The Illegitimate President

Shortly after taking over GM, forcing the resignation of its CEO, and wasting billions of dollars on not keeping it profitable, and intervening in contract negotiations, setting product lines and business direction and who knows what else, Obama, at a news conference following GM’s bankruptcy declaration, said this:

What happens next is in the hands of their executives, managers, and workers — as it is for any private company.

Furthermore, he declares:

It will require GM shareholders to give up the remaining value of their shares — just as they would have had to do in any private restructuring of this kind.

First he declares what the government is mandating, and then suggests that this is the same thing that would happen normally, so there’s no need to be alarmed by the government forcing an event that would happen anyway.

This reminded me of the exchange between the Nazi leader Herr Zeller and the citizen Herr Detweiler in The Sound of Music:

Zeller : Naturally. And may I congratulate you. . .
Detweiler : . . .and your people in allowing the festival to go on tonight as planned.
Zeller : Why should it not go on? Nothing in Austria has changed.
Singing and music will show this to the world.
Austria is the same.
Heil Hitler.

The Government is now the majority shareholder in many large private companies. The Government calls the shots in those companies… but nothing has changed in private companies.  Private companies are the same.  Heil Obama.

What’s more, Obama directly contradicts himself in the speech.  In addition to the quote above about the future of the company being in the hands of the executives, managers, and worker, he assures us:

What we are not doing — what I have no interest in doing — is running GM. GM will be run by a private board of directors and management team with a track record in American manufacturing that reflects a commitment to innovation and quality. They — and not the government — will call the shots and make the decisions about how to turn this company around.

And yet, he’s already shown interest in and intervened in who sits at the head of the company.  And in this very same speech, he declares:

• In short, our goal is to get GM back on its feet, take a hands-off approach, and get out quickly.

• The original restructuring plans submitted by GM and Chrysler earlier this year did not call for the sweeping changes these companies needed to survive — and I couldn’t in good conscience proceed on that basis. So we gave them a chance to develop a stronger plan that would put them on a path toward long-term viability.
• GM’s management team — including its new CEO, Fritz Henderson, its interim chairman, Kent Kresa, and all of their colleagues — have worked — has worked tirelessly to produce a plan that meets the strict standards I laid out at the beginning: to streamline GM’s brands, clean up GM’s balance sheet, and make it possible for GM to compete and succeed.
• Working with my Auto Task Force, GM and its stakeholders have produced a viable, achievable plan that will give this iconic American company a chance to rise again.
• And I want to remind everyone that if you are considering buying a GM car during this period of restructuring, your warrantees will be safe and government-backed.
• I became convinced that if Chrysler were willing to undergo a restructuring, and if it were able to form a partnership with a viable global car company, then Chrysler could get a new lease on life.
• [The government oversaw and "enabled" a Chrysler-Fiat merger -- meaning, caused the merger to happen]

He summarizes the changes with:

What we have, then, is a credible plan that is full of promise. But GM can’t put this plan into effect on its own. Executing this plan will require a substantial amount of money that only a government can provide.

But what should be glaringly obvious to anyone who’s lived in the modern world is that with government money comes government control.  The government is setting GM’s future.  The government is deciding which product lines to continue, and which to develop next.

So I’m confident that the steps I’m announcing today will mark the end of an old GM, and the beginning of a new GM; a new GM that can produce the high-quality, safe, and fuel-efficient cars of tomorrow; that can lead America towards an energy independent future; and that is once more a symbol of America’s success.

And so, paradoxically, after admitting that the nation is in the midst of an unprecedented financial crisis, that GM is bankrupt and about to go belly-up without receiving billions of dollars from consumers without having to sell cars to earn it, Obama announced he is going to make it incredibly even more expensive to be an auto manufacturer by increasing safety, fuel economy, and alternative-fuel regulations.

He’s going to throw billions more non-existant dollars down the drain by going to the communities and re-training laid-off autoworkers into government-approved job sectors.   He’s going to “loan” billions to auto, RV, and boat dealers to help them continue to buy inventory that doesn’t sell.  He’s going to have the federal government spend more money buying cars.  And he’s going to start a new federal program of giving taxpayer dollars to people in exchange for old cars, and hope they buy brand-new cars with the money.

In short, he’s going to traple the Constitution, meddle in private industry to the greatest extent he can think of, and send the nation even further into debt, in exchange for increased federal control over the economy, and not actually do anything positive to stop the financial crisis like abolishing the Federal Reserve, which causes every boom and bust, or replacing the fiat dollar (which enables the boom-bust cycle) with a commodity money, as mandated by the Constitution.

Change we can believe in?
Nothing has changed in America.
America is the same.