A lot of what you say is true Pat, but Detroit was protected from internal competion by lax antitrust enforcement. George Romney was right in the 50’s when he called for the breakup of the big three and the UAW under antitrust. The big Three only got foreign competition, which slowy crept up and took over. They became bloated and took their customers for granted.

Another great column from a rarity--a national figure who actually cares about America and Americans.

Best line of the column: “an intellectual elite that produces mostly methane.”

So true, Tom, so true.... God bless PJB!....

What I don’t understand is the visceral hatred of American manufacturing....

On Target!............New England Texans was no help to manufacturing. But the “Great Society” of LBJ destroyed it as well. And, I have no idea why “Greenies” think that they can influence the Chi-Coms?

Not quite....I think libertarians often reverse cause an effect.  It is not the government that tells corporations what to do, it is exactly the reverse.  The influence of large corporations on the American government is what is excessive and is causing the problems.  The major donors to presidential campaigns, and essentially who thereby make the laws, are the different lobbies most of which can be connected to corporations.

It was the auto-industry and oil lobby that prevented any kind of progress (research on alternative energy, incentives towards fuel-efficiency via regulation) in the US, and the US auto-industry fell behind the rest of the world in many ways.  For the last decades efficiency standards were at a minimum in the US, whereas Europe and Japan have improved in this area significantly.  The problem was that fuel-efficient cars hurt the interests of the oil-lobby, hence in the US this direction was not to be followed.  Whereas the 80s and 90s were the decade for small cars almost everywhere, in the US it was minivan and SUV-time.  Not to mention that as public transportation in the US is essentially non-existent in most places (thanks be to the aforementioned lobbies), the SUVS and minivans go to work in the morning usually with one or at most a few persons in them.  The traffic jams thus caused also benefit the oil lobby, even, if the time wasted in them by most of the populace is a disastrous waste of human creativity.

To claim that the American auto-industry is a victim of the government is more than inaccurate.  While the automobile was invented in Germany, it is the US, and in particular the 50s 60s US, that based a lifestyle and culture on motorized vehicles.  Networks of multi-lane highways, the fastfood chains, car cinemas, car churches, etc. are all characteristics of 50s 60s America.  Most DJs talk as if their listeners were on the road.

And regarding benefits I can judge for Europe and America in the last decades: certainly more worker benefits (healthcare, long vacations) are mandated via government in Europe than in America.  So that may not be part of the problem either....

This article’s underlying assumption is mistaken.  Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, along with President-Elect Obama, have made clear that they want to add the Big Three and its employees and suppliers to the ever-expanding roll of welfare cases; therefore, Detroit is won!  Hosanna!

If a foreign country taxes its citizens to subsidize auto-industry employees, so should the USA.  Rightly done.

Let’s not stop here.  So long as the USA is going to ape the legislation of other countries, there’s no obvious argument for not relying on foreign courts’ decisions as well.  Why should there be anything distinctive about the USA?  Didn’t Buchanan’s ancestors and mine all come to North America because they wanted it to be exactly like the UK, Prussia, or some other old-world despotism?

Alexander Hamilton saw the way:  a president for life, senators for life, 6-year terms for the representatives, presidential appointment of the governors, a sedition law to keep anyone from criticizing anything the Federal Government does, a federally chartered bank to transfer income from taxpayers to shareholders, direct gifts to well-connected businessmen in “key” industries, and siccing the US Army on anyone who resists in any way.  Truly, “General” Hamilton is a fabulous model for any modern “conservative.” No wonder these people cite Richard Weaver.

Let us now bask in the glow of the Hamilton-Hohenzollern model.  “We” will be much better off, as a group, once Congress cuts the Big Three another Big Check.

And since no one has bothered to answer the question how the Big Three knows that the amount it is requesting is adequate, given that the Keynesians running things have no model for predicting the contraction’s depth or duration, we can expect that this won’t be the last Big Check.  (In fact, we were told that the 1979 gift to Chrysler would be the last it would ever need.  Hmm.)

Future subventions of the Big Three and its Big Voter Rolls will show those South Koreans!  How DARE they produce goods Americans want to buy at prices Americans want to pay?  It just isn’t fair.

And how dare the South Koreans have no constitutional constraints on their legislature’s behavior?  For them to be unfree while we have a free constitution isn’t fair, either.  We’ll show them!  We’ll let our Congress legislate at will, too!

Does anyone know the tune to the Prussian National Anthem?

PC is a morality of inputs not outcomes.  Our elites believe morality is about intentions not actual outcomes.  In the 18th century our rulers knew better.  Lincoln was the turning point when outcomes stopped being the basis of morality.

“If a foreign country taxes its citizens to subsidize auto-industry employees, so should the USA.  Rightly done.

Let’s not stop here.  So long as the USA is going to ape the legislation of other countries, there’s no obvious argument for not relying on foreign courts’ decisions as well.  Why should there be anything distinctive about the USA?  Didn’t Buchanan’s ancestors and mine all come to North America because they wanted it to be exactly like the UK, Prussia, or some other old-world despotism?

Alexander Hamilton saw the way:  a president for life, senators for life, 6-year terms for the representatives, presidential appointment of the governors, a sedition law to keep anyone from criticizing anything the Federal Government does, a federally chartered bank to transfer income from taxpayers to shareholders, direct gifts to well-connected businessmen in “key” industries, and siccing the US Army on anyone who resists in any way.”

That was exquisite.

I’m writing a logic exam for Tuesday, and I needed a specimen of the “slippery-slope” fallacy. 

Who says you can’t get productive work done while surfing the net at the same time?

I hear so many different ideas about where we went wrong and different philosophies and ideologies.  Ican’t help but think we woldn’t be having thes conversations if our government wasn’t eating up 3 trillion a year.  especially the pentagon.  I mean they use what a trillion a year? 

we wouldn’t have to be having sophies choice over industries and health care vswhatever if we had hada trillion dollars back into our economy over the last decade.

we’d probably havealot less crime, divorce and abortion as well.  I think all thes different divides and hyphenated ideologies are missing the point.  Fred reed had acolumn a while ago when he said “doesn’t everyone want a little more money”?  honestly, I dn’t mean that to sound crass but we are arguing over pennies when with one demolition of one building, namely the pentagon, we could be up to our ears in free money.

debt, debt, debt folks.... it’s not just a few financials or inept manufacturers or even the fed.... all this has been stewin’ for YEARS - when the American people in all their righteous intellect decided that globalism was just fine and dandy - no need to actually live a balanced existence and show a little patriotic common sense - nope!.... no way!.... no how! - i want it cheap and fast and to heck with the consequences - ‘cause gosh darn it - i’m an AMERICAN - i deserve as much!.... gimme! gimme! gimme!....

Gutzman wrote, “How DARE they [Asian car manufacturers] produce goods Americans want to buy at prices Americans want to pay??” Go back to square one and read Buchanan’s article, the point of which was that the price of US cars kept jumping as Federal regulations and unions made increasing demands on Detroit.  Asian car manufacturers, not faced with such demands, could compete in an uneven playing field and underprice American models.  The rest of Gutzman’s submission suggests someone should attach his fulminations to a methane capturing apparatus. They could power San Francisco’s entire bus fleet.

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0geu7Qh4CZJEukA1GxXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTBybjFrcjVnBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDNARjb2xvA2FjMgR2dGlkAw--/SIG=11offa712/EXP=1227370913/**http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091125/

^god’s country.  I just rented this. looks pretty good

aah that link didn’t work.  moderator please remove that post.

try again, this documentary looks interesting and appropraite .  from 86

“ Original footage of the prosperous farming community of Glencoe Minnesota, 60 miles west of Minneapolis, was filmed in 1979 for a PBS documentary. But for the next six years Malle was too busy with other projects to finish this work. He returned in 1985 for a follow-up and found the community reacting to the mid eighties crisis of overproduction in farm country. with weekly foreclosures on family farms, and many families moving to the south, Malle documented a sense of frustration and apprehension from the same participants he had befriended in better times half a decade earlier.”

lester - more like $6-$7 trilion over the past two decades if Americans hadn’t been ignorant and had kept the warmongers at bay.... think of how better off we would be if the american Empire never was

One factor that is contributing to the demise of manufacturing is the burden America’s ruling class (i.e. the legal profession) puts on small manufacturing start-ups with drakonian liability laws and excessive federal regulation. Only very large corporation can afford to live with them and thus the most important advantage America enjoys over the rest of the world, its entrepreneurial spirit which made it the envy of Europe, is being negated.
On that note though, Mr. Gutzman, the Prussian government rarely interfered in the commercial activities of its citizens.  Certainly not to the extent the US government is doing it. Maybe there is a connection?

