I am very glad that my original piece has now prompted three responses.  As for why auto jobs are “special,” a few quick points:

1) Manufacturing jobs have a greater multiplier effect than other jobs.

2) America’s economic independence (and ultimately political independence as well) depends on having a strong manufacturing sector, an insight recognized by Washington and Hamilton, who used tariffs to promote American manufacturing.

Bush I’s economic adviser was wrong when he said it didn’t matter whether we made potato chips or silicon chips, just as David Frum is wrong to compare a bailout of the Big Three to a bailout of the Las Vegas casino indsutry.  (Of course, Frum did loudly favor the Wall Street bailout, which is pretty close to casino gaming)

Thanks, Richard.  Speaking of fallacies, your final paragraph is a classic logical one: Just because Obama supports the government-backed loan proposal doesn’t mean that all who support it are supporters of “Obamanomics.”

By the way, I have yet to say that I support the loans, because I’m not sure that I do.  I’ve simply said--repeatedly--that those, like you, who reject the idea out of hand may be missing the bigger picture (as you prove once again in your response, because you still haven’t come to grips with the multiplier effect of industry), and that there needs to be a serious debate about the proposal.

To clarify the point about the multiplier effect: It’s ongoing.  That’s why you can’t simply say, “How many people will be affected?  Great--let’s divide $25 billion up among them.”

That kind of thinking reduces complex economic activity to nothing more than spending.  It’s the equivalent of “stimulus” packages that give each taxpayer another $600 to go blow on junk food.  Once the potato chips are eaten, it’s gone; and the economic ripples of the “stimulus” hardly extend beyond our expanded waistline.

Mr. Spencer,

Perhaps you failed to consider the potential effect of 3 million lost jobs (those that work in or depend upon the “Big 3") in the space of a few months.  We are already teetering on the brink of a deflationary enviroment--what do you think will happen when almost 1% of the total population is is laid off essentially all at once.

Oh, I forgot, they’ll get new jobs .  Probably from all those nice companies that will keep hiring when no one is buying.

Scott,

What I said, explicitly, in my last paragraph is that the 50 billion bailout would be a “part” Obanomics. I’m glad that you’re wary of supporting the bailout, and I hope that you’ll take this into consideration. 

I’m also less of a free-market ideologue than you might believe. As I said in my last post, I’m open to the idea of a universal tariff wall—if we could fund a minimal government through it, have a free, unregulated economy within the borders, and have no income tax and very light corporate taxes. I’m not saying this would be ideal; however, it’s something I’d consider, if people really want to protect existing American industries.

What I hate is the government’s using tax revenue to bailout out bad companies.  This I firmly reject out of hand.

Also, the multiplier effect, with which, you claim, I’ve yet to come to grips, simply means that way too many companies are dependent upon a rotten industry. These people could be much more productive elsewhere.

Also, I thought this was clear, but let me make it so: My “modest proposal” for a gigantic welfare payment to the Midwest is a joke. I don’t like demand-side “stimulus” packages at all. (Why not simply lower everyone’s taxes as opposed to having the Fed print up money and give it to the people, which directly inflates prices as too many dollars are chasing too few goods.)

My point is that as bad as a massive welfare payment would be, it’d still be better than giving more subsidies to the Big Three’s management.

These people could be much more productive elsewhere.

And there we have it--human lives are reduced to productivity.  Man is made for the economy, not the economy for man.

That’s why such human needs as rootedness can be dismissed as mere “sentimentality.” Let’s uproot three million people from their homes in the Midwest, where their families have lived for generations, where their ancestors are buried, and disperse them throughout the country ("elsewhere") where they can be more “productive.”

That’s a pretty damn good way of ensuring that those so uprooted vote Democratic till their dying day.

I’m glad you have “no such qualms” about the anticonservative effects of economic disruption.  Others might ask, though, whether that’s because there are no such effects, or because your “post-paleo” conservatism is post-human, too.

If those 250,000 workers find almost all of their new jobs in the ever-expanding service sector, is it possible that the $25 Billion might have been money well spent, even if the Big 3 remain money-losers?

If we look beyond short term economic efficiencies, it seems there is a tremendous value, in terms of both economic and military security, in making things, rather than in just supplying more services to a citizenry which relies largely on foreign debt to purchase them.  What will happen to our service economy when the foreign credit dries up?  We are getting a small glimpse already, and it is not pretty.

What would happen if in twenty years, when we don’t make anything anymore, foreigners stopped using our management consultants, financiers, lawyers, and marketing firms?  It is not like there is a shortage of smart people in China or Europe.  Who would then drive the domestic spending that supports the service economy?

All that said, I doubt the bailout of the Big 3 is the most effective means of supporting industry in this country. But desiring the preservation of our industrial base is no more mere “sentimentality” than desiring a strong military or well protected border.

Yes we need to subsidize the UAW and the management of the Big Three. These are the people that have caused the mess in the first place. These companies need reorganization in the bankrupcy courts. The labor costs should more rational to modern conditions. The people who work at non union plants in the south make good livings. The money wasted on these loans should be used to pay off the bankrupt pension plans. There is no way these companies can ever be sound under their present cost systems. Obama is going to give these 3 dinosaurs the bailouts, which will be never ending. They will also try to make the southern plants unionized. What do you think a car will cost then? Nobody could aford a car or house if we had continued to use union labor as in the 1950’s. I ought to know I used to run hundreds of unionized constuction workers.. The only work we could compete on was bloated government contracts.

So my grandparents and greatgrandparents from various parts of Old Europe should
never have ventured to America over 100 years ago, uprooted their families where they’d
lived for centuries, not just a couple generations, left commesurate amounts of buried
ancestors in the ground, and dispersed themselves all over this country to START ANEW.
Was all that also ‘post human’??

What a boatload of sentimentalist crap.

Where’s the rugged individualism and pioneer spirit
that conservatives claim to own? Instead it’s bailouts and poor me’s. Pitiful.

While the homebuilding industry employs vast amounts of illegal, Third World aliens, the automobile industry employs Americans.  Thus, retaining the auto industry conserves the nation.  The rapid decline of the homebuilding industry hopefully will rid the country of illegal immigrants.  The nation is awash in slapemup housing; we do not need any more.

Conservatives have reached a juncture where it must be decide whether conservatism means the conservation of a specific people, land and way of life or whether it is an Ayn Rand/Adam Smith/Milton Friedman crap-shoot where nothing is really conserved and culture is offered up on a pyre dedicated to free markets, free trade and absolute free enterprise.

Scott,

First off, last time I checked, all those “rooted” Big Three Michiganders voted en masse for Barack Obama and Jennifer Granholm. So, if you’re goal is to inspire conservatism in the Midwest, I don’t think the propping up of GM is working out too well. 

Secondly, I generally believe that humans like being productive—that is, taking part in profitable or otherwise rewarding lines of work, which include business but also raising families. This is hardly some kind of “post-human,” Orwellian vision. 

Also, Scott, do you really want a situation in which people are not allowed to move around the country in search of better work or to change their jobs? Such a system sounds more like the Soviet Union than a paleoconservative paradise.

Hazlitt’s telegraph operators scenario is a clever construction, but it doesn’t line up with the problems facing U.S. auto workers and their families.  There is difference here in scale.  Janesville and Belvidere, to take two local examples, have thousands of workers living in one metropolitan area.  Their lives, and their impact on the local economy, do not compare with that of a telegraph worker in Dead Horse, South Dakota or a few dozen in Manhattan.

There is also a difference in technology.  The telegraph was replaced.  Automobiles are not being replaced by hovercraft or jetpacks.  It is the industry that is being squeezed out by our trade and tax policies.

