Are we spending $100m to give NASCAR 10 years to improve fuel efficiency? Or maybe $33m to give oil companies tax breaks?

Something tells me that what they cut was either "the lesser of two evils" or things that were too outlandish to pass anyways, for the most part (we'll get to the exceptions in a second).

My third question is: Excuse me, but I thought this was an economic stimulus package?

Maybe I'm misguided, but when I heard "economic stimulus package", I assumed that meant giving money to small businesses to smooth things over, sending checks out to individuals that pay taxes (like Bush's did), and helping to foster a new era of growth in what will be the next generation of "driving forces" for the economy.

But this is apparently not what Congress is concerned with. They're concerned with giving money to organizations that probably already have it, tax breaks to those who needs it less than your average American, and a whole litany of more crap.

My fourth question is: Why did some of these get cut, you dumb motherfuckers?

In a time where space exploration and development is more crucial then ever, NASA gets budget cuts. And when someone (God save the Queen!) adds some pork to this bill that actually might be useful, like giving NASA a "bonus" that would trickle down to it's contractors and subcontractors... it gets cut.

And the NASA earmark isn't the only one. There's a few, so let me list them for you:

NASA

Broadband

NIST

Aeronautics

Exploration

Cross Agency Support

School Construction

Higher Education Construction

Don't those sound like things you'd like to have money sent to? Put that list together and you end up with:

more money for science and space, NASA included

a government that works together slightly better

money for a better education system, which in turn would generate "tomorrow's" American businesses

broadband growth that not only creates better access, but would institute Net Neutrality clauses (not mentioned in CNN)

The total cost of those specific items cut comes to $22.15b. Now that sounds like alot of money, but when you consider it would have been part of a $950b package, it comes to only 2% of the cost of the package.

Two percent that could have made a real difference in both the economy and America's waning intelligence in certain sectors of the country.

My fifth, and final question, is: What the hell?

What it really comes down to is whether or not this money is going to be spent ever so wisely as the bank bailout was (search Google for "banks, bailout, planes" or "banks, bailout, bonuses" for more details). Because if this has all the intelligence that the bank bailout had, we're fucked as a country.

We can't afford to keep propping up failing industries and throwing money at those who already have it. America is already massively in debt, and none of this is helping. Like I said previously, I'm completely at odds with the idea of bailouts and stimulus packages, because people need to learn to fend for themselves [see "The End of Democracy" for why].

But if Congress is going to ignore the voices of those of us smart enough to know it's a bad idea, then they need to do it right. Because we'll only have one chance at "fixing" this... if America hasn't turned around, with no more epic failures of industry, by the end of Obama's first term of office, we may never recover.

Something tells me America will cease to be a single, united, and unified country when the money runs out and the supplies run low. There's already talk about fractures in the country.

Those can quickly become fault lines when the conditions are right.

Bailouts: An Epidemic [Old Content]

Kyle Brady — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:42:43 +0000

Remember my thoughts on the auto-industry bailout? One of my main concerns was that once you reach a certain point, you're going to end up in a "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" situation.

Well, I hate to say "I told you so", but... I TOLD YOU SO!

There are now three separate entities/industries wanting bailouts from the Federal Government:

Individual States

The Porn Industry

Real Estate Developers

And I'm sure this is only the beginning. Health insurance is rumored to be the next whining crybaby, and there's a whole plethora of people we haven't heard from yet.

Phone companies like Verizon Wireless? "We suck and are dying" companies like Yahoo!?

Who knows, maybe they're next.

The End of Democracy [Old Content]

Kyle Brady — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:20:59 +0000

Game over, America. As of today, American Democracy + Capitalism is over. It's been fun, it's been nice... but it's time to throw in the towel and call it it what it is.

Because you're no longer a populist democracy when you do the opposite of what most of the intelligent people in your country want, and it's not capitalism/"a free market" when you're doling out obscene amounts of money to companies that are too inept to manage themselves properly.

First was the immensely ridiculous financial bailout, which we've all seen has been used essentially for large bonuses, giant parties (or "sales meetings" as they say), and huge takeovers. And now we have the auto industry bailout.

Why did the "big three" auto makers have financial problems? Yes, the industry went down with the economy. But there's a bigger problem here: they make shoddy products, eschew innovation for excuses and size, and continue to produce products that people are not interested in purchasing.

America's supposed to be a "free market". And that means that if your company is no longer producing attractive products for purchase, or if your management is only interested in how rich they can get, your company fades quietly (or not so) into the night. There's no handouts. Maybe you get bought by another company, but you don't continue to exist on someone else's dime.

People have used the "Millions will be unemployed if they fail! They're too big to fail!" excuse in the auto industry arguments, but that's not even remotely valid. How many people have lost their jobs in the last 6 months, and they haven't even been part of a failing company? They're not getting financial handouts to be able to keep all their employees on the basis of unemployment.

The "big three" should have gone under, or at least filed for bankruptcy - which would have given them a way to operate for some time to get on their feet. Just look at the airlines. And all the unemployed could file a class action lawsuit against the Board of Directors and Executives (CEO, CFO, etc.) for inept management (or whatever the legal equivalent would be), and potentially get a cut of all those large bonuses and salaries they've been getting for years while the company failed but celebrated their corporate fatcats.

Finally, using the markets as an indicator of success is comparable to the Chinese Government saying they successfully ended pollution in Beijing- everyone knows it's a lie, because they're only acting on rose-tinted self interest. As shareholders, these people are investors in the companies, and the companies' continued existence is profitable to them, especially if the stock goes up. But since everyone has their panties in a bunch right now, the temporary relief for these companies gives a glimmer of hope to all those Wall Street suits who've been crying into their glasses of Chardonnay for the last few months.

Yes, not providing this bailout to the auto industry would have likely meant the end of the current American auto production companies. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. There are a number of small companies trying to grow into the mainstream (Tesla Motors, for example), and the foreign companies (Volkswagon, BMW, Toyota, etc.) have been selling more cars to Americans than American companies have...

We could have been on the pinhead of revolution in the auto industry, thanks to necessity, but those hopes have now been dashed.

Get ready for another 20 years of crappy American cars attempting to dominate the industry, and spending thousands of dollars on gasoline a year.