From now on, I think we should call the “talking class” of politicos, ivoery-tower egg-heads and the so-called “main stream media,” the “Methane Gas Class.”

Cheers to General Pat!

the prussian government destroyed their country which tended to affect the economy.  my ancestors left there after deciding rats and grass weren’t their absolute favorite once a day meal.

Mr. Gutzman - “No wonder these people cite Richard Weaver...”

Interesting...would you elaborate briefly?

alphysicist - makes valid points about lobbies and the lack of an alternative
or complementary transportation system to the ugly interstate system...and Americans
over reliance on the auto is a problem most traditionalist should find compelling…

Yes,it is interesting how the elite media sneering at the Big 3 but has animus against the Big Banks and Wall Street. Its almost as if they have friends and relatives in Wall Street and none in Michigan.

pabloH:

You hit the nail on the head.

And those same governments that gave and are giving the Big 3 the hardest time, bend over backwards to welcome our new Japanese and Korean “partners.” They basically pay them to build factories in their state and then some.

I’m not with the UAW, so I’m not quite sure what benefits they get, but I doubt they’re anywhere near the most generous on earth. We’re not in France here or all those other places where people get 2 months paid vacation.

America needs to hear that GM’s problems are not all self-inflicted.

Mr. Buchanan catalogues some of the statism under which Americans groan, then concludes that we should suffer more —in the form of taxation or inflation for the benefit of the UAW and Big Three-rleated businesses.  Why not conclude that we have too little freedom, not too much?

Mr. Hoermann, unless I’m mistaken, Prussia went in for protective tariffs at least from 1818.  Right?

PabloH says that if one favors gifts to banks and not to the Big Three, he must have friends in New York and not Michigan.  An alternative explanation is that he has been listening to Chicago School and/or Keynesian economists, all of whom told him that absent the Paulson Power Grab, Americans at large would be eating that 1946 Prussian diet.

Mr. Piatak chimes in that PabloH is right.  It seems that Mr. Piatak’s idea of political economy extends no further than the question, “How do I maximize government favors for me and mine?”, and so he assumes that PabloH is right in implying that everyone thinks that way.  This is the opposite of an honest love of country.

My Weaver comment was in a sarcastic vein, as a poster in a discussion thread following an earlier article on this general topic had cited Weaver in support of Gi-normous Government a la Piatak, Buchanan, and Hamilton.  This fellow should take a look at “Two Orators” again.

Thank you Pat for sticking up for my Dad.

-Pat
Son of a G.M. Worker and U.A.W. Member
http://www.politicalbyline.com

Prof. Gutzman,

What pabloH said is obviously true.  If the major media were located in the industrial Midwest, not in the Washington-NYC corridor, the media coverage of this issue would be noticeably different.

And the opposition to the federal loan does not take into account the fact that, if the Big Three fail, the government is already on the hook.  If the Big Three go under, the taxpayers will pick up some of what the Big Three used to pay in retiree health care under Medicare, and some of the pension costs under the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, not to mention unemployment compensation. 

I don’t quite get the argument that it is wrong for the government to make a loan and try to avoid incurring these costs, as opposed to blithely letting the Big Three collapse and then paying out a lot more tax dollars afterward.  According to this Bloomberg article, the costs to the taxpayer if GM is forced to liquidate would be $200 billion dollars:  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aRfqFMhlj5lk&refer=worldwide

As for saying I don’t have an honest love of country, such nonsense is beneath contempt, but par for the course for you, as commenters Nicholas II and JD Salyer have figured out.  Now, feel free to go back to ranting about “selfish parasites,” “Ginormous government,” the “Prussian national anthem,” and the like.

The regulations and unions that Pat says led to the destruction of the auto industry also exist and are more onerous in Europe and Japan.

That part of this article needs a rewrite.

US automakers shouldn’t be focusing on small cars. The federal government drive to force American automakers to focus on fuel-efficient economy cars has been totally misguided. What Detroit does well is light trucks and SUVs. It loses money on small cars. It is CAFE regulations, that are trying to force US automakers to be more like Japanese and German automakers that are doing Detroit in.

America is a large country. It is largely rural and suburban, which requires heavier cars that can haul people and supplies further distances. America is not Japan or Germany. American carmarkers would have been able to focus on the domestic market unhindered and make money if the federal government did not impose CAFE on them.

The rhetoric out of Washington is more of the same. More environmental regulations. More fuel efficiency standards. More of trying to force Detroit to be like Japan, South Korea and Germany.

The green lobby destroyed and a disregard for the Constitutional limits on federal government power destroyed US automaking.

Ahem. 

I don’t mean to interrupt the main argument, which is really not my kinda thing, by and large I have no idea what the hell you guys are talking about—but was what I cited an example of the “fallacy of the slippery slope” or was it not? 

I’m certainly not perfect, so I want confirmation before I incorporate it.

Mr. Gutzman:
So Prussia went for protective tariffs - but what does that have to do with my point about domestic regulations and legal insecurity being a hindrance to the formation of new vibrant and competitive domestic enterprises? We all want competition in the industries that serve us, but wouldn’t it be better if the competition is domestic?

Prof. Gutzman,

To imply that Mr. Piatak does not have “an honest love of country” is laughable.  Since you have resorted to personal attacks, are you simply desperate or do you admit that your arguments are specious? 

I know Tom Piatak well, and can comment on him personally.  I can assure you there are few Americans with a greater love for this country.  On the other hand after seeing some of your posts, I question yours. 

There is no doubt in my mind that I would rather live in a country of people like Mr. Piatak, who care about those around them and are willing to help them out in times of crisis rather than those who would just as soon throw them under the bus.

And by the way, how much of the support you have received throughout your career has come courtesy of the US taxpayers?  Student loans?  Salary at a state university?  Pension plan?  Research grants?  Hmmmm……

Uh, Salyer, no, it wasn’t.  It was a description of the politics of the fellow Buchanan, Piatak, and the like have repeatedly invoked, nay embraced, in this thread.  It wasn’t a prediction, it was an elaboration of Hamilton’s politics.  Hamilton was perfectly consistent, following his principles to their logical conclusions.  I hope that those who love some of his principles will ponder their ramifications.

Beneath Piatak’s contempt?  Apparently manipulating Congress to line one’s own or one’s family’s pockets isn’t beneath his contempt, so who cares about his contempt?  And now I’m “ranting,” where formerly I was “fulminating.” Piatak needs a dictionary.  He Oprah-fied this discussion with references to his family.  I only drew the obvious analogy to Prussia and noted the real principles of Alexander Hamilton, on whose authority he called in support of his begging.  I might endlessly multiply references to Thomas Jefferson and John Taylor of Caroline calling Hamiltonian political economy—money for favored industries and favored families—“monarchical.” Anyone interested can consult Banning’s _The Jeffersonian Persuasion_ or Taylor’s own _Tyranny Unmasked_.  Were Jefferson and Taylor “ranting” too?

Piatak says the Washington-New York media are unfair to the Big Three handout argument, in the course of citing Bloomberg.  Where, pray tell, is Bloomberg located?  Yet more nonsense from Piatak.

Note that Piatak has no answer to my constitutional point other than to say that no federal court has ever held or will ever hold such legislation to be unconstitutional.  This Standing Doctrine/Polticial Question Doctrine deceit is the height of his, uhum, lawyerly begging.  Otherwise, his implicit response is, “Who cares?  My family wants the money.”

