On Jun 1, 2009, at 3:04 PM, Chris Gehlker wrote: > > On Jun 1, 2009, at 9:50 AM, Charles Bennett wrote: > >> Just in case you think it's all fat cats. >> >> http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/01/bondholder-furious-over-gm-bankruptcy/ >> >> Wrong union I guess. > > Are you complaining that the administration is too 'socialist' or not > socialist enough.
Neither, I just think it's a shame that the bond holders were portrayed as a bunch of fat cats that could afford to take 10 cents on the dollar, when, in reality there are a lot of small folks that are going to get hurt. *if* the government was going to get involved at all, it should have made sure that the small bond holders. say 150k or less, were protected first. >> >> My actual question is a simple. By what Constitutional authority >> can >> the Govt. hold any shares of GM and give preferential treatment to >> campaign donors (Autoworkers Uniion) >> >> I'm truly surprised that this isn't on the way to the Supreme Court >> to >> be challenged. > > Crony capitalism, er public-private partnerships, has been a fixture > of government at all levels and under both parties at least since the > Reagan administration. By no means am I blaming a party. This path started a long time ago. It's more about a transfer of power away from the states and to the federal government regardless of party affiliation. I guess it went wrong around the Wickard v. Filburn ruling, where interstate commerce was decided to be whatever the federal government said it was and could be regulated down to a poor sap growing wheat for his own bread on his own farm (no "commerce" at all) >> >> (Same for the Banks and Chrysler too) >> >> If I had wanted stock in these dogs, I would have bought them >> directly, not via my Congress Critter. > > I can't help seeing the auto company bailouts as more benign and as > serving a greater public purpose than the interventions in the > financial sector. I wonder if the nutters agree. I do agree that bailing out the financial sector was worse but both are wrong and illegal as far as I'm concerned. I think that greater purpose or not, the government should be constrained by the Constitution and I just don't see any of this being meeting that standard. It's simply not the role of the federal government to pick winners and losers and as far as any party attempts it, the courts should shut them down. I have this bad feeling that we will end up driving Trabants because some Barney Franks type will decide that GM needs to make a small car, regardless of whether anyone wants to buy it and he will have the full power of the treasury to insure that they stay in business. Add to that that the unions vote can now be bought by simply pouring government money into their company, profitable or not, and you have a witches brew that boggles the mind. The good news is that a few folks are waking up to the idea that it's not about parties, it's about power. Some of the states are taking baby steps to make it illegal for the state to obey any federal law that oversteps the constitution. =c= _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
