Ignorance and Arrogance

"Isn't it a good thing today in America that we have an automobile manufacturing sector? If it had been up to them, General Motors would be gone. If it were up to them, Ford Motor Company would probably be gone. Chrysler definitely would be gone. We decided that they needed help..."

- Senator Harry Reid

Politicians really do possess a marvelous economy with words, don’t they? Who else could cram so much ignorance and arrogance into so small a space?

Ignorance
“Isn’t it a good thing today in America that we have an automobile manufacturing sector?”

Senator Reid seems ignorant of the fact that the automotive sector in this country extends far beyond his vassals at GM and Chrysler. Most major car makers have factories scattered throughout the United States and, as I have mentioned before, there was never any risk of them disappearing so long as Americans still wanted to drive cars.

So the question Harry Reid is really asking is whether it is a good thing that his cronies at GM and Chrysler are still around. Although he implies strongly that it is, I’m not so sure.

In 2008, GM lost $3700 for every car it sold. That means that GM utilized its productive capacity to destroy the value of scarce resources (to the tune of $31 billion that year alone). That’s considered a bad thing here in the real world. In Harry Reid’s world, however, it’s vitally important to keep such a company on life support so that it can continue to produce finished goods that are worth less than the original raw inputs.

Which brings me to my next point…

Arrogance
“If it had been up to them, General Motors would be gone. If it were up to them, Ford Motor Company would probably be gone. Chrysler definitely would be gone. We decided that they needed help..."

Here, Senator Reid is referring to the Republicans in Congress who presumably offered some token resistance to the nationalization of GM and Chrysler. If it were up to them, he says, the outright takeover of the two firms would never have occurred and GM and Chrysler might have gone out of business altogether, leaving the US automotive industry to limp along with only Ford, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Mazda, Mercedes, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, and Toyota.

So Harry Reid decided for them (and for us as well).

This is just one more example of the unmitigated arrogance that has become the hallmark of our Federal government. Although it may come as a shock to Harry Reid, this was never his decision to make. Nor was it the decision of his opponents and/or accomplices in the Republican Party. In a free country, a company succeeds or fails on the basis of how well it pleases its customers. GM and Chrysler had utterly failed the market test, and the consumers decided to put them out of business.

What gives Harry Reid the right to override that decision with taxpayer money?

Long ago, when the US had something resembling a market economy, companies that turned more valuable raw materials into less valuable finished goods suffered losses. If they continued to do so for an extended period of time they were forced out of the marketplace entirely, leaving the more efficient producers to take up the slack. Ever since our government decided to adopt the Soviet economic model instead, the mechanism of profit and loss no longer applies. Companies are now free to waste scarce resources ad infinitum as long as they curry favor with the Party leadership. Currying favor with the customer is no longer a consideration because consumer preferences as demonstrated in the marketplace are routinely overridden by our government masters.

No doubt you’ve seen the GM ads with the tag line, “May the best car win.” The irony, of course, is that the best car did win – it just wasn’t GM or Chrysler. Only the ignorance and arrogance of a wildly out of control Federal government keeps them in business today.

Dictator Pro-Tem

Under intense pressure from President Barack Obama, BP Plc agreed on Wednesday to set up a $20 billion fund for damage claims from its huge Gulf of Mexico oil spill and suspended dividend payments to its shareholders.

The Bush administration began planning to use U.S. troops to invade Iraq within days after the former Texas governor entered the White House three years ago, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill told CBS News' 60 Minutes.

President Barack Obama imposed a moratorium on deepwater drilling after a deadly explosion on a BP-leased rig in April caused a devastating spill of crude into the gulf that has imperiled fragile coastlines and wildlife.

President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

President Barack Obama announced plans on Tuesday for a national fuel-economy and greenhouse-gas standard that would significantly increase mileage requirements for cars and trucks by 2016.

Then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson did indeed force banks to take money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch.

The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday.

General Motors Chairman and CEO G. Richard Wagoner Jr. has been asked by President Barack Obama's Administration to step down in advance of GM's getting any further funds from the federal government.


These passages were taken from various news articles published over the past few years. Although they cover different issues and different administrations, they all have one thing in common. None of them describe actions properly within the scope of the President of the United States. In truth, they more closely resemble the kind of arbitrary and pernicious power normally associated with dictators of both the tin-pot and banana republic varieties.

A quick scan of The Federalist Papers shows that the Federal government was never intended to wield this kind of power – much less a single branch or individual within the Federal government. Nevertheless, the Executive branch has so overstepped its bounds that the Office of the President would not even be recognizable as such to the Founders.

So maybe we should start thinking about a name change to reflect how the presidency has evolved over the past two hundred years. The term “President” seems too grandiose for the modern US Chief Executive. It’s too laden with gooey romantic notions of limited government, consent of the governed, a government of laws not of men, etc., etc. Now that one person can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, to whomever he wants, the quaint trappings of the republican form seem downright anachronistic.

“Dictator Pro-Tem” is a much better title, I think. It has the advantages of being more descriptive and more precise, and it strips away the veneer of respectability that comes with - but certainly no longer applies to - the President of our formerly fair Republic. The new title might even serve as a brake on further expansions of the office - no small feat, to be sure.

Today, the calls to place more and more power in the President's hands come from every corner of society, and from all points along the political spectrum. Yet for some reason, very few people would support giving more power to the likes of, say, Hugo Chávez or Kim Jong-Il. Why not? Because Chávez and Kim are rightly considered dictators, and most people are wary of giving them more power than they already have. Yet Hugo Chávez and Kim Jong-Il wield far less power than any US President. And shouldn’t the degree of power held be the determining factor? Shouldn’t we be more focused on the dangers posed by the office, rather than allow ourselves to be distracted by the mythos of the office?

If we were to consider the President in light of the dictatorial power he actually holds and routinely exercises, maybe we would be less cavalier about handing over more power to him. Eschewing the antiquated title of “President” for the more modern and accurate title of “Dictator Pro-Tem” might go a long way toward that end.