Piatak quotes the evil Washington-New York Bloomberg to the effect that a GM liquidation could cost the Federal Government $200B, but he omits this line from the same story:  “The difficulty is assuring the American people that the bailout money won’t simply defer the company’s failure for six to 12 months.” This is a point I have made repeatedly:  if proponents of the Piatak Family Gift don’t know how long or how deep the economic contraction will be, how do they know how much money GM needs to avoid Chapter 11?  Answer:  they don’t.  It’s a guess, like Paulson’s call for Congress to give him $700B, which it turns out he has no plan to use.

Mr. Ferkul, I answered your point in a previous post.  Mr. Reichert initiated the ad hominems very early in this discussion, and it turned out that his insinuations were inaccurate.

Southern and Western *ahem* congressional representatives are the jokers that make me *chuckle*.... biggest buncha ingrates - if not for the military/industrial complex - a complex that contributes to our nation being massively in debt - their pissant locales would barely be suitable to host telegraph wires

Won’t the fact that Japanese cars are now made here level the playing field?  Are they not forced to comply with our environmental and safety standards?  People need to insist on American made, and of course we will need to once again have something that is American made to buy. 

@Paul Ferkul,

This seems a bit unfair to attack someone who works for a state university for getting taxpayer money.  So long as he provides the services that he is paid to perform then it would not be analogous to the situation the auto industry is in.  A fair analogy would be that he is paid to stand in front of an empty classroom at a school that has declining enrollment and in a state that has sufficient private colleges to educate all of it’s college students.  In any case I am not sure how student loans figure into anything since they are loans made to students who are obligated to pay them off.  Or are you suggesting that there should be government car loans?  Oh wait, the government just nationalized the banking industry, so never mind I guess.

If anyone really wants to know some acutal economic history for Germany here ya go:

http://books.google.com/books?id=r1EpAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA303&lpg=PA303&dq=german+free+trade+tariff+1879&source=web&ots=vneHLl21eM&sig=rrdFqVVHKPMymkaz1pU5onAHe_E&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

Cliff notes:

Germany Customs Union/German Empire increasingly supports more free trade until 1879. Germany then becomes protectionist and by WWI is the premier economy of Europe.

.... let’s call a spade, a spade.... biggest buncha jerks are all those clowns who ever ventured on to a toyota lot....

“It wasn’t a prediction, it was an elaboration of Hamilton’s politics.”

Right, thanks.

So if I want to use it on the exam, I’ll need to change it to something along the lines of:

“If we do the bailout, then the next thing you know we’ll wind up with all of Hamilton’s wish-list: A president for life, senators for life, etc...”

That would work, right?

So Tom Piatak wants to turn this into simple class warfare - as if the executives of the “Big 3” were not ruling class members themselves; as if the men who ran US Steel were, what exactly, salt of the Earth Bob Sager fans?

This is a structural problem as Alphyiscist noted, one involving an over-investment in the automobile as some kind of metaphysical human right.  Detroit lobbied to ensure American cars guzzled gas while as early as the 1980s Hondas and Toyotas were getting 30 plus mpg.  We can put men on the moon but cannot make a GM that gets 60-70 mpg?  Please! 

The stupid American addiction to driving trucks and SUVs with nothing in the cargo area, just to have a bigger and bigger cars as some kind of Constitutional right, was being pursued at the same time German and Japs were making their excellent, stylish cars smaller and more reliable.

Pat conflates his hatred of east coast intellectuals (one I share) with the collapse of an industry which long ago stopped being viable.  Who prevented (still prevents) investment in newer technologies, in robotics, in alternative fuel sources? - Detroit’s supposed “regular guys.” It is the solidified and out-dated Post-War mentality of Detroit that caused this crisis. 

The companies should be restructured under Chapter 11, even if it takes five years, so we can again have an auto-industry worthy of this nation’s genius - it would be the best, most pro-worker thing to do in the long run.

And yes, everything else Pat says about diversity, immigration, trial lawyers, etc. is true, but that does not alone exculpate Detroit for failing to anticipate changes and restructure themselves sooner.

I’d like to congratulate all the posters & members. These last days we’d had the privilege of assisting - in the comment section of some economic articles – to a tremendous debate that has reached high standards of quality, fuelled with fiery passion and even more –as economy relates not only to the brain but also to the guts - and colored with almost any literary style, from the long dissertations to the poignant capriccios.

It’s doubtful whether there are more thought-provoking, ardent discussions around the net (and I’m pretty sure there a more than a few great out there), and its somehow mystifying to read once and again the posts and see the kaleidoscopic colours of life pouring though it, from the brilliant Levantine broker to Joe the populist, from the corporate lawyer to the entrepreneur , from the ingenieur to the political thinker. It’s in those moments when one really understands what great treasures are free speech and democracy, as it’s only thru the eyes of each and everyone around us that we can, from time to time, catch a glimpse of Reality – or at least, that half of Reality that crawls and walks “out there”.

I’d love to contribute to this fascinating agora of economics but, alas!, I don’t know shit about economy – I always remember how as a kid (in a lil´ town in the northwest of Spain) I was fatally intrigued by the mysterious workings of the Stock Market - and how I tried in vain to decipher its inner mechanism; an enigma that still puzzles me to this very day. I’ve never been able to save a bloody buck in my whole life – as I usually went straight to a bookshop & my drug dealer ( though not necessarily in that particular order ) if any penny came down to my pants – so I cant say much either about money.

The most I can do, perhaps, in return for the pleasure of reading Taki´s web-mag these two late nights is to reproduce a few thoughts about technology and its relation to traditional, human values (the “Roots of [agrarian] People &. Mobility of Work) from Lewis Mumford (I don’t know how his thought ranks around here but his teachings may be of good use for the some of the paleos present here. I must state, though, I don’t support his view which someone may (correctly) characterize as paranoid but still he’s far more clever and deep than most technoprophets of these “strange days” we live in ).

Here is the text - or better, some extracts of it (Please, have in mind this was written in the seventies when the federal leviathan was still a teenager – I mean, a strong and well “fed” teen but still an adolescent:

“Through mechanization, automation, cybernetic direction, this authoritarian technics has at last successfully overcome its most serious weakness: its original dependence upon resistant, sometime actively disobedient servo-mechanisms, still human enough to harbour purposes that do not always coincide with those of the system.

Like the earliest form of authoritarian technics this new technology is marvellously dynamic and productive: its power in every form tends to increase without limits, in quantities that defy assimilation and defeat control, whether we a re thinking of the output of scientific knowledge or of industrial assembly lines. To maximize energy, speed, or automation, without reference to complex conditions that sustain organic life, have become ends in themselves. As with the earliest form of authoritarian technics, the weight of effort, if one is to judge by national budgets, is towards absolute instruments of destruction, designed for absolutely irrational purposes whose chief by-product would be the mutilation or extermination of the human race.

… Under the pretext of saving labor, the ultimate end of this technics is to displace life, or rather, to transfer the attributes of life to the machine and the mechanical collective, allowing only so much of the organism o remain as may be controlled and manipulated.

Do not misunderstand this analysis. The danger to democracy does not spring from any specific discoveries or electronic inventions. The human compulsions that dominate the authoritarian technics of our day date back to a period before even the wheel was invented. The danger springs from the fact, since Francis Beacon and Galileo defines the new methods and objectives of technics, our great physical transformations have been effected by a system that deliberately ignores the historic process, overplays the role of the abstract, and makes control over nature, ultimately control over man himself, the chief purpose of this existence.