You don’t have to live in a guild system (actually, pace economic theorification, no one lives in a “system") to have skilled workers who are also breadwinners (Joe the GM Employee, e.g.).  In the fantasyland of economic theoritizationalism, Joe GM can just get retrained and go out there and find a new job.  In the reality that economic theorumentally ignores or perhaps despises, Joe GM has to bring home his paycheck, feed his family, pay his family’s medical bills, pay his taxes, pay for all of the goods and services that keep non-GM employees in his community fed.  The same goes for all of his thousands of coworkers who live in his community.

The Bush/McCain compassionate-conservative response to that is that “government has a role to play”: Give Joe free community college so he can learn to be a male nurse or a public-school teacher or a community organizer.  Assuming Joe and his friends were willing to suffer that indignity, who would keep Joe’s wife and four kids fed while Joe is taking Economics 101?  The magic market, somehow?

The bottom line is, those fantastic breadwinner replacement jobs are not coming.  Anyone who wants to can fly over Rockford and see for himself.  Instead, Joe GM is forced to flounder around at a third-shift job loading boxes for UPS at a fraction of his former pay, while making his wife the breadwinner as she takes on more hours as a hospital nurse.  Here’s where economic fantasyland meets cold hard reality.  Dual incomes become a necessity, men are emasculated, women are degraded, and children are reared by television.

Jim, if your grandparents and great-grandparents came over from Europe out of “rugged individualism and pioneer spirit,” they were among the minority.  Most of those who came from Europe came because of external conditions.  And the vast majority of them, upon arriving here, put down roots and stayed in one place.

Why?  Because that’s what men do.  That’s what makes civilization possible.  Nomads have never created civilization (or, frankly, anything worthwhile--with the possible exception of Mongolian barbecue).

Also, Scott, do you really want a situation in which people are not allowed to move around the country in search of better work or to change their jobs?

Wow, Richard.  For a city boy, you apparently have a lot of straw sitting around.  I never suggested that anyone should not be allowed to move; I pointed out the destructive effects that economic disruptions have on those who do not wish to move but are forced to do so.

all those “rooted” Big Three Michiganders voted en masse for Barack Obama and Jennifer Granholm.

Some of us, Richard, are old enough to know who the Reagan Democrats were, where they came from, and what they represented.  And we know why they reverted, sadly, to the Democratic Party.

Tell me this, though: Since you cannot used the word rooted without scare quotes, are you really suggesting the rootedness is not something that conservatives should value?  And if not, please provide me an example of a nomadic civilization.  My knowledge of history must have a gaping hole.

I only have time to make one point. The reason that telegraphers weren’t selling pencils on street corners was that the companies that employed them did NOT go out of business. Western Union is I believe, still in business. The railroads continued to employ telegraphers into my lifetime.
One of the prime suppliers Wagons to the Union Army and the pioneers was a company named Studebaker.  You may have heared of it. 
My point is that companies facing pressure do morph into new ones. But if you allow them to die they don’t get the chance.
Also, TATA is an over diversified Indian company that was dumb enough to buy Jaguar. You have a lot to learn about the car business.

History teaches two things:

First, the absolute free enterprise folks are correct that completely unfettered trade maximizes the total creation of wealth.

Second, free but unfair trade will reduce the American worker to the economic level of the peasants he must must compete against.

* * * * *

Sometimes, economics—or wealth maximizing is not the only issue.  We can either use government to distribute wealth as it is created (targeted tariffs) or to redistributed it after the wealth is created (welfare).  These are the only two choices.  Which is better for the Commonwealth in the long run?

Maybe if GM and Ford took some of the millions they spend on Jesse Jackson’s “Diversity Initiatives” they would free up some money to design cars that people will buy.

I fully agree with Messrs. Piatak, Richert, and Wolf on cultural issues and add that the US auto industry, with its manufacturing capacity and pool of capable workers, is a strategic asset for the nation and cannot be allowed to die.  Manufacturing is the only true source of wealth; all other activities such as services, finance, blogging, etc. do not create wealth.  Period.  With respect to politics, if the GOP can offer policies that strengthen and rebuild the manufacturing base, particularly in OH, MI, and PA, they can get back the presidency.

While sitting in a supremely stultifying meeting yesterday listening to a well placed economist discuss his interpretations of whether or not we will be declared to be in a recession and why, I came to the abrupt realization that there are large gaps of data missing in our understanding of the economy because economists, being a backward-looking lot, do not pro-actively seek this data.  What I’m referring to is an economic understanding of what our security needs post 9/11 entail. 

Mr. Richert, I fully agree with you on your points regarding heavy manufacturing.  It is a matter of national security that we be able to produce the goods, not just the services, that our own population needs and wants within our own borders, and an econometric way of measuring that needs to be devised and included in any analysis of economy as a nation.  This includes not only cars, trucks, munitions, building materials, etc. but also food, clothing, electronics and more.

The economist who was speaking yesterday waxed on about the problems currently faced by the Chinese government in moving people from the inefficiencies of the family farm to an urban, industrialized way of life.  I noticed he did not speak about our own nation with the least bit of concern.  This bothered me. 

We have become a dual nation in many respects - politically, economically, morally, and when our economic analysts are pre-occupied with the half of the nation that is non-productive (meaning who does not produce anything) how do the rest of us fare?  We fare very poorly.

Lord Peter is indubitably correct. A system of principled protectionism is the only means to defeat the natural capitalist inclination for wage arbitrage. The alternative is the welfare state and various ad hoc bailouts of threatened industries.

If this “we have no choice” disaster speed dialing resulted in a real and comprehensive full disclosure and time certain for repayment of government assistance, these bail outs might be made easier to countenance. However, all we get is the “Trust Me” and “dont you worry your little head” paternalism on Booze and pills that got us into the jam. This, of course, as well as a healthy dose of Fear , the new Coin of the Realm.  The over-compensated Executives and their Board lackeys may have taken an extreme economic hit but it does not look like any of them will really suffer for their historic and preposterous mis-management. Where is the prudence in this?

Not to mention Secretary Paulsen’s moving goalposts on the banking bailout and the White House’s determination to restrict their benevolence to the Corporate Freebooters who mucked up their cozy little fiat money operation in the first place.

Even FDR, the uber American Socialist erected quonset huts on the Mall, during bureaucratic increases in support of wartime preparations because they wanted them obviously short term and blatantly temporary. This type of chaste discipline is wholly absent from Washington now. Unbacked, non-verified liabilities and Debt are hammered into a commodity and Washington, along with it’s Corporate Handlers put pedal to metal and then ask us to fix the demolition on only the barest of explanations and without a defined road map forward....because they themselves have not the first clue where this CDS/CDO imbroglio will lead us.

We are being asked to embrace, on faith alone...dutifully and obligingly.... a long term debt that has yet to be fully explained nor comprehensively vetted. Coming from this government, after 16 years of Executive Over-reach and a feckless Congress, well, everyone should be excused for being...how was that put....oh yes, “post human”. Perhaps gullible obeisance is the “post” in that snappy little tag of “Post Human”. Oh yes, and we can throw in that other conceited little phrase: “Artificial intelligence”.

Gentlemen,

When did theft (which is essentially what a bailout of GM amounts to) become an acceptable conservative virtue?

I do wonder if any of those eager to bailout out the plutocrats in Detroit would be willing to stump up some of the cash themselves.

Scott,

I really don’t understand your point about Reagan Democrats: Are conservatives going to win them over by promising slightly less stuff, slightly less socialism than the Democrats? This is “me-tooism,” and it doesn’t work.  Why vote for a pale imitation when you can get the real thing. And the Midwest will be voting Democrat to get goodies for a long time to come, occasionally switching over in the presidential. 

