Posted by
john on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 11:55:50 AM
As Holman Jenkins has noted repeatedly in his Wednesday WSJ columns, the government's choice to "bail out" Detroit, rather than revise or revoke onerous rules that have contributed mightily to its downfall, suggests nationalization as the endgame. Why? According to Charles Krauthammer, "once the government owns Detroit, it can remake it." What does this mean? "Liberals have always wanted the auto companies to produce the kind of cars they insist everyone should drive: small, light, green, and cute. Now they will have the power to do it."
The next question is, will anyone buy them? To the extent this scenario plays out, we will suffer yet again the consequences of liberal fixes for liberal problems. Detroit going down the tubes because they can't sell unprofitable cars the government forces them to make? Make them make more. As Mr. Krauthammer noted,
"If you think we have economic troubles today, consider the effects of nationalizing an industry of this size, but now run by bureaucrats issuing production quotas to fit five-year plans to meet politically mandated fuel-efficiency standards - to lift us to the sunny uplands of the coming green utopia."