..Why has our age surrendered so easily to the controllers, the manipulators, the conditioners of an authoritarian technics? [… the bargain (one could very well say here too the “bail out”. Note of the copyist) we are being asked to ratify takes the form of a magnificent bribe. Under the democratic-authoritarian social contract, each member of the community may claim every material advantage, every intellectual and emotional stimulus he may desire, in quantities hardly available hitherto even for a restricted minority. But on one condition: that one must not ask for nothing that the system does not provide, but likewise agree to take everything offered, duly processed and fabricated, homogenized and equalized, in the precise quantities that the system rather than the person, requires. IN a word, if one surrenders one’s life at source, authoritarian technics will give back as much of it as can be quantitatively multiplied, collectively manipulated and magnified,

“Is this not a fair bargain”? Those who speak for the system will ask. “Are not the goods authoritarian technics promise real goods? Is this not the horn of plenty that mankind has long dreamed of, and that every ruling class has tried to secure, at whatever cost of brutality of injustice, for itself?” I would not belittle, still less deny, the many admirable products this technology has brought of forth…] I would only suggest that is it time to reckon up the human disadvantages and cost, to say nothing of the dangers, of our unqualified acceptance of the system itself…]

…We must ask, not what is good for science, still less what is good for GM, Union Carbide or IBM or the Pentagon, but what is good for man: not machine-conditioned, system-regulated mass-man, but man in person, moving freely over every area of life.

There are large areas of technology that can be redeemed by the democratic process, once we have overcome the infantile compulsions and automatisms that now threaten to cancel out our real gains…]

The replenishment of democratic technics is plainly too big a subject to be handled in a final sentence or two: but I trust I have made it clear that the genuine advantages our scientifically based technics has brought can be preserved only if we cut the whole system back to a point which it will permit human alternatives, human interventions and human destinations for entirely different purposes than that of the system itself”.

Hey, Salyer, that really is very funny!

The original assertion was that protection was a great thing because Washington and Hamilton favored it.  My response was the catalogue of other positions Hamilton favored, 1787-1801.  Again, it wasn’t a prediction, it was a rejection of the idea that Hamilton’s authority as some kind of expert in political principles should be respected.

Not a slippery slope argument.

On the other hand, giving UAW members and Big Three shareholders a gift is akin to giving Bank of the United States shareholders a gift, in that it is a way to accrue their political devotion.  Mr. Buchanan’s argument that if it didn’t give them this gift, the GOP would forever lose their votes pretty clearly agreed with this point.  (Seems pretty similar to Roman politics in the 50s BC, with the Triumvirs bidding for support via growing gifts to the public.)

Prof. Gutzman,

Your hatred and irrationality are a wonder to behold.

Since your claim is that the Constitution is dead, it seems odd for you to care about aconstitutional warrant for a loan to the Big Three.  But such a constitutional warrant is found in Article I, Section 8, under the interpretation offered by Justice Story in his Commentaries and adopted by a unanimous Supreme Court in United States v Butler, the first time the Court considered the issue.  Although the Court found the Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional, it concluded that “the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes id not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution,” but Congress may appropriate and spend money for any purpose so long as it is for the “general welfare” or “common defense” of the United States.  A loan to the Big Three would be an expenditure both “for the general welfare” and “for the common defense,” for the reasons Buchanan has articulated in his excellent columns.

Ah, so there we have it:  Piatak’s constitutional vision is that of _United States v. Butler_, in which the Supreme Court said that Congress could spend money for any purpose so long as it purported to be pursuing the “general welfare.” This is indeed the view of Story and, ultimately, Hamilton, who said that the enumeration of congressional powers in Article I, Section 8 was gratuitous, and that really what the powers of Congress amounted to was the power to spend at will.

In the Virginia Ratification Convention, Edmund Randolph (Philadelphia Convention Framer, sponsor of the Virginia Plan) promised that Congress would have only the powers “expressly delegated.” James Madison, in his Bonus Bill Veto Message of 1817, said that the congressional Bonus Bill (to spend money on construction of roads and canals throughout the country) was unconstitutional because that power was not among those “expressly delegated” in Article I, Section 8.  Both he and Jefferson noted that readings such as Mr. Piatak’s would leave no limitation on the spending power.

True, such as Mr. Piatak behave as if Article I, Section 8’s enumeration had no purpopse, that it amounted to “Congress may spend money on A, B, C, or whatever it wants.” THAT is what I mean when I say that the Constitution is dead:  that it is routinely treated as if it did not exist by the Pelosis, Reids, and Piataks.  This is what Jefferson and Taylor had in mind in using the word “monocrats,” because it went to the elimination of all reservations of power to the states.

In response to an early court decision in this vein, Madison wrote that if the people had known that John Marshall, Story, and friends were going to read the Constitution this way, they would never have ratified it.

Mr. Piatak says that for me to take this position is “hatred” and “irrationality.” I am happy to be in the company of such as Madison, Jefferson, and Randolph against such as Piatak.

“If the major media were located in the industrial Midwest, not in the Washington-NYC corridor, the media coverage of this issue would be noticeably different”

you would hope it would be impartial either way

Kevin Gutzman’s questioning of Piatak’s love of this country is utterly preposterous.  Tom Piatak has a more sincere concern for this country than almost any political commentator I’ve ever met.

“Your (gutzman’s) hatred and irrationality are a wonder to behold.”

A-M-E-N!.... miserable chap.... i guess that’s what happens when you is beholden only to.... the most mechanical of iDeOlOgIeS

Nucci,

US environmental regulations don’t diminish Japan’s market advantage, which is building small cars for crowded cities.

All car manufacturers depend on their domestic market for their sustaining base. In the US, the federal government prevents US automakers from fully capitalizing on the domestic market by imposing CAFE regulations on them that seriously handicap their ability to profit from light trucks/SUVs.

This results in US automakers not being able to fully use their domestic market as a profitable home base the way Japanese, Korean and German automakers take advantage of theirs.

gutzman, you a jew?

Mr. Gutzman:
I may not agree with you in many areas, but I applaud your adherance to the meaning of the constitution as the founders intended it. This is an admirable trait in a time when others like to reinterpret the will of the founders to fit their own temporary desires.

“Again, it wasn’t a prediction, it was a rejection of the idea that Hamilton’s authority as some kind of expert in political principles should be respected.”

Well, you have to admit that this --

“If a foreign country taxes its citizens to subsidize auto-industry employees, so should the USA.  Rightly done.

Let’s not stop here.  So long as the USA is going to ape the legislation of other countries, there’s no obvious argument for not relying on foreign courts’ decisions as well.”

-- does come off a lot like a prediction, and not much like a rejection of Hamilton’s authority.

It’s not a prediction.  It’s going on now, and has been the subject of controversy for years.  Actually, such as Reichert, Buchanan, and Piatak often lament that it is going on now.  My point is that they’re being inconsistent.

“I am one of those men, I am a White man.  You will not take my Love from me. “

I don’t think anyone wants your love .  it think that’s perhaps at the root of your problems

Excellent piece, Mr. Buchanan.  I especially like the ending:

“In the 1950s, we made all our own toys, clothes, shoes, bikes, furniture, motorcycles, cars, cameras, telephones, TVs, etc. You name it. We made it. 
 Are we better off now that these things are made by foreigners? Are we better off now that we have ceased to be self-sufficient? Are we better off now that the real wages of our workers and median income of our families no longer grow as they once did? Are we better off now that manufacturing, for the first time in U.S. history, employs fewer workers than government?  We no longer build commercial ships. We have but one airplane company, and it outsources. China produces our computers. And if GM goes Chapter 11, America will soon be out of the auto business.  Our politicians and pundits may not understand what is going on. Historians will have no problem explaining the decline and fall of the Americans.”

Prima facie, I don’t see what is wrong with a loan.  Institutions make loans all the time.  Our government has done so much frivolous spending that criticizing it for making this loan is like criticizing the town whore for having impure thoughts.  Furthermore, it seems, as Piatak points out above, this loan could possibly undercut future actual spending should the giants fall.  As many others have pointed out, not only is keeping the automotive sector afloat important for all the dependent sectors, but also the automotive sector is not analogous to other sectors.  Heavy manufacturing is a necessary condition for the continued security and well-being of nations - a concrete reality recognized by China and other nations, but seemingly lost in the ideological posturing of abstract American theorists. 