Ok, perhaps my mention of the Soviet Union was over the top. However, you still basically want to take away a part of my earnings and savings and give it to GM’s corporate management so that you can keep some Midwesterners, whom I don’t know and have no connection to, in their current employment.  I’ll pass.

Excuse me . . . but where exactly does the Constitution authorize bailouts?

Aaron,

You make a good point about the fact that the automotive industry isn’t being replaced, only moving overseas. 

I might be naive about this; however, I believe that “entrepreneurs would want to enter the market and, most likely, utilize in new ways the already existing auxiliary businesses and knowledge and skill base.”

As for dual incomes, I definitely sympathize with what you saying. Sadly, more socialism is not going to help. The problem is that $30-50,000 a year doesn’t buy what it once did, and this is a result of the dollar being inflated out of existence by the Federal Reserve. Simply printing up more money, or taking it from savers or borrowing it from China, and then giving it to Midwestern families and GM’s corporate management is only going to make the problem worse.

As for the practical politics of all this, it should be remembered that no Republican has ever won the White House without Ohio, and the decimation of the manufacturing sector in Ohio was the major factor in tipping the state from Red to Blue between 2004 and 2008.

Scott,

I’m not advocating “nomadism” in the strict sense of the word of _never_ settling down. However, there very much is a nomadic civilization--the Jews. And since this people laid the foundation for Christianity, I guess you shouldn’t be so anti-nomad after all. 

Ok, then why should we support a bailout for which Obama will get all the credit?

Sorry, there are no entrepreneurs that will come in and save the Big 3. No one wants a piece of the mess. Just ask the former financial wizards from Cerberus (they bought Chrysler believing they’re so bright, they can fix everything). Hummer has been on sale and still no takers.

“Gas guzzling” trucks have for been top sellers longer than past decade. Ford’s F-150 has been America’s best selling vehicle for 23 years. Is that because they Big 3 have been tricking unwitting consumers? No. Americans need trucks, and some even needs large SUVs. Comparing Tata to GM. Please! At least you didn’t compare the glorious Apple to GM.

Also note that bubbles are bubbles. Auto sales/industry aren’t a bubbles. People will always need cars. And yes, some people on the extreme coasts are fine with jumping from bubble to bubble. They have the youth and the flexibility of having no family to support to make those quick changes in life, or both “partners” are bubble jumpers.

In other parts of the country, traditional family arrangements matter. Also history matters. Do I really have to explain this to self-described conservatives? You think it’s no big deal to just destroy the livelihood of entire cities from one day to the next? And that’s just fine and dandy, they can just find jobs elsewhere. There are psychological repercussions to this.  Some here do a McCain and tell the head of the household working for GM for 30 years that his job is gone and that now he and his wife, who has been raising kids and grandkids all her life, need to get trained to become… Just what? Where is the next bubble where you want to send future former auto workers? Is that what will solve this crisis and the next? More bubbles? More insecure temporary jobs that pay highly for a while and then disappear? Hasn’t this crisis shown us that you can base an economy on phony bubbles?

One if the things that strikes me most abhorrent about the McCainiacs is the disregard for freedom. The post-modern paradigm of the worker is the lean, mean, tooth-whitened, ivy-leauge educated BS-er who specializes in riding waves of bubbles. His job is to talk, meet, talk some more on his u-phone, text message non-stop, push pencils, play with his laptop. Do the globalists realize that this “career” is not for everyone? That some people don’t derive the sadistic pleasure of shouting and screaming on phones all day that you youngsters derive? That some folks want a productive job that does something; that creates a lasting product that will satify the owner. Sorry but just as you can’t base an economy on bubbles, you can’t expect all Americans to become master BS-ers.

Gentlemen,
It seems to me we are arguing about re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic here. The Big 3 have always had a special place in the American economy as quasi-public institutions, which is why their fate evokes so much passion. But the sad reality is they are in their last days. Any bailout will not change that reality. The US Automotive Industry has been dying a slow death since the early 70’s. Drive through Flint, Buffalo, Clevland, and Detroit...etc. Look around. No bailout is going to bring them back to the 1950’s, or reverse the decline. Ispeak as a kid that grew up there in the 70’s. My Uncles all worked for Chevy. There were no blue collar jobs for omy generation. I now live in Minnesota, and my sister is in KC. The siblings that stayed work iin restaurants and a bank tellers. GM going under will effect us all, as my corporation is a supplier to GM, and GM employees are customers of my sister’s KC area Credit Union.
What these areas need is not big governement bailouts or programs, but small scale re-investment in small entrepenuerial businesses. Plant new seeds. These old trees have already been felled. Maybe in 50 to 100 years we’ll have a new forest.

Mr. Piatak, and so, are you suggesting that socializing industry....a policy that worked so well for the Soviets...is the best means to reclaim “Republican” voters in Ohio? I don’t think you are but it is one of the logical conclusions that can be arrived at from your statement.

We confront a dire need for serious long term structural changes required to rebuild scaled local economies across the country and this Idiots Guide to Public Assistance we are being offered by a Washington completely bereft of traditional Republican Principles or authentic Democratic egalitarianism ignores the real issues. Short term thinking got us into the mess and will drive us further into it.

Giving this government carte blanche to hastily embark upon a huge scale socialization of American Finance and Industry ...simply on Faith, after the record they present to us....well, this is not faith, it’s suicide.

To be fair to Mr. Spencer, I don’t think his position—initially, anyhow—was that skilled laborers should just “get over it” and become data-analysts or teledirectors or some other virtual-reality job, but that real entrepeneurs might finally be able to find some space were the Big Three to lose their special status with the government. 

Presumably providing new (and possibly less cog-in-the-bureaucracy) jobs for those skilled workers.  Whether this position is a realistic one, I couldn’t begin to guess.

The analogy for me is the US military and the attendant defense industries.  Is there a culture there (however decayed by this point) which is worthy of respect?  Yes, there is. 

And I have friends, good people, sailors & contractors alike, who make their living off of that economic structure, and who embody an honorable culture. 

But knowing what I know of the military machine’s overall effect in the long run, to American communities and families writ large… well, if given half the chance I’d be at least tempted to start scuttling carriers one by one and have the headquarters of General Dynamics, Lockheed-Martin, etc. steamrolled into the ground.

There is perhaps a nested irony here, in the discussion of “nomadic” culture?  Americans need to be nomads so that auto-workers can have roots?

I really don’t understand your point about Reagan Democrats

Well, that much is abundantly clear.  Ask yourself this: What attracted the Reagan Democrats to Reagan?  No, it wasn’t “slightly less socialism.” It was a realistic, pragmatic attitude toward American manufacturing and American workers.  It was the sense that Reagan understood that industry is vital to the health of the country and therefore, despite all of his free-trade talk, was not a free-trade ideologue.

However, there very much is a nomadic civilization--the Jews.  And since this people laid the foundation for Christianity, I guess you shouldn’t be so anti-nomad after all.

Perhaps you should look up the meaning of civilization instead of trying to score cheap points.  The Jews, when they were nomadic, did not create anything approximating a civilization but lived inside of other civilizations.

Yes, Christianity sprang from the Jews, but Christian civilizations have never been nomadic--and nomads have never created civilizations (or, for that matter, maintained Christian belief for very long).

Just for clarification, I’m not jumping in the fray here on the side of “let them die”; just… kicking around at the issue from a different angle.  In the *long* run, which choice would be better?

Obviously the consequences to real, and decent people should not be glossed over; but that’s why I picked the military analogy.

