Category: politics

Emanuel Urges Aid for Auto Industry, New York Times, November 9, 2008.

Give me a break! The people running the US auto companies couldn’t see the writing on the wall, 5, 10, 20 years ago? The super-sized SUVs they have been pushing on the American public were doomed, but they kept churning them out, as long as they could sell one more.

Six years ago I realized given the trend of fuel prices, I needed to get the most fuel efficient vehicle available while I had some money to do so. Within a year my sister, who changed jobs and had a longer commute, and mother were early Prius adopters. You’d think that the CEO’s of GM, Ford and Chrysler would have more insight into auto trends than my family!

Either the people in charge of US auto companies are idiots who could not anticipate, or refused to plan for, easily discernible future events, or they were banking on a government bail-out all along. In either case, they have proven themselves irresponsible and unworthy of an injection of taxpayer money to bring them into the 21st century, which is now, (Hello!!) almost 8 years old.

Why not hold the auto industry accountable for its poor decisions? Let the failures fail and let smarter, more responsive companies come in to fill the market. In the past, that is how the U.S. economy grew and why the U.S. produced some of the world’s most amazing innovations, not by government supporting weak companies.

I am sorry auto workers may lose their current jobs. I agree with Michael Moore’s assertion that the workers would have made smarter choices if they had decision-making power, but if we let the market work as it was intended, successful companies will create jobs to offset those lost at companies who fail. In a functioning free market, the people with the most responsibility, those at the top, would lose the most, while those on the production floor would move on to other jobs.

California, Arizona and Florida passed bans on gay marriage Tuesday. In California the vote was about 52% in favor, a number that would be even higher if you removed the percentage of gay voters from those against. Nationally the percentage of gay voters is estimated to be somewhere between 4% and 10%. The low end, 4%, is based on the number of people who answer affirmatively to exit poll questions about recent same-sex partners. A fairly limited definition, even if it weren’t subject to underreporting. It is analogous to asking people if they’ve had sex with a member of the opposite sex in the last year and assuming that everyone who answers, “No,” is gay. Ten percent is the generally accepted guess.

Personally I am pretty tired of paying into education, child welfare, and other family programs, from which a majority of heterosexuals feel gay persons should be excluded. They deny our families. Why should we support theirs? Most data indicates that the average income of a gay person is higher than the national average. That means we are contributing more than 4-10% to government budgets. How would education programs look without our money?

One of the reasons that eighteen year-olds have the right to vote in the U.S. is because older voters realized that if someone was old enough to die for their country they were old enough to vote. When are heterosexuals going to accept that if our money is good enough to support their family institutions we are good enough to participate in those institutions? Do we have to withhold taxes? Go on strike? All gay people refuse to work until our relationships are given equal recognition? How well would your community function if 4-10% of the teachers, police officers, fire fighters, emts, trash collectors, doctors, nurses, clerks, etc. stayed home?

After eight years of regression and divisiveness, a little hope. George W. Bush, who probably never would have held the office had his brother not been Governor of Florida in 2000, leaves our country’s economy and our respect in the World community in a disgrace. His policies and his war have made our World much less safe. He has spent our money like an irresponsible frat boy running up his parents’ credit cards.

Barack Obama has a huge challenge ahead of him; I think rivaling that of Abraham Lincoln or Franklin D. Roosevelt. Over the course of its history, the U.S. has had a few very bad presidents, and Bush #43, may well be the worst. It has also been lucky to have truly great presidents at critical times. Hopefully, for all our sakes, Obama will be one of those great presidents.

(And isn’t it nice to get to bed at a decent hour on election night, instead of staying up late counting chad!)