All That Is Necessary

Tag: Capitalism

  • Autoworkers: “I’m Sticking to the Union… Till the Day I Die”

    (Welcome, Corner readers, and thanks to Cornerite Iain Murray for his continuing support. Thanks also to Mickey Kaus for linking, with a permalink no less — sorry about the crack below about the Kausfiles template!) In an article on Slate, Mickey Kaus explains why the Detroit automakers are in trouble: There are some obvious culprits: […]

  • Eloquent Economic Commentary from Ayaan Hirsi Ali

    Ayaan Hirsi Ali, my hero, sings the praises of open markets in a tightly edited, 6-minute video on the Templeton Foundation site, part of a series of discussions about “big questions” such as “Does the free market corrode moral character?” English is at least her fourth language — she was born in Saudi Arabia, came […]

  • Congress May Have a Spine on Auto Bailout

    Here’s why Congress ought to hold the line and refuse to bail out the automakers (emphasis added): Requiring car companies to meet corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards forces them to lose money on small cars that people don’t want so they can sell big cars that people do want, at least until gas prices […]

  • Reasons for Republicans to be Thankful

    Jennifer Rubin offers some Thanksgiving cheer at Pajamas Media. I don’t agree with every word of her post, but I love these parts: First, President-elect Barack Obama won by assuring voters he would pursue tax cuts, victory in Afghanistan, prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and go “line by line” through the federal budget to […]

  • Mr. Obama: Declare War on Rube Goldberg

    In today’s Wall Street Journal, Holman Jenkins identifies the key culprit in the current economic woes. It’s not Hank Paulson or Hank Greenberg or Stan O’Neal or even George Bush. The most formidable enemy of the American economy is Rube Goldberg. Jenkins starts by discussing the complex set of rules that have enabled autoworkers to […]

  • Bankruptcy is the Right Medicine for Automakers

    Look at the bright side – GM stock only has $3 farther to fall. (From Yahoo Finance) The more I read and think about a potential further bailout of the auto industry, the nuttier the idea sounds. Michael E. Levine is a former airline executive, so he knows about bankruptcy. He puts it this way […]

  • Bailouts: Further Down the Slippery Slope

    David Brooks makes the case against an auto industry bailout more eloquently than I did: A Detroit bailout would set a precedent for every single politically connected corporation in America. There already is a long line of lobbyists bidding for federal money. If Detroit gets money, then everyone would have a case. After all, are […]

  • The Slippery Slope of Government Bailouts

    Stephen Bainbridge has done the best job I’ve seen of describing why bailing out the U.S. automobile industry — as proposed by Congressional Democratic leaders — would be a terrible mistake. Point by point he shows why the public interest would be better served by letting the big automakers go bankrupt, because bankruptcy reorganization would […]

  • Krauthammer Explains the Election

    I’ve argued before that it is deeply ironic that the financial crisis benefited the Democrats this year, since the Democrats drove the reckless expansion of access to mortgages that led to the crisis, while Republicans — specifically, McCain and the Bush Administration — were sounding alarms. As usual, Charles Krauthammer has the explanation: This was […]

  • Evidence That Obama May Not Be a Socialist

    Here’s hoping that whatever socialist tendencies President-elect Obama may have will be tempered by recognition of the success of his remarkably entrepreneurial, decentralized campaign. Bret Swanson floats this idea in today’s WSJ (free link), in a piece headlined “Obama Ran A Capitalist Campaign.” Some excerpts: The results of Mr. Obama’s decentralized Web effort were staggering: […]