The proper Goldwater/Hazlitt ( and arguably Reagan) response is that government is the problem not the solution. The problem was caused by the Fed’s regulation of Detroit and loving unions in Detroit. Why fix government’s problems with more government?

Tom,

Assuming you’re correct that America needs a manufacturing base for national security purposes; you still do not explain why such a manufacturing base must be American-owned, or perhaps more accurately belong to companies registered in the US.

You may know that GM’s Adam Opel unit and Ford’s German operations and for that matter IBM’s German and Dutch units were seamlessly integrated into the German war effort in the last war.

Any thoughts on Mr. Taleb’s take on globalization? “America’s primary export, it appears, is trial-and-error… The U.S. fosters entrepreneurs and creators, not exam-takers, bureaucrats or, worse, deluded economists… The American system of trial and error produces doers: Black Swan-hunting, dream-chasing entrepreneurs, with a tolerance for a certain class of risk-taking and for making plenty of small errors on the road to success or knowledge. This environment also attracts aggressive tinkering foreigners....
“Globalization allowed the U.S. to specialize in the creative aspect of things, the risk-taking production of concepts and ideas--that is, the scalable part of production, in which more income can be generated from the same fixed assets through innovation. By exporting jobs, the U.S. has outsourced the less scalable and more linear components of production, assigning them to the citizens of more mathematical and culturally rigid states, who are happy to be paid by the hour to work on other people’s ideas.
...
“We need more tinkering: Uninhibited, aggressive, proud tinkering. We need to make our own luck. We can be scared and worried about the future, or we can look at it as a collection of happy surprises that lie outside the path of our imagination.”
http://www.forbes.com/2007/05/23/nicholas-taleb-innovation-tech-cz_07rev_nt_0524taleb.html
I read that as, ‘let GM die.’ ‘Course we could always tinker around and get aggressive about going after any fraud, malfeasance, nonfeasance, etc. etc. that may have just occurred in government or in the private sector.

Steven,

What makes you think we’ll have a manufacturing base if the Big Three collapse?  Why wouldn’t the Japanese shift production to Mexico, where labor is much cheaper, or back to Japan?  As I quote a Toyota executive in my piece, in an article from last summer, “It’s much, much more profitable to produce cars in Japan and ship them all to the U. S. right now, if it wasn’t for the political problems that might cause.” With the Big Three gone, so go Toyota’s political problems, and so go a considerable part of the reason foreign automakers ever begin building plants here at all.

That’s one of the reasons we should want a manufacturing base in American hands.  Another is the fact that, even with all the outsourcing that now goes on, American manufacturers are still more likely than foreign manufacturers operating here to use American components in their product.  If there is a national emergency, it would be disastrous to rely on foreign parts.  Crucial positions in Japanese owned plants are often filled by Japanese, which also makes the prospect of a seamless transition in an emergency problematic.  And yet another reason is national pride, in my judgment.

Mr. Tabel needs come down out of the clouds.  If he spent a few days looking over the history of manufacturing patents in the United States, he might realize that most of the items in those patents didn’t emerge as “concepts and ideas” that were then turned into things.  Innovation in manufacturing has historically occurred on the factory floor, not in a board room or in front of a computer.

Separating production entirely from engineering is a recipe for a) stagnation or b) creating crap.  It’s part of the problem that the Big Three actually had during the 70’s and 80’s.

Even today, in such areas as electronics, the most successful designers and engineers are those who actually get their hands dirty.  Apple may produce its iPods and computers in China, but a good part of their success stems from the fact that their design team doesn’t see its work confined to Cupertino.  Frequent trips to the factories to work through problems on the fly allow production to influence engineering.

I agree with Mssrs. Piatak and Richert.  We’re between a rock and a hard place, but at least the rock is American, and there my sentiments stand.

However, I dare Mr. Richert to tell my that all those Twinkies and Ho-Hos I bought with my $600 were “junk.”

One significant point that is overlooked in the discussion of saving “our” auto industry is that money borrowed by the Federal Government or printed by the Federal Government to be part of this gift to a well-connected industry is being taken from other, more remunerative uses.  If it is extracted at gunpoint from those other users, the effect is a long-term reduction in the wealth of participants in this economy.

All the talk about this being “conservative” really is something.  Sure, monarchist statists like Alexander Hamilton and bobble-headed, self-serving politicians like Henry Clay and Tip O’Neill have favored “targeted” tariffs, but freedom-loving patriots (not nationalists, patriots) preferred to let free men make their way freely.

Isn’t there any embarrassment on the part of UAW workers in knowing that their industry is being maintained only because they are an organized voting bloc?  That seems vaguely humiliating.

A C,

Beautifully put!

In right to work states the auto industry is doing fine!  The bailout of Detroit is nothing but a bailout of the UAW.  Forget it. Let Detroit rebuild minus the UAW. Just look at the three sectors dominated by unions.  Airlines, Big three auto and government school teachers. All a disaster!!!

It’s too bad that autoworkers can’t be as free from the taint of government as professors at state universities are. On the other hand, real people have to do their best in the situations within which they’ve found themselves.

It’s too bad auto workers at the big 3 can’t be free of the UAW. They might be more fleet footed and able to adapt in troubling times. Big unions have killed the big three!

We’ve already bailed out insurance and banking sectors to the tune of probably 3 trillion dollars if you factor in the inevitable hyperinflation the loose printing of money will cause. 25 Billion in loans, with agreement to rework labor contracts, increase fuel standards, and repay them, to auto-companies is a small pitance to pay to retain some sort of productive enterprise in this nation.

Why doesn’t the government just buy everybody a car from the “Big Three”. At least we would be getting some kind of value for our money…

Thanks.

I’m siding with Tom and Scott about this issue.  “Free trade” isn’t really “free” nor is it “fair trade” against a country that pays slave wages and that devalues its currency.  Hmmm....China?

The ripple effect of the big three will be devastating! The government and the people should be willing to LOAN them money with strings attached.  Both the unions and management need to tighten their belts.  Also, temporary VATs should be imposed on some auto imports.

Think about this: If the auto and aeroplane firms fail; who will benefit from the fire sale on machinery, patents and tools?

A.C., I hope you didn’t eat all those Twinkies and HoHos yet.  They store indefinitely, and if our doctrinaire friends have their way, you’re going to need something to eat in a few years.

The Ideology of Libertarianism (and the free trade classical liberalism that it comes from) that Spencer and Gutzman champion always leads, inevitably, to socialism. 

BTW, I’m against bailouts too.  I would have adopted tariffs to protect a decent standard of living for working folks, especially the working folks of my own nation instead of spreading the wealth (very thinly spread indeed) among the 6 billion people on earth. 

And make no mistake, the Libertarian ideology of Spencer and Gutzman asserts that being more concerned about fellow citizens than about strangers and aliens half a world away is “nationalist” and evil. 

I don’t really have to suggest that the Libertarian ideology go (back) to hell (where it came from) because all the Libertarians will be able to fit inside the glove compartment of a subcompact car.  Nobody is a Libertarian when it comes to something they really care about.

Why must we assume that ONLY the Big-3 can make American cars and keep manufacturing alive?  It seems to me that the Big-3 themselves, being behemoths who typically squash competition from little guys, are one of the biggest impediments to American automobile entrapreneural innovation. Removing this stumbling block opens the field for new ideas.  Add in to the mix banks - they’re not loaning money, which means they’re not making money.  Banks produce nothing, they must loan to make profit. It stands to reason that they would be happy to loan to an up and coming company which has a real chance to make profit and make their payments.  Let’s also not forget that in the wake of a hypothetical Big-3 collapse, you will have a ready-made industry, complete with equipment and infrastructure available at reduced prices, as well as a skilled workforce available.  Getting the government out of the way would be the final element in this perfect storm of American Automobile Reinvention which could produce new and better companies… the Googles of cars.  Let the market work.