And there are other concerns, as voiced in Thomas Fleming’s dialogue stripping this debate to fundamental questions: “Any man that denies the bonds of loyalty to family, kin, and country, is not only a fool, but no man at all.  In uttering such inanities, he excludes himself from civilized discourse.”

A disgruntled old man in delirium. My favorite point was “using OUR technology”.  Lets us all get together and give Euclid back “his” geometry, Newton “his” gravity and Fleming “his” penicillin.  For the sake of fairness.

Where’s the money for the gifts to Wall Street and the Big Three/UAW going to come from?

http://sg.biz.yahoo.com/081120/1/4kelg.html

Can any patriot accept that the US Government is going to behave this way?

@Captainchaos,

I am not so sure that all UAW workers are in fact white.

@M.A. Roberts,

I often hear the national security argument for the big three.  Do they provide anything to the current war effort and if so why are they still not profitable while overcharging the government like the rest of the defense industry is?  Ironically the biggest threat to our national security is our current form of government with its rampant military spending and needless intervention.  This country has nukes and the ability to use them.  Is there really any better deterent?

What tribalism did I advocate?  I was advocating Jeffersonian constitutional government.  It’s you on Piatak’s side of the dispute who have talked about blood and soil (once again reminding me of Great-great-grandad’s Prussia).  What does that have to do with Palestine?  Maybe Mr. Piatak can spell it out more clearly.

It’s not true, btw, that only free, white men could become citizens “according to the Founding Fathers.” That’s a base calumny made most clearly by Chief Justice Taney in _Dred Scott_ and conclusively exploded by the dissenters in that very case.

Prof. Gutzman might do well to consider how Jefferson acted as President as opposed to how he so eloquently bloviated as a theorist.  Kindly show me exactly where in the US Constitution the Louisiana Purchase is authorized, for instance.  Jefferson’s stirring rhetoric and controversial behaviou are remarkably similar to the dichotomies presented by Presidents Wilson and Bush II

Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution says, in relevant part, “He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.” Treaties to purchase territory were common at the time.  Thus, he has power to make such treaties.

The alternative would say that he has no power to make treaties that aren’t described—such as treaties to make peace, treaties to make alliances, treaties governing commercial relations, etc.  No one argues that the fact that the Constitution doesn’t say what kinds of treaties he may make means that he cannot make any kind of treaty; rather, words in the Constitution are taken to have the signification they commonly had at the time.

Such sticklers for constitutional propriety even as John Taylor of Caroline and John Randolph of Roanoke agreed that the Louisiana Purchase treaty was constitutional.  Jefferson had very little in common with Bush II, a bit more with Wilson—except when it came to politics, where he had little in common with either.

“Are we better off now that these things are made by foreigners? Are we better off now that we have ceased to be self-sufficient? Are we better off now that the real wages of our workers and median income of our families no longer grow as they once did? Are we better off now that manufacturing, for the first time in U.S. history, employs fewer workers than government?”

Yes.

Would we be better off if the government forced us to rely on losers when much better people are making much better cars out in the world?

So let me get this straight, in order to save the Beloved Country, we should erect trade barriers in the fashion of the Europeans and Orientals and stress exports to some unknown consumer and then bail out the Big Three as long as they deport any ethnic worker and hire only the white man and trust that there will be enough white folk inclined to defend the place once the foreign hordes decide to cash out of their good old Yankee Paper before descending on us like modern day Mongols in order to keep their millions occupied and pick over whats left....fully enflamed to do so because our military seems to have misinterpreted the hospitality of the the many nations we maintain bases on. Then we can nuke em all. Wheres Bill Mauldin when we need him?

Or, maybe somebody thinks we can support the American Economy on Domestic trade alone, particularly after we have deported all the wogs. Surely all the righteous and ethnically pure White Men will love to swallow a major hit in the standard of living, while defending against those who want arable lands and water in a temperate climate. The audience of Grand Theft Auto, Big Truck Rodeo and Survivor surely doesn’t think labor is a pejorative anymore and will love to work in an assembly line job plunged back into early 20th century standards because the only thing the government is spending money on is defense.

Am I missing something here?

I currently drive an 07 Honda CRV because four separate Ford Dealerships treated me with utter indifference when shopping there first for a Hybrid SUV because I wanted a rugged 4 season car with good ground clearance for construction sites that did not suck gas like my Jeep or Fourmotion VW. One sales rep actually told me that Ford doesn’t make any money on the car I wanted and so was not interested in selling them. He actually told me to go somewhere else. Later, I found the Hybrid did not really provide any significant fuel economy in exurban driving so i suppose it was meant to be. Except for the absence of an ashtray for cigars (a $175 “Smokers package”...this coming from a nation that smokes like Vesuvius), and excessive plastic body panels down low where a little metal would come in handy, the Honda is a fine car. However.....

My favorite cars, the ones I pilot when I want more than to get from point A to Point B, are a 55 Buick Special and a 60 Buick LeSabre Convertible which are better than Prozac for the summer months. The LeSabre’s Radio only plays AM Baseball and the Special’s non-stock tape player only plays Prez Prado or Howlin Wolf. Looking at the body panel fit, chrome and fins on these babys and aint no way I give a simple damn about the trade deficit. These babys are leaded , heavy and AMERICAN, 100% Harley Earl. American automotive manufacturers are a wonder to behold but they, like the American Government have become way too big, institutionally Kafkaesque, profligate, short term-centric and reactionary. They think, like all Corporate Conglomerates that they can politicize their way to long term health and market share. Washington, conditioned to reactionary idiocy and even shorter attention spans between bouts of dementia, obliges them with open briefcase.

An interesting development in this credit crisis is that locally owned banks around the country are still lending money to viable borrowers. they refrained from getting involved in the “easy money” of the types of Math Ponzi Schemes that gave us a dry run with Long Term Capital Management but was ignored by the Feds in favor of an even bigger systemic clusterboink now.

The so called locavores...local foodies have their Slow Food Association. Methinks we need a Slow Capitalism corollary that does not eschew globalism like globalism eschewed local economies.  A vibrant economy in a technologically sophisticated age needs both global and local trade.  If it takes some kind of Government intervention to get us there, so be it but I have yet to hear a scintilla of recognition of the possibilities as big as the problems ahead of us..... from our beloved automakers or their feckless bagmen in Washington. The best they could do is pull pants down over corporate executives flying their jets. A major victory for governance. What a complete waste of precious time.

Apparently, until the Euro recently tanked, the biggest market for vintage American cars was in the eurozone and the Vikings , in particular, love the big fins...go figure. Like baseball, we make a good venue or product and they will come. Like Baseball, one needs a properly functioning minor league farm system to create winning teams. We’ve lost the ability to think long term and in scaled economics. Bigger is only better if it don’t crash and burn. Don’t just think globally and act locally, think right on through the entire scale because that is where this American Economy has shone before and will shine again if we expect to exit the stirling achievement of the Worlds Biggest Debtor Nation.

Give me a high mileage car with nice handling, good panel fit and maybe a modern fin or two and the foreigners will be lining up to buy them with lust in their eyes and then maybe we will not have to worry about the wogs taking over the country. 
Washington has spoken and makes no sense...it’s time for the American Citizen to step up to the plate and run the bases from the local to the foreign. It is not required to be either-or.

Our big fat unions are largely to blame.  Because of their high wages, it was more profitable for the Big 3 to produce SUVs over compact cars, like the Asians were doing.  (They could make $10,000 more per SUV than per compact as a result.) Thus the labor movement’s greed helped to give market share to the Japs, whose workers have lower salaries.  As oil prices rose, this SUV strategy has broken the Big 3.  And it didn’t help that the Big 3 lobbied Congress to classify SUVs as non-truck vehicles, so as to skirt fuel efficiency laws.  Sorry folks, they did this to themselves and it’s time to pay the piper.

Somehow I still suspect that Bonaparte made an offer we couldn’t refuse, and the strict constructionists just couldn’t bring themselves to object.

Also I don’t buy the expensive labor pitch.  In 1915 Ford went to $5 per day when the union labor in Detroit got ca. $2.80.  Granted, working conditions at Ford were grisly, but still....

