Rick Siegel Prespectives on Freedom and Liberty

In the last months over 50,000 jobs were lost in the auto industry yet the auto industry is still lobbying for big bucks with GM asking for over $25 Billion in money from taxpayers. GM will not be the last once the cards fall their way. The sad fact is the money would be used to cut jobs and close assembly lines.

What will happen with this windfall? What will the auto industry do? Cut jobs. The funds will be used to cut jobs. Assembly line worker will be the first to go as the ultimate downsizing is demanded to remain viable. There is a misconception that this money would go to continue operations as they are. Either by continuing the assembly of cars that will never be sold or by paying the workers to stand there and stare at closed assembly lines. Let’s not be naive. The reality is they will close most of their plants in the US, leave or increase the research departments, and cut some executive sides to bring them into profit through better economic designs. Cutting the production lines will save them billions the first year.

The fallacy here is to allow a business that has not earned its keep to continue to function at the taxpayer expense. These are failed businesses that must crumble. New manufacturers will rise who will make it profitable. When a business produces more products at greater cost than the market absorbs they either change or die. This is what business does. Making the auto industry a nationalized institution will open the Pandora’s box to total socialism. The next in line will be the utilities. Then the telecom industry. The agro packaging industry and the farmers themselves should be next. The government will just save all the businesses that are failing. Is the American dream that you work hard so GM, Morgan Stanley and Bell Atlantic can stay in business?

This is not free market independence. It is a breed of socialism at best and communism at the worst but it does not reflect the free market and open trade ideals of Americans. You are free to try. You may succeed, you may not. It is not the world’s responsibility to insure your survival.