Or not… and in that case, if we’ve lost our faith in the market, why bother to go socialism in dribs and drabs.  Jump right in and go whole hog.

The biggest argument in favor of the handouts to the Big 3 is that we are giving handouts to everyone else.

But Spencer is correct about everything else. Those who want government subsidies should explain how they will make people want to purchase ugly, expensive cars that break down.

Free Trade doesn’t lead to socialism. Just look at the old Soviet Union and Red China.  Protectionism leads to decay. Detroit would still be building the American motors Gremlin and Chevy Vega and Ford Pinto.  Again!! Auto manufacturing is doing fine in Dixie!! Not my fault the Blue Bellies can’t build a lousy car anymore.

Government school teachers. Airlines. Big 3 Auto.  Same problem.  Big unions. Deal with it. I suspect the United States is the largest producers of automobiles in the world.  They’re just being manufactured in right to work states. Something some in this discussion just can’t accept.

William R is typical of Liberaltarians.  He doesn’t know what he is talking about.

The USSR was created in a pre-modern, non-industrial state.  Same with Red China.  They couldn’t move from a modern industrial free trade society to socialism, because they were not in the first condition to begin with (i.e, they were not industrial modern economies). 

My comment that free trade classical liberalism inevitably leads to socialism is an insight from Conservatives like Russell Kirk and Robert Nisbet.  It is one of the central insights of Conservatism. 

If the Big Three go bankrupt, it is likely that car production at alien plants in the South will stop as well, at least in the short term, because the Big Three failing will sink the auto supply entities.  And the Asian and German makers depend on those same parts suppliers. 

BTW, tariffs wouldn’t prevent German and Asian auto makers locating plants in the USA.  In fact, tariffs would likely force foreign auto makers to relocate production inside the USA, not only creating more jobs here, but also creating more “efficiency” within the auto parts supply business as well. 

When you adopt a policy to de-industrialize what was an industrial economy, which is what Liberaltarian free trade is aimed at doing, it is difficult to “fine tune” it so that only parts of the industrial base are destroyed and other parts remain intact. 

What the Liberaltarians want is a much lower standard of living for auto workers and other industrial workers.  But there is simply no end in sight to the downward spiral that free trade is causing.  Thus, I hope William R, Spencer and Gutzman are good at hunting, because that is going to be a major way to put food on the table going forward.

If the big three declare bankruptcy they’ll reorganize. Real world economics say they just can’t compete against cars produced in Texas, Alabama, North Carolina, Tenn, etc etc. All right to work states.

In the end, auto manufacturing in this country will be fine! Detroit needs a good shot of reality. Not government handouts.

This appears to be an early skirmish in the New War for Conservatism. You’ve got the ‘Big Government will solve all our problems’ Neocons finally showing their true colors and their roots in socialism and marxism, advocating bailouts for all (a little at a time to make it more palatable) and a well planned (fine tuned) economy on one side, and the ‘Small Government leave me alone and get out of the way!’ Fiscals on the other side.  The question is, where will the Socials fall?  Will they be split?  I fear that it will take several more lost election cycles before people are ready to take a look at the cold hard reality offered up by the Fiscals, and by then it may be too late.

William R says that the South is a willing colony of Asia and Europe and is willing to cheer on the exploitation of the South’s only asset:  cheap labor. 

That must really be a point of pride for you William R. 

As for “big government”, I favor cutting the defense budget by more than half (once we are out of Iraq and Afghanistan) and eliminating public education for starters.  Getting rid of public schools should lower property taxes and make home ownership more affordable. 

I also repeat, we would not need a “bailout” for auto makers if we had tariffs.  I’d be willing to allow the Big three to reorganize via bankruptcy if they remain American companies and we got tariffs in place to protect the domestic market. 

Idiots who claim that protection of the American industrial base is “neoconservative” apparently don’t know that it is the Neocons who’ve advocated for free trade and that the popular sock puppets of the Neocons, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity repeat the free trade Liberaltarian line.

It may not be neoconservative, but the economic policies advocated by so-called paleocons and traditionalists is almost indistinguishable from mainstream liberalism. In effect, conservatives, not unlike liberals, want to use my tax dollars in order to essentially (though not directly) subsidize the existence of automotive workers, as if their existence and their work is somehow more deserving of our tax dollars.

Sigh.  Harry Browne once said Government is someone who would break your legs then announce loudly how nice they were by giving you a crutch.

I continually find libertarians who would simply get rid of the crutch WITHOUT doing anything about the broken leg which government itself broke.  Then ask them to compete in a sprint against a chinese athlete on steroids (or other subsidy equivalent - no property rights, government expanded credit, etc.).

I am not sure what cause the death of their soul, but dead it is as they cannot see beyond removing any individual regulation no matter how imbalanced and unjust it would be.

Perhaps the automobile companies are uncompetitive, with or without labor (and labor is a collection of human beings, not a commodity - they possess the same dignity that the fetus does and ought not be murdered - physically or economically, or as John Paul II said in Theology of the Body, Persons are NOT to be used - they are subjects, not objects - even though this is inconvenient to both philosophy and economics in simplistic forms).

But with the excess of regulation, you cannot say their legs aren’t broken.  Set the leg and let it heal before you remove the crutch.

If you look at what the Bushies and their masters on Wall Street have wrought, you will find that the money borrowed on the credit of the taxpayers has vanished in the murk, and the so-called supervisory boards have not even been staffed as of yet.  That is a bailout.  What Scott, Aaron, Tom and I support is a loan with suitable controls on payback, executive pay, labor pay and benefits, and bonuses along with transparency to make it easy to monitor their hopeful progress.  If this were a bailout along the lines of the Democratic Party and Obama, the money would simply be given to the UAW.  I am not certain that the Big 3 are even fixable at this stage, but if the alternative is the crushing of the Midwest economy, then I am willing to give them the chance.  As I have written elsewhere, if we only take the money that Wall Street has sequestered for giving themselves bonuses after destroying much of the world economy in an orgy of greed, and loan it with suitable conditions to the American auto industry, we would likely be in much better shape.  I have worked in the governments of several municipalities who were being savaged by the death of their heavy industries.  This is ugly, and very destructive of our communities and our social structure.  I also worked on a project to improve the state of the art in essential microwave and millimeter wave solid state devices when the only decent ones were being made by NEC in Japan.  We had more than 70 military systems being stymied by the lack of domestic capabilities.  I am an agrarian, and I really do not like much about the mass production system.  But, I realize that under the current conditions, and most foreseeable conditions, at least the transportation industry is going to be essential.  So, with reluctance I support targeted assistance to the domestic auto industry.  As for retraining and reacting to creative destruction, those here who know me understand that I have one of the most varied career paths of anyone around.  In fact, I am even a decent telegrapher.

The south isn’t a colony of Asia. It just has flexible labor laws which is the reason foreign producers like to locate there.  Cheap labor in the south? The people working at those non union auto plants make a damn good living.

Libertarians are soulless technocrats, seeking out maximum efficiency in production and consumption.  Humans are just machines in their grand scheme of smooth-flowing money and goods.

I think there is a real social defect in Libertarians such that they can’t comprehend society and all its complexity.  A Russell Kirk or Richard Weaver article is just gibberish to them.

The Twinkies and HoHos will save my family the trouble of any preservatives for my funeral.

Where’s the rugged individualism and pioneer spirit
that conservatives claim to own? Instead it’s bailouts and poor me’s?

