MyATMPinIs1234

I am confused. Should I go to Zales, Kay, or Jared?

General Motors is losing money hand over fist. Their executives and many Democratic congressmen are running around pleading for the government to write billion dollar checks to help them pay their bills and re-tool to produce more fuel efficient cars.

This whole thing is going to make my head explode.

1) I have seen many claims about the number of jobs that will be lost if the auto industry "goes under," ranging from several hundred thousand to several million if you include the dealer network and suppliers. Really? Does anyone think they will just shut off the lights, lock the doors, and say "we had a good run."

Because that is not what happens in a bankruptcy. Obviously some people will lose their jobs, starting with management, but the factories will stay open, cars will get built, and everything will still chug along. When Macy's went bankrupt did the stores close down? When Delta Airlines when bankrupt did they ground all the planes and close the airports? No, that didn't happen. So why is everyone running around saying a million people are going to lose their jobs? Even if that did happen, those people would all just get jobs, in America, at Toyota, because Americans will still need to purchase cars.

2) The even more boneheaded thing is the universally agreed upon "true fact" that the U.S. auto manufacturers need to redesign their product lines to be more "green."

HOLY FUCKING SHIT IS THAT STUPID. Americans have already demonstrated time and time again that they don't want shitty little cars that have no power and get great gas mileage. Yeah, there were short-lived blips where this was not so, caused in the 1970's by the Sheiks and in 2008 by the Federal Reserve, but other than during exceptional times, Americans want trucks and cars that go fast. Are BMW and Mercedes running out of cash? No. Do they make fuel efficient cars? Not really. In fact, they don't even follow the current CAFE fuel efficiency standards, electing instead to just pay the fines.

So how is it going to help American auto manufacturers by forcing them to build cars that Americans want even less? They should call this plan the "Japanese and German Automotive Industry Full Employment Act of 2008." Yes, it will be awesome for our country when American cars are as reliable as MY FUCKING LAPTOP BATTERY. Or run off used Chinese restaurant cooking oil.

Gay Marriage

The 14th Amendment says no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Which makes the gay marriage issue all the more perplexing. Why should gay people be the only ones to be protected against marriage? That is why I'm announcing that I will be filing a lawsuit against the state of New York to extend this protection to straight people and have all marriage banned.

"We'll create two million new jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and laying broadband lines that reach every corner of the country."

- Barak Obama, WSJ, Nov 3, 2008

You probably are thinking that this guy has some good ideas. New jobs, repaired infrastructure, and broadband for all... who could be against that?

Me.

Because it demonstrates that Obama is either happy with shamelessly spouting populist nonsense, or completely ignorant of economics. Either way it's not good.

For one thing, rebuilding infrastructure and laying broadband lines is either the most efficient use of our scarce CAPEX funds, or it's not. Building infrastructure is not the worst thing that we could do, but when you spend money on it, you are reducing the amount you can spend on the private sector. So you are in essence trading 2 million (Davis-Bacon) new jobs in public infrastructure for >2 million jobs in the private sector. This creates a NET JOB LOSS. That's fine if society wants to pay those costs for better infrastructure, but don't tell me you are creating jobs! It is the most simple economic theory, very well described by Henry Hazlitt's Broken Window fallacy (con'd).

As for laying broadband lines to every corner of the country, that pretty much ensures a sub-optimal use of funds, and by extension, us getting worse broadband service than without intervention. Have you ever noticed that in many developing nations most people still do not have reliable land-line service, yet they prettty much all have cellphones? That's because the market decided the most efficient way to get these people connectivity was NOT to dig trenches and run lines to rural and sparsely populated places. In our country, and with the rapid pace of innovation