Here in Germany people have lots more holidays than in the USA and work regulations are at least as strict.

The main problem is that for the past 30 years US cars were never first in quality, never first in mileage and never first in safety.

Detroit ignored rising global fuel consumption and failed to see that the long-term fuel prices had to rise. Europe has been talking about the 3-litre auto (3 litres for 100km) for at least 20 years while Detroit focused on SUVs.

Don’t blame this failure on Europeans and Asians. This is entirely home-made.

The attacks on Dr. Gutzman are, frankly, embarrassing.
He is espousing the small government, free market, constitutionalist view I thought paleo-conservatives and classical Liberals shared.
Apparently not.
Buchanan has always been a proto-fascist big government corporatist. It seems most Takimag readers share that bent. I guess it’s back to Rockwell for me.

Prof Gutzman’s P.I.G. book was smashing and I love Mr. Piatak.

So, what category does that put me in?

I recall Gilbert Keith Chesterton wring about men in a bar arguing loudly and at length about religion. He was quite in favor of it. What has been done here is what men do.

We men argue, passionately, about this and that, and this is a great site to host these arguments.

I am not scandalised and I do not choose sides in the argument.  I do think that Mr. Paiatak is a great Patriot whom I Love for his just and fair ideas and I also love Prof. G. for his Constitutionalism and his Patriotism.

It´s a bit irrelevant to compare the wages in America and Europe in the 50´s. I seriously doubt that the wages are significantly lower in countries like Germany and Sweden. Nor is our countries less regulated or have softer enviroment requirments. Like Astan says, american cars are simply not good enough any longer. Let´s face reality.

Personally, I believe that US manufacturing companies has gotten itself into a situation where the wages is way to high to compete with countries like China, but also to labour and energy- inefficient to compete with western european companies. For example, here in Sweden, there is a high degree of automated production and such.

When the U.S. government passes a regulation it drives the domestic automakers out of business, when Germany and Japan does the same thing their automakers do fine.

Don’t let the rest of the world dissuade you guys from your strongly held beliefs, LOL.

Blaming the demise of Detroit on only unions or only management is silly.

What has happened to Detroit is a “perfect storm” of:

1) A big recession,

2) Poor management,

3) High wages and benefits,

4) Poor quality and service of products.

5) The manufacture of products with low fuel efficiency; coupled with high fuel prices, and

6) The lack of government supports. (All other auto manufacturers are subsidized by their home countries...even foreign companies located in the USA.)

The “perfect storm” is further fueled by hubris and conflicting motives by those who own preferred stock and sit on boards of the Big-3, supporting industries, foreign car industries and oil companies.

For futures president’s reference:

Here’s the libertarian solution for all economic crises - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb_twiddling

Unfortuneately there has never existed a president who has been able to do this fast enough at the appropriate time to lead the country to the promised land.

Why couldn’t we ever have elected Ayn Rand dammit!!

Taki’s comment section would be much better if the name came BEFORE The comment. An ignore function would also be nice. Herr Gutzman brought this to mind.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

And how about stripping all post 1965 immigrants and their descendants of citizenship, and then repatriating them?

Wouldn’t that be kind of immoral captainchaos. I don’t think any reasonable person would argue that America doesn’t have a right to have a white-only immigration policy, but to go back on the pledge of citizenship for millions of people and literally destroy entire lifetimes of investment into the social and economic fabric of America would be highly dishonorable.

“He is espousing the small government, free market, constitutionalist view I thought paleo-conservatives and classical Liberals shared.”

Mr Stonehouse
I support small government and constitutionalism (but am against “free” trade), however, we in the Western world are a long way from these ideals. The point is trying to reach these goals without an intermediary return to the dark ages. Destroying America’s manufacturing base (which the demise of the Big3 would go a long way to achieving) would seem a promising way of reducing much of the population to serfdom.
Esmeralda Pearl
I think that you have it right on the causes.

Gutzman wrote:
“And how dare the South Koreans have no constitutional constraints on their legislature’s behavior?  For them to be unfree while we have a free constitution isn’t fair, either.  We’ll show them!  We’ll let our Congress legislate at will, too!”

This is the closest thing that I’ve heard to a concession that the success of asian car makers is significantly due to the intervention of their government in the form of tariffs, subsidies, etc.This would seem to be a very troubling proposition for any libertarian. Isn’t it much easier to just believe that American workers are incompetent, overpaid losers who make lousy cars? And you know, I can understand the principle that Gutzman is arguing from, but the tacit admission is that domestic companies will never be able to compete against foreign companies who receive this sort of assistance from their governments and face no international competition in their home markets. Libertarians don’t seem to have an answer for NE Asia’s economic nationalism, to the extent that they even seem to consider the material welfare of American workers or the state of American industry topics for a valid question, which, as many of the comments here have made clear, they don’t.

“The main problem is that for the past 30 years US cars were never first in quality, never first in mileage and never first in safety.”

Astan/Andreas:
The JD power survey rated Ford first in quality in several different market segments. Consumer Reports rated their reliability above Toyota’s. You really expect us to believe that the problem with American cars is that they can’t match the quality of all those super reliable German and Swedish cars!! You are late to this debate and you’ve obviously not bothered to bring anything as boring as actual facts or knowledge of the subject to it. American car makers have made lots of crappy econo boxes, most of them not much worse than the crappy little Jap econo boxes they were made to compete against. Due to America’s geography, though, large segment of the market don’t have much use for these cars and need powerfull vehicles that are good at driving straight for long distances while carrying lots of people and stuff. It’s the cars produced for this later segment that are fairly or unfairly most often associated with Detroit.

Sir, looking at this spectacle from Germany is interesting but not amusing at all. The choice you face - all your ideological differences about your constitution and the purity of the free market won’t change this - reminds one of the choice the British faced in the first half of the last century: lose their empire to the Germans or to the Americans.
They took their choice, and as a German I’m none to happy with it.
In your case it’s losing your ability to incinerate the planet 30 times over or actually doing it.
The ridiculous state of what was once the most efficient center of mass production on this planet is just another symptom, along with gated communities and similar failures of the not-quite-so-free-market in your country.

And sir, you are right: Detroit is victim to government regulations - like hidden, but enormous subsidies for outdated and obviously wasteful technologies - but who lobbied for these? Toyota? VW?

(Have you noticed how the countries with a still functioning car industry also have functioning “socialist” public transport - even outside their metropolis’? Who destroyed public transport in the US?)

Given the very real danger that your nuclear code falls into the hands of a rapturist, the well deserved Schadenfreude gives way to sheer apocalyptic horror.
Sincerely

Mr. McCannan, I am a nationalist, that is why I support creating a free and fair domestic market where irresponsibility and costs are not socialized with bailouts, and success is not penalized with taxes. That is why I support a society where people are not restricted by regulations, except those that are truly popular and representative of the will of local communities, i.e. those created at the local and state level.

The purpose of the Constitution has always been to simplify the process of protecting liberty, by codifying the limitations on the power of the federal government. I see no better way to promote national well-being than to promote the Constitutionalism.

As I’ve pointed out, Detroit has been making money on SUVs and light trucks for years, and it is the unconstitutional CAFE regulations that have forced it to build fleets of money-losing small cars.

Without unconstitutional regulations that reduce domestic oil production, like the ban on offshore drilling, and without an interventionist foreign policy that sanctions Iran and threatens other autocratic oil producing countries in the middle east, oil prices would be significantly lower, and Detroit would be making even more money on sales of light trucks and SUV’s.

Defending and promoting liberty is nationalism. Creating a government that protects each citizens’ right to make a living for himself in the way he himself deems best, is the greatest service one can do for another. That is my belief, based on the priori reasoning, not ideological blind faith.

Why doesn’t anyone mention Paul Volcker and the raising of the FED prime rate to 22%? How could our industry pay business loans with more than 22% interest and remain competitive internationally? It couldn’t be done and thus industry began to leave because the policy driven by the monetarist belief that the issuance of paper controls inflation.