It disappeared when the US stopped giving free land to settlers.

@Sam Spade: correctly analyzed and well expressed.

Is it any wonder David Rockefeller and his ilk like von Mises?

@teachem2think:
Rockefeller is not a Misesian. At all. Libertarians can be called many things, “Trilateralist” is not one of them.

Let me get this straight:  to identify the advocates of “give me some money” as selfish parasites was first unpatriotic, and now is unmasculine.  Is that right?

Your argument is nonsense.  Henry Clay, following Adam Smith, said that what he favored was protection of “infant” industries against established foreign competition.  Guess what:  infant industries never grow up.  What they do is morph into established interests, with a slew of congressmen devoted to milking the US Treasury of OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY on their behalf genuflecting before their PACs.

I drive a Honda.  Before I bought it, I test-drove the analogous Ford.  I’m 6’4” tall, and there wasn’t room for my legs in the driver’s seat.  Call me all the names you want, but that’s called “lousy engineering” where I come from, not “unpatriotic girly-man behavior.” (Really, could the criticisms of economic freedom get any dopier?)

Here’s an idea:  why don’t all you “patriots” who are dying to take my money and give it to a high school-educated UAW worker making $50/hour just take a collection and give him your own money?  Be sure it’s a fat collection, though, because fulfilling those contract commitments to cover his whole family’s health care for life is an expensive proposition.  God forbid the Big Three should go into Chapter 11 and get out from under that absurd commitment; better to tax every waitress, bellhop, and taxi cab driver in America to keep that commitment going.

Once the federal government got into the business of “bailing out” people who had entered into mortgages they couldn’t afford, the UAW and Big Three couldn’t be far behind.  Next come the airlines.  After all, what kind of self-respecting country doesn’t have airlines?  Then we can bail out all of the newspapers.  After all, when my great, great grandfather came from Prussia in 1877 (Mom’s English ancestors had been here since 1660, but Dad’s came later), there were numerous newspapers in every big town.  I think we need to tax everyone in America to restore the True Conservative Value, which of course Richard Weaver would validate, of numerous newspapers in every city.

Wow, once you get the hang of Prussian Economics, it’s really easy.  There are votes to buy EVERYWHERE, and it can all be done out of the Federal fisc.  You can imply that opponents of this platform are unpatriotic by labelling it “The American System,” then call anyone who doesn’t go along a “guhly mahn” in your best Ahnuld accent.  Maybe Henry Clay wasn’t the dope I always took him for after all.

@A/C and all other anti-libertarians.

Let’s be sane here! Were Rothbard, Mencken and Nock all “souless technocrats”?  That’s very unfair. You agree with them more than you don’t. Is there any merit in defaming these men?

Tom,

You said the below in your post.

“(Of course, Frum did loudly favor the Wall Street bailout, which is pretty close to casino gaming)”

Those that gamble in casinos gamble with their own money.  Those that gamble on Wall Street use other peoples’ money.  If Wall Street was run like a real casino we would not be in this mess.  As my father always told me, “Son, never trust a man that gambles with other peoples’ money.” If Wall Street execs only gambled with their own money the problems we face today would have never been created.

Prof. Gutzman:

Who, precisely, are you ranting at?

Here’s an idea:  why don’t all you “patriots” who are dying to take my money and give it to a high school-educated UAW worker making $50/hour just take a collection and give him your own money?

My, my, my.  If you’re so upset at the idea of a high-school graduate earning more than you do, with your multiple degrees from government-funded universities, you might consider quitting your job at a state university and moving into the private sector.

As for your money, much of it comes from Connecticut taxpayers and not a little of the rest (by way of federal grants and loans to students at Western Connecticut State University) from federal taxpayers--people like, say, me, Tom Piatak, and--oh!--all those autoworkers who so upset you.

Pot, meet kettle.

“why don’t all you “patriots” who are dying to take my money and give it to a high school-educated UAW worker making $50/hour” - Kevin Gutzman

Why do the critics of an auto industry bailout always complain about the pay and benefits of the assembly line workers, but never mention the far more lucrative reward packages of the Big 3 executives?

I confess that I have three degrees (undergrad and two grad degrees).  But NONE of them are from government schools.  I also didn’t get any federal government money and almost all the money used to pay for tuition was my own, including privately funded scholarship money.  (I did however attend one year of public high school, to my great shame). 

I confess I’ve also never worked for the government at any level. 

I guess that means I don’t pass the Liberaltarian test of being a rugged individual.

Ah, Richert, that’s a nice trick.  Apparently you don’t know the difference between working for a living and begging the government for a handout.  Then again, one could see that earlier in the thread.

Begging the government for a handout is not “earning.” That is the point.  Where, Mr. Richert, can you have gotten the idea that it is?

Argumentum ad hominem, btw, is a classic logical fallacy.

And who is the “libertarian”?  Must one choose between being a socialist/fascist/bailer-out and being a “libertarian”?  One might have thought there was some other option....

Tom,

To answer your first two questions together, you’ll note that the Toyota executive notes that it is much cheaper “right now” for Toyota to assemble its cars in Japan.  Car making is a fickle business insofar as profitability in a market with imports and exports depends on exchange rates.  The dollar is expected to weaken in the near future; perhaps then it will be cheaper to make cars in the US.

I do not agree with you that the plants in the US were only built because of political pressure; they were also intended as a hedge against the vagaries of the forex market.  The German plants in the US were built because the cost of labor is so much cheaper.

I think North Korea is close to the only country that would be self sufficient in the case of an emergency…

Your plea for help for the Big 3 would be far more persuasive if you’d suggest that the retirees who were around while management and unions drove the companies into the ground should share the pain rather than be rewarded for their failure.

Must one choose between being a socialist/fascist/bailer-out and being a “libertarian”?  One might have thought there was some other option....

Posted by Kevin R. C. Gutzman

Hey, Gutzman.  When are you going to free yourself from the enforced, artificial parameters of ‘respectable’ political discourse?  Don’t you get it?

It is the fruits of the collective efforts of the White racial body that makes academic playlands like yours possible.  Try it in the Congo.  That is why White Nationalism is necessarily a populist movement.

Here is the big secret all the ‘respectable’ system-hacks don’t want let out of the bag: all the others need us, we Whites don’t need them.

As our country staggers slowly towards third-world dystopia our people will begin to wake up and demand strong men to take decisive action on their behalf.

What we need is White Nationalism, a White country, ruled by White men, for White working people.

“Once abolish the God,” says G.K. Chesterton, “and the government becomes the God.” Is it possible that libertarianism indirectly creates the leviathan state it so desperately seeks to destroy?  Without restraint, capitalism puts too much pressure on the average family to survive.  The results are a breakdown in morality, the destruction of the family, and the commercialisation of culture.  Even in families where both husband and wife are “successful,” the family suffers because both parents are taken out of the home, daycare and public schools take over the job of raising children, traditional gender roles are subverted, and the stress and temptations of a high-powered society become overwhelming.  The destruction of a stable, semi-agrarian society was the first step in this process; and it seems to me that the capitalists, both in England and America, achieved this.  Socialism was a reaction to the intolerable state of society when the individual and “freedom” become the highest virtues.  I would like to pose this question to libertarians: besides the destruction of a Christian, agrarian, and family centered culture, what has classical liberalism given western civilisation?  Your intellectual foundation is with the anti-Christian individualists of the Enlightenment.  We are reaping the fruits of their work today.  Don’t blame us because we don’t know how to clean up your mess.

Rich Spencer, you’re post-human buddy. It’s easy today because you’re more a ‘product’ of the current cultural milieu you hail from, than you realize fully. (Plus you get no help from the media; and quite to the contrary it’s there now to destroy the truth not merely mask it.)

