Posted by
m0t0r1zed on Saturday, November 15, 2008 12:10:58 PM
Okay ... this is why liberals AND conservatives (and everybody in general) drive me batty. Essentially, I believe that all philosophies are fundamentally flawed because they are all decoupled from reality. Right now, a lot of liberals and conservatives are basing their arguments purely on "rhetorical flourishes" and ideological rants using trained, reflexive thinking, rather than analytical thinking.
Anyhoo ... here's the dumb analogy.
Imagine a big, fat, bloated, overweight fellow. Many have been warning him to go on a diet and get some bloody exercise or else he will suffer a heart attack. Unfortunately, he doesn't listen and gets bigger and bigger, and then one day, he gets a heart attack. In the middle of the heart attack, his friends advise him to start doing some push ups and lose some fat.
Uh, okay ...
I think many of the calls for not bailing out Lehman were based on philosophical arguments, as are the current calls for GM's bankruptcy. The thinking is being done inside of an ideological box disconnected from reality without wanting to look at the existing circumstances. Letting Lehman fail may have sounded good in theory, but the real world results were horrendous. People arguing not to give away any taxpayer money ended up getting stuck with a bill for $700 billion.
Helloooo, reality!
Although the actual outcome is hard to predict, the circumstances surrounding a GM bankruptcy also seem to point to a similar disaster scenario - cascading failures in the auto industry, a plunge in the stock market and consumer spending, a spike in unemployment, and ultimately, an even larger bailout.
Now, I would have no problem with letting GM go bankrupt to reorganize ... IF THE ECONOMY WERE IN HALF-DECENT SHAPE. The problem is that the economy is a mess right now, and the ripple effects could be catastrophic.
Sadly, the fat fellow is clutching at his chest, and people are telling him to do jumping jacks.
[Then again, the hardcore conservative might say something along the lines of ... "Let the fatboy croak. Let them all fail. Let the houses get foreclosed. Let the banks rot. Let Wall Street tumble. Let the autos get taken over by Japan. Let the unions suffer. Let businesses collapse. No bailouts. No government intervention. No stimulus. No job programs. Just cut spending and taxes and start all over. America will be reborn from the ashes stronger, leaner, and more competitive - even if we have to go through a depression to get there."
The problem is that there's no way in hell that the US gov't would ever let this happen. So again, it's just fanciful thinking. Also, under such a scenario, the US would have to significantly cut back on military expenditures - which could have very nasty consequences in Iraq and Afghanistan and possibly at home. Ah well, trying to predict the future and all of the ripple effects is a tricky thing. I don't think it's impossible if you systematically break down everything - but it would take some time and money to do it. meh.]