So essentially what destroyed American industrial capacity was the trilaterialist Carter administration along the “Free Trade” doctrine of the Globalist Super Imperialists forcing companies to compete without protection after they had been gutted by the draconian interest rates while protection remained in place for foreign competitors. Add to that the tax incentives given out for moving off shore and we can see the results.

Know I have deal with the Globalist anti-constitution arguments of Dr. Gutzman.

Quote: “If a foreign country taxes its citizens to subsidize auto-industry employees, so should the USA.  Rightly done.

Let’s not stop here.  So long as the USA is going to ape the legislation of other countries, there’s no obvious argument for not relying on foreign courts’ decisions as well.  Why should there be anything distinctive about the USA?”

The idea of to subsidize industry vital to the national interest is not foreign but rather an old American tradition going back to George Washington and John Adams and the Constitution which calls for the Congress to “pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and the GENERAL WELFARE” and to “to REGULATE COMMERCE with foreign Nations, and among the several States...” thus one of the first things we did was establish a National Bank controlled through the U.S. Treasury and by the Congress which financed the construction of ship yards to build the U.S. Navy.

Since Germany, Japan, France, South Korean all got this model national industrial development from us, our return to our traditional economic policy is isn’t aping anything foreign at all but rather the idea we should never extend public credit to finance industrial and development but must borrow from private Banks is a British System idea so it is Dr. Gutzman who is aping foreigners and suggest we must follow “no out of budget” dictates of the the IMF. 

Now it simply doesn’t follow that if we refuse to do what the Constitution says and regulate commerce (in our national interest) as Dr. Gutzman suggests we do that we must then follow the courts of foreign lands. It is completely irrational to think if we follow the constitution’s call for national interest based economic policy we must then accept legal opinions based on the foreign courts rather than have a nationally interested legal tradition as well. And the evidence is very clear in proven that Dr. Gutzman is wrong because with more economic globalization we see more demands for aligning our legal procedures and regulations with international standards even to the point where the U.S. Supreme court is overruled under a NAFTA court.

Quote: “Didn’t Buchanan’s ancestors and mine all come to North America because they wanted it to be exactly like the UK, Prussia, or some other old-world despotism?”

But what where the British and Prussian Empires but Empires against the general welfare and Empires that demanded “Free Trade” with and non-industrialization of the their colonies under the guise of capitalist “free enterprise” and primitive accumulation.

Quote: “Future subventions of the Big Three and its Big Voter Rolls will show those South Koreans!  How DARE they produce goods Americans want to buy at prices Americans want to pay?  It just isn’t fair.

And how dare the South Koreans have no constitutional constraints on their legislature’s behavior?  For them to be unfree while we have a free constitution isn’t fair, either.  We’ll show them!  We’ll let our Congress legislate at will, too!”

Yes Dr. Gutzman how dare the United States allow foreigner countries to dumb subsidized
goods on American shores without a tax penalty for that predatory action because that’s institutional interference and not “free trade.” How dare we allow Chinese Slave goods to under value honest American labor by forced underpayment and no payment for the 27 million and growing slaves in this world?  Yes we should punish any country that does not serve the interest of it’s citizens general welfare. To quote Henry Carey: “ to raise the value of labor internationally, we but need to raise our own.” I’ll add the corollary “in equating the products of those who degrade the value of their labor to our own, we degrade the value of our labor.”

I stand against the forced under valuing of labor and against slavery and thus against you who thinks that allowing the products of slavery unrestricted access to our markets is a victory for Liberty and not for Slavery.

Quote from Dr. Butzman: “Ah, so there we have it:  Piatak’s constitutional vision is that of _United States v. Butler_, in which the Supreme Court said that Congress could spend money for any purpose so long as it purported to be pursuing the “general welfare.””

Ok, you that’s it. You’re really pissing me off now. Congress according to the Constitution has the authority for the issuance of public credit i.e. we are not to allowed to have a private banking system to control the money supply of the nation. If the issuance of credit is to be determined by Congress then on what basis is the credit to be loaned out through the Treasury?

Well Article 1 section 8 defines the first and most important duty of the Congress is to pay for and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare. So the principle of the general Welfare is the heart of the Constitution when it comes to the what loans Congress authorizes.

So what is the principle of the general Welfare a phrase used in the preamble and named in the first powers given to Congress?

I maintain the principle of the general Welfare falls under the category of the “pursuit of happiness” as phrase chosen by Franklin in opposition to Locke’s conception of property. “Happiness” according to Leibniz is “lasting Joy” and therefore tends towards things of permanence. So therefore the general welfare principle cannot be used in terms of individual welfare because individuals die but must be used in terms of development of permanent value of the society. Now permanent value is are not temporary things that increase pleasure of an individual as a consumer but rather allow the whole of mankind enjoy the benefits increased science and creativity as the true source permanent human wealth. Therefore loans to institutions, infrastructure, and firms that allow humans to increase their knowledge, creative powers and understanding as a society.

I submit the Manufactures meets that criteria whereas loans to Wall-Street gamblers and Food Stamp programs to deadbeats does nothing to increase permanent value in society. Thus I can issue loans to Manufactures within the General Welfare principle and deny loans for government hand outs.

This is not “spend money for any purpose so long as it purported to be pursuing the “general welfare” kind of thinking but government based on idea of the “Republic.”

The idea of republican government as opposed to the Liberal democratic idea of Lockean Shareholders is the idea that the society was the commonwealth: That is, the monarch (government) is the slave, in a sense, the instrument who must serve the cause of the General Welfare. American was founded in this tradition in opposition to British Liberalism which is Benthamite in conception.

Quote from Dr. Gutzman: “Mr. Piatak says that for me to take this position is “hatred” and “irrationality.” I am happy to be in the company of such as Madison, Jefferson, and Randolph against such as Piatak.”

Only you are not in the tradition of Jefferson or of any American patriot but rather in the tradition of the Tories.

Let me quote Thomas Jefferson on this subject Domestic Manufactures:

“ We have experienced what we did not then believe, that there exists both profligacy and power enough to exclude us from the field of interchange with other nations: that to be independent for the comforts of life we must fabricate them ourselves. We must now place the manufacturer by the side of the agriculturist. The former question is suppressed, or rather assumes a new form. Shall we make our own comforts, or go without them, at the will of a foreign nation? He, therefore, who is now against domestic manufacture, must be for reducing us either to dependence on that foreign nation, or to be clothed in skins, and to live like wild beasts in dens and caverns. I am not one of these; experience has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort; and if those who quote me as of a different opinion, will keep pace with me in purchasing nothing foreign where an equivalent of domestic fabric can be obtained, without regard to difference of price, it will not be our fault if we do not soon have a supply at home equal to our demand, and wrest that weapon of distress from the hand which has wielded it.”

“The prohibiting duties we lay on all articles of foreign manufacture which prudence requires us to establish at home, with the patriotic determination of every good citizen to use no foreign article which can be made within ourselves without regard to difference of price, secures us against a relapse into foreign dependency.”

So I guess good old Thomas Jefferson was a communist or something because he didn’t think that foreign goods were equivalent to domestic goods. You Dr. Gutzman, are not in the company Mr. Jefferson but the company of the murderer Aaron Burr and no doubt would have praised the murder of the “monarchist” with your Tory friends.

Dr. Gutzman is correct on the issue at hand. However, to see this debate decline into personal attacks is unfortunate.
The problem lies in the Constitution itself. It is too vague a document that failed, after many years, to restrain man’s “libido dominandi” (thank you St. Augustine).
A much better political device would have been the Articles of Confederation tweeked just a bit here and there. But in the end, I think human nature would have prevailed.
The Bush regime’s socialist practices, the banking “bailout” ect, will pale in comparison to what the Obamacons have in store for us.
As one American wrote, “Its a empty, hungry feelin’ that don’t mean no man no good.”
Pray, my friends, pray!

the general welfare clause is a qualifier, it isn’t an enumeration of federal government powers. Any honest appraisal of the aims of the Constitution would make that clear. Why even specify the federal government’s powers (e.g. post roads, a patent office, creation of an army), if the Constitution grants the federal government to do any thing that is deemed in the “general welfare”?

Obviously the general welfare clause doesn’t give the federal government a blank check to do whatever it wants. The general clause was meant to be a qualifier -a descriptive preamble- preceding the specific powers that Congress is permitted.

Having the only requirement for the federal government to under-take a program be that the program serves a quality as variably interpreted as ‘serving the general welfare’ would create a hole big enough for every special interest group in the world to drive a truck through. Which is exactly what has been happening.

piatak, buchanan captain chaos and co bring to mind the ballad of John Henry.

piatak, buchanan captain chaos and co bring to mind the ballad of John Henry.

Posted by lester on Nov 22, 2008.

lol, brilliant! And the thing might have more iron-y than you thought, as it could very well be that our “John Henry” was a black man:)

Mr. Proessdorf:
What you forget to mention in your comparison of the US and Germany, is the fact that the German industry has an educated working class with a high work ethic. Here in the US we have to make do with a large pool of undereducated workers with low work ethics, trained to complain about inequality and discrimination, while the brightest are lured into the non-productive legal profession rather than into technical careers, that are needed in the manufacturing industries like automobile building.
However, looking at the open discussion taking place here, I appreciate that such is still possible in the US, while some of the commentators here would be sitting in jail in Germany.

piatak, buchanan captain chaos and co bring to mind the ballad of John Henry.

Posted by lester

Lester, it seems that all you have to offer, when you are not skulking in the corner, is effeminate defeatism and puerile sniping.

When you decide to at least start walking on all fours, instead of crawling around like a worm on your belly, let me know.  Until then, stay in your hole.

lol, brilliant! And the thing might have more iron-y than you thought, as it could very well be that our “John Henry” was a black man:)

Posted by Issac de Pinto

You are a goddamn mental midget.  Worm-boy pulls out a folk reference that is a mystery only to the moronic and you attribute to it a level of mystical significance and metaphysical prescience?!?!

LOL!

Both of you, back in your holes.

Hell, the big three were deep in highly leveraged synthetic CDO’s

Can anyone say management?

I don’t understand why the big 3 and wall street can’t repudiate their debts in bankruptcy proceddings. Isn’t that what bankruptcy courts are for? To get all the interested parties together...renogotiate debt, repudiate debt, force worker and retiree concessions, put together a new business model that has a chance to be competitive...then off you go. Why do we insist on propping up failed enterprises? Why not just send them to banruptcy court?

Captainchaos,
Thank you for your robust claim concerning my small-mindedness and frivolity. Watching you file your fangs and sew epaulettes upon your Fuhrerwindel is one of the pleasures of haunting a Templar redoubt such as this. Please do keep it up.

Septeus7, ...Jefferson is always illuminating and so thanks for the quotes. There is no question that he would be aghast at the current situation but so would Mr. Hamilton because from a strictly Constitutional standpoint and a reckoning of the mindset of the Framers, we are way around the bend. However, the nation Jefferson spoke to had limitless natural resources ahead of them, a chaste Federal Government and a relatively small and homogeneous population that was self reliant. One wonders if isolationism would not also be a kind of self imposed sentence into harassed decline.

Dirk Saban: “Thank you for your robust claim concerning my small-mindedness and frivolity.”

I know it must be terribly difficult for you nestled in your sub-division, perched high in your SUV to see things as they really are.  From that vantage point, moralism and “respectability” come cheap.  I don’t know that you really feel comfortable handing over the very last bits of our manufacturing infra-structure to the Chinese, do you?  It’s just that damnit, the Big Three were guilty of poor management, and the plan is not solvent, it won’t fly, it doesn’t respect market forces.

You honestly think that is where the rubber meets the road?

When this country goes the way of Zimbabwe you will get my meaning.  Our people will be slaughtered.  When that time comes, it is men like me who will be the only thing standing between you and yours and that. 

Here is what Solzhenitsyn has to say:

“At present, some Western voices already have spoken of obtaining protection from a third power against aggression in the next world conflict, if there is one; in this case the shield would be China. But I would not wish such an outcome to any country in the world. First of all, it is again a doomed alliance with Evil; also, it would grant the United States a respite, but when at a later date China with its billion people would turn around armed with American weapons, America itself would fall prey to a genocide similar to the one perpetrated in Cambodia in our days.”

It is high time you wake up, Dirk.  Your moralism is truly worthless when contrasted with the well-being of your family.  There will come a time, after you have passed, you may not have to see the worst of it, but they will.  You owe them more than haughtiness and economism.

What is wrong with some of you people, it´s an article about industry and economy, not race.
How can the original subject develop to some “the Holocaust never happened” bullshit? How are some of you thinikng?

While Pat is right that Government, the press and foreign govt. subsidies, and high overheads in the U.S. played a role, that is not the whole story:
I respectfully submit the following:
Consider:
1. When Datsun and Toyota came in with small cars like the Corolla, and the Honda prelude in response to the oil price hikes of 1973, American car companies produced the “Pony” which had an internal combustion engine and had the ability to combust spontaneously, how imaginative of them.
2. Social Mood: We have been living in a self induced social mania where we actually believed in witchcraft and called it “American Exceptionalism”, when the reality is we are 28 when it comes to producing a labor force that has human capital between its ears.
3. U.S. auto makers are driven by short term share price considerations and that prevents them from thinking or investing long term, remember ampex and Zenith and RCA? This is a consequence of the way we have structured our economy and the rules of “capitalism” as practised in The U.S. We need to rethink the role the stock market plays in strategic decision making by corporations.
3. The social mania reaced its Zenith under the reign of the neocons when a mediocre military vehicle was dressed up to be parked in subarban Garages. I refer to The Hummer, 99% of which say a lot of off-roading when they turned into the parking lot at Bloomingdales.

We are a society that has lost a sensne of Balance, it shows in everything we say or do, and yes in the way we define rules and regulations.

Ian, far above--I did not say global free trade, I said I thought both paleos and classical Liberals shared a desire for free markets. There is a difference, and it matters
Captainchaos
You have a well-thought out theory of White Nationalism blending genetics and culture and being that I lack such an Utopian view, I won’t criticize it. Just a few thoughts.
Yes, genetics matter. What’s bred in the bone is of the flesh. But just a few thoughts to ponder.
1. There are genetic difference differences between the races. But it is important to note there is as much and sometimes more genetic variation within races than between them, meaning you may have more in common genetically with any given Kenyan than any given German.
2. In the natural sciences argument between nature and nurture, nature has won. It appears things like intelligence, aggression, and other traits are inborn. It is important to note, however, the real world expression of these traits can be encouraged or blunted through the environment. An example: in cultures with out a strong rule of law, where violent crimes often aren’t punished, murders rapes, etc. proliferate. However, in societies that discourage this natural expression of aggression through counter-aggression, these crimes become rare.
Given these current thoughts on genetics, it would appear to me the cultural history of the White Man, its ability to blunt undesirable behavioural expressions of natural genetic inclinations and encourage our better genetic inclinations, has been the driving force of our success.
Any thoughts?

Lets appreciate the contributions of all civilizations and races.
Some produced the Great wall, some produced social organizations, some invented great agriculture, some produced great architecture like the Great wall, the Pyramids, Venice, and Ferrari. And some produced Mickey Mouse, G.W, Bush and Sarah Palin.

Mr. Stonehouse: “...meaning you may have more in common genetically with any given Kenyan than any given German.”

Then pray tell, Herr Stonehouse, what does it mean to be a German?  What does it mean to be a Kenyan?  For that matter, what does it mean to be a chimp?

It is that little bit of difference that makes all the difference.

You are essentially regurgitating Lewontin’s Fallacy:

“It is clear that our perception of relatively large differences
between human races and subgroups, as compared to the
variation within these groups, is indeed a biased perception
and that, based on randomly chosen genetic differences,
human races and populations are remarkably similar to each
other, with the largest part by far of human variation being
accounted for by the differenc