What’s at work here are technocrats and multi-national corporations that have nothing but CONTEMPT for the American people. You’re healthy so of course you want to identify with the predator rather than the victim(s). So do I. But at the moment the post-modern predator is a MONSTER driving all of the wars and the instant financial bailouts – for a very simple reason – they can. And the American people *don’t deserve it. They don’t *deserve it at all. The oligarchs at the top of the technocratic/multi-national pyramid are projecting what they don’t see about themselves (or do but don’t care) down upon the American people. Even if that includes the incompetent big-3 way down here with us and the 3 million jobs currently tied up in that hodge-podge.

All ideology is both radical and platonic/inhuman and wants to be totalitarian even when stressing individual liberty. The worst statement ever made ‘as if’ conservative was during the Barry Goldwater campaign for el’Presidente: “Extremism in behalf of liberty is no vice.” That’s CRAP. Extremism is to be avoided. Only approximate balance can maintain the narrow parameters in which liberty exists at all.

Your position is well and admirably thought out from your own perspective and all that entails, but it is no doubt the extreme one, and for ‘my money’ the one to be avoided. Scott R. has begun the debate on the right foot, as well as Tom P. having done same.  When on the other hand too you’re talking telephone v. telegraph you’re talking apples and oranges.  But nothing is going to replace the automobile in one form or another, so this is a talk about apples & apples.

What is the difference between an occasional bailout and an institution like MITI in Japan selecting industries that they decide Japan must be a competitor in and subsidizing them until it happens.

They subsidized the home elctronics industry until they dominated, Zenith and Admiral were smallish and couldn’t compete. They subsidized cars and motorcycles until they dominated - Harley had to saved by a rule that limited imported bike to less that 700 CCs. Warehouses were full of three year old Japanese bikes still in their crates in 1985.
Intel was almost put out of business by MITI when they decided the semi-conductor industry was vital. People outside the industry don’t know about this, IBM owned 25% at one time because they were worried Intel would go under and they wouldn’t get 8088’s for the PC. Memory was the money maker then and the Japanese destroyed the market. The elevation of the microprocessor as the main moneymaker was the only thing that made Intel what it is today.

I used to think UAW’s sins were manifold, until I saw the managerial class completely FUBAR the American economy once again.

And just why were the Big Three building all those big cars?  Because Americans loved them.  Why isn’t Geo’s superb 55 mpg Metro still around?  That’s right--Americans wouldn’t buy them.  The market truly spoke, and now you condemn the US automakers?

I’m still, ah, conflicted about bailing anybody out.  But if you follow the libertarian path, which holds as a starting tenet that workers are typically doing the job they are most productive at, then bumping all those auto workers to burger-flipping and selling real estate can only result in a less productive economy, not more.

Can’t anyone see the irony in the fact that the US government will have to borrow money from the Japanese to help out US car makers?

Quote from Richard Spencer: “Let’s say that we can determine that along with Big Three workers, there are an additional 240,000 whose livelihood would be adversely affected if the Big Three went under tomorrow. Fine. Let’s give each of them $50,000, bringing my welfare proposal up to somewhere between 37 and 40 billion.”

Typical of a monetarist how doesn’t understand the difference between money for consumption and money for key business functions. Spencer’s suggestion is essentially Keynesian. If the 50k were given directly to recently layed off Joe GM then will spent on his immediate needs do nothing to produce any goods the money will spent on all ready produced good and since we will have more money chasing fewer goods the Joe GM direct payment bailout is inflationary . 

Theorically if the money is used to allow Joe GM to continuing making part no new products which people will use then increases net amount physical product on the market it is not inflationary because we have more money and more goods. Now the chances of the BIg 3 actually doing that isn’t all that good because like every other major corporation the Big 3 mangerment likes to waste money speculation rather than actually increasing market share because they are morons.

Quote from Richard: “In his Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt asks rhetorically, Why, after the introduction of the telephone, are not telegraph operators destitute and homeless out in the streets? Why are not makers of buggy carriages not filling up the soup kitchens after the automotive industry put them all out of work? The answer is, of course, that these workers are doing something else”

Which actually didn’t happen historically because many makers of buggy carriages actually did become destitute and homeless but never let reality cramp your ideology. You know that during good old days people actually did starve and Upton’s “The Jungle” isn’t really far off from the reailty that many folks lived and still live today in the Third World.

Quote: “But, again, in any case, the former employees can do other things—hopefully with businesses that are actually profitable and thus not requiring government subsidies every few years.”

You fail to understand the issue here isn’t monetary “profit” but capital and goods production which cannot produced if we allow for the assembly lines to be shut down if the Big 3 fail. If those lines shut down its like a nuclear weapon going off in terms of the physical economy.

Those assembly lines aren’t just for making cars they can make anything and if they shut down then the physical ability of the nation theomodynamically has been shut down and the population can no longer sustain itself for ANY recovery under ANY circumstances because the country at that point has been DE-CAPITALIZED and you can’t RE-CAPITALIZED with money because money isn’t CAPITAL!.  Trying to rebuild the economy without capital is as pointless as trying to build a house without carpenters. 

What Richard arguing is essentially that dust-bowl had nothing do to with Great Depression and we really don’t need Machine Tools, Farms, Mines, Fisheries and Assembly lines for our economy we can simply give foreigners paper for their goods which is exactly how we got into this situation in the first place . 

The issue isn’t the profits of the Big 3 (who deserve to go out of business)but physical production of the economy.i.e the lines runnings and new workers trained to continue production. If physical production stops then we all stop because nobody else can run those machine tools and Assembly Lines other than those skilled workers who work for the Big3 and if they stop production and lay off the workers then we all go down because no physical production means there is no economy for anybody because making anything and because nobody in the future generations will have the technical ability to run the machines and the assembly lines. Making a good Machinist or Mill Wright isn’t easy and they repay 100s of times the physical and intellectual value they are paided in wages. 

At that point we will offical become a third world backwater because real economics isn’t about money and markets it’s about people. That is flaw of the entire lie of liberal economics i.e. that the “market” rules.  Market laws do not exist only people exist and the success of your society has to the degree of moral, intellectual, and physical competence of those people. That’s why Ben Franlkins wrote about virtue and development of the character because without it nothing else in society works. My God why should I have to tell conservatives this? 

I’m done write can’t any more and I’ll get too angry...seeing what this country has become… you have Homosexual Anarchists attacking churches and folks are letting it stand… foreign agents running Homeland Security....Wall Street crooks raping the Treasury....trying to install missle into Poland just to piss off the Russians, destablizing Pakistan....mindless idiots talking about how Obama is going to bring world peace or something.... my God we is screwed…

Why is there even an argument here?  We have people with a tried and true track record.  Folks who predicted the current meltdown, and not yesterday but years ago.  Austrian economists and free marketeers.  People like Ron Paul and our own Peter Schiff.  Ask yourself, where do such luminaries come down on this or any other bailout.  And on the other side, who are those guys?  Aren’t they the ones who got us into this mess in the first place?

And as far as libertarian bashing…

Hey, I’ll mock the establishment orange-line liberpositans as much as the next guy, but philosophically speaking, libertarians probably have the firmest ground to stand on.  Their ideology works on both the big and the small issues, and requires no adjustments regardless of the situation.  In essence, any single adherent could theoretically replace their leader, because being based on firm and all encompassing ideology, they would always make the same decisions.  As opposed to leaders chosen on personality which you may hope will share your own priorities and almost universally will be disappointed in.  That is pretty sound and forward thinking.

