We have allowed the word ‘bailout’ to seep way to far into the public consciousness. It has ‘tipped’. America is voting on it everyday in the stock market. Our leaders unfortunately have no ability to read the stock market and tape and the panicked, reactive policies will surely send us lower over time. It will get worse before it gets better.
I was reading a great Brad Feld post and he is responsible for the rant that follows (but first his):
I hate the word bailout. None of the companies I invest in are getting a “bailout.” When they make bad decisions, don’t execute, or run out of capital, they fail – which sucks, but it’s part of the economic cycle. I tried calling 1-800-BAIL-OUT to see if I was missing something. They wouldn’t help me, but they let me rant about what I think about bailouts (smart entrepreneurs!)
Everytime I hear the word “bailout” it makes me think of Atlas Shrugged. There’s a good idea – before you are allowed to mention the word “bailout” you have to read Atlas Shrugged – that’ll slow people down a little and make them think.
I’m not against government involvement and financial support in the broad business ecosystem. That’s not what got me ramped up. What got me ramped up is the pervasive and omnipresent requests for a piece of “the bailout” along with endless hyperbole justifying the naked requests for money from the government without clear consequences. This, combined with the endless language of fear and panic from our “leadership”, rather than a rational discussion of cause, effect, and proposed solutions makes me nuts.
Fundamentally, I feel like the ethos of “lack of responsibility” is finding its way into every nook and cranny of the discussion. The connotation of “bailout” is “it’s not my fault – please bail me out.” By definition, if you are asking for a bailout, you need to take responsibility for your actions and how you got there.
Is a GM pension worth more than an Enron or Lehman pension at this point. I say no.
I am so bothered by the framing of the historic issue:
Time Magazine totally misses the point with their framing of the issue – ‘Is what’s good for GM still good for America?’
WTF happned to the world is flat and you must have exposure to Brazil and Russia and China. What was all the rage for 10 years is now poison?
For the good of the country and global capitalism we should be setting an example by saying…fuck it. We really dig Toyota’s. This biiitch of a pig was ‘not too big to fail’ and we are going to get mobile and get ‘too small to fail’ and get some of that Japanese parts business from all the cars they will now be selling. Cars we want. Cars we can build faster and better and cheaper right here to save those yutz’s some money if they want.
“We Dig Toyota’s” should be our rallying cry as we shmooze our Asian friends at karaoke bars and Germans at the huffbrau (?) for parts deals.
I am sure Detroit has many good people but it looks a lot like Beirut’s skyline at this point. I would be happy to go to Detroit if they had a cool social networking company that needed funding :) .
I think we could do better starting over.
As for Rick the ‘Prick’ Wagonner, hang him high. He got paid to do the job so get off your little girlie knees and go cut a deal in Japan and leave Obama alone to fix Iraq and some global issues.
Rick is the same lilly livered wuss that told the world last year that bankruptcy was not an option when you had 30 billion in cash.
God we have weak leaders. Pathetic.
Pull his freaking passport and ship him out.
The rest of you car people, slap together a resume, get it up on indeed.com and go build something somebody wants. Pretty big global market out there at your fingertips.