And if all that doesn’t grab you, ponder the recent election and the fact that of all shades of conservatism, only one is growing… so, pucker up.

“It may not be neoconservative, but the economic policies advocated by so-called paleocons and traditionalists is almost indistinguishable from mainstream liberalism. In effect, conservatives, not unlike liberals, want to use my tax dollars in order to essentially (though not directly) subsidize the existence of automotive workers, as if their existence and their work is somehow more deserving of our tax dollars.
Posted by Cody on Nov 13, 2008.”

Indeed!  As Lew Rockwell said, conservatism is an oxymoron at best (and I stress the moron part considerably) There is no difference between the liberal-leftists and the monarchists, traditionalists, paleocons, white nationalists, etc.  All of them believe in shaping society and economics through the power of a gun by a ruler (or ruling class) Truth be told, most people these days who call for secession do so not to enhance freedom but so they can break free of the feds so they can create their own local dictatorship instead (trading in an axe for a sword, as it were)

Professor Gutzman, it’s no trick, nor is it an argumentum ad hominem.  I did not claim that your argument was wrong because of who you are; I simply suggested that you apply your argument to your own circumstances.

I do understand the difference between working for a living and asking for a handout.  I also understand the difference between a handout and government loan guarantees.

If you think there is no difference, then we’re back to the problem being government taxation, period, which leads me, again, to suggest that you look at your own circumstances.  (According to the Combined Financial Statements of the Connecticut State University System, available on WCSU’s website, “In fiscal year 2007, state appropriations [were] $236.9 million, which represent 40.3% of the System’s total revenues”.  That’s only state taxation--it doesn’t include the federally funding that comes into the system directly or through student grants and loans.)

Are federally guaranteed student loans a “handout”?  If not, why not?  If they are, then you personally are benefitting from a handout.  Again, that doesn’t make your argument incorrect; it just makes it disingenuous.

By the way, just to make it clear once again, since commenters (starting with Richard) have falsely claimed that I’m arguing for the loan guarantees: Please go read my post at ChroniclesMagazine.org, which Richard has linked under my name in the first line of his post.

My position was (and remains) that we need to debate this issue thoroughly, and that the only proposal worthy of support would be one that had significant strings attached to guarantee payback of the loans and to force necessary restructuring in the auto industry.

(If you haven’t read the comments on my post over at ChroniclesMagazine.org, I’d suggest doing so.  The discussion over there has been thoughtful and enlightening.)

Herr Richert, How might one prove that I benefited from the program you mention?  I think by proving that my position or the level of my salary or benefits depended, or might be argued to depend, on that program.  I don’t think you can do that, and in fact I don’t think that either one does.

What if it did?  Would that be an argument for extending loans to every industry in America?  I don’t think so.  In fact, I’ve argued against such programs even as the one you infer benefits me.

I’m reminded here of Reagan-era arguments that Reagan himself shouldn’t favor reforms to Social Security, since he himself stood to benefit from Social Security.  Earlier in the thread, someone said that libertarians shouldn’t be libertarian, as they would call the socialized fire department in case of need.

People do find such arguments persuasive.  (One reason that pro-lifers’ prospects seem increasingly dim is the very large proportion of American women who’ve actually exercised their “choice.” They shouldn’t eliminate that choice for others, the argument goes, as they’ve benefited from it themselves.) However, they shouldn’t.  It’s not hypocritical to say “Hey, wait a minute, this doesn’t make sense.” If it were, then virtually everyone who ever wanted to make a change was a “hypocrite.” (Don’t you dare argue for civil rights, President Truman, as you’ve benefited from segregation yourself.  Don’t argue against affirmative action, Mr. Connerly, as you’ve benefited from it yourself.  People who make these arguments tend to grow extremely angry in doing so.)

Professor Gutzman, unless you’re prepared to argue that money isn’t fungible, then the answer to your question is obvious.

As for this:

People who make these arguments tend to grow extremely angry in doing so.

There’s only one commenter on this thread whose comments have read as if he’s shouting at the screen while typing.

If “rootedness” is important (and it is), then a longer view needs to be taken than the temporary and transient economic interests of midwest auto workers.  If rootedness is important, the proper steps, not half-measures, should be taken to safeguard it.  Whether the auto industry causes the dislocation of midwesterners or not, other forces, in coming years, almost certainly will.  Given the American demographic mix, economic decline is pretty much assured.  The only thing the tinkering agonized over in this discussion can affect is the rate of that decline, not its fact.  People will *have* to learn to make do with less.  Mercifully, the effects of having to do so can be significantly mitigated by measures taken to permit people to protect their rootedness, or to establish a “new rootedness” in event of dislocation.  The Richard Spencers can smile stupidly for the cameras for a while longer, but eventually events will force them to accept the racialist truth; if they don’t, they’ll have neither rootedness nor economic prosperity, but either way those smiles will be wiped off their faces.

Looking at the gracious support Scott Richert and Tom Piatek are offering to an industry that rewards itself for shoddy work and products, I have decided to promise my employees and myself a very generous pension, a big hike in salary and bonuses, as well as work rules even the laziest sob can live with. It certainly beats the daily worrying about how to make competitively priced products that people are willing to pay for voluntarily (after all, I am not the government). Why didn’t I think of this earlier? Thanks guys! By the way, Scott and Tom, where do I apply for the inevitable bailout money I will need?

Why, Mr. Hoermann, your prose reads as if you’re shouting at the screen!  ROFLMAO

As too often happens over here, this comment thread has passed beyond any semblance of useful or enriching discussion.

Those who would like to continue the discussion with serious-minded folks on both sides of the debate can join us over at ChroniclesMagazine.org.

Seems Scott recognized the absurdity of his argumentation and has decided to leave the kitchen for the salon. I am looking forward to his return once he has seen the error of his ways.

Perhaps on his own site, Mr. Richert can explain how speculating on the level of a particular individual’s income isn’t ad hominem disputation.

And there we have it--human lives are reduced to productivity.  Man is made for the economy, not the economy for man.

Man is cursed by God to live by the sweat of his brow--this is another way of saying that resources are scarce.  You can distribute them by caprice, or you can distribute them by profit and loss.  Only the latter works.

Ever since the Federal Reserve Act of I believe 1913 control of the U.S. currency was turned over to an *inter-national cartel of bankers, who now run USA, Inc. as if it were their own private company (which in effect it is.) This was not *merely formalization of a cartel of say American Bankers to whom the Congress in its infinite corruption, decided to outsource the function of the U.S. Treasury. It’s *international.

So this was not only NOT a Jeffersonian sort of thing to do: I.e. “Bankers are more dangerous than standing armies.” –Thomas Jefferson. It was ALSO *not a Hamiltonian sort of thing to do either.

Since then America, starting with WW One etc. and all through the 20th century (bloodiest in the history of world) has obviously been at cross purposes with itself, with the interests of its own people, for the obvious reason that the currency itself is controlled, and so the nation itself in effect is run by internationalists in behalf of their own interests i.e. the oligarchy; and not as is always alleged in the duplicitious media, in behalf of the American people.  American people have not elevated this up to consciousness for the most part.

So what all of this really boils down to if we were being honest with ourselves, would be a discussion of what now is in the interests of the international bankers, who have both dominated us and have been ruling over us now for almost a century.  And this would give us a better idea of what will happen, and how we ought to prepare for that eventuality if possible in advance. No?

As I’ve said, this is tough debate because sides have good points to make. Aside from personal attachment to the auto industry, the bottom line is you’re dealing with a business that ties into a lot of the U.S.’ manufacturing, technological and financial infrastructure. This is real wealth instead of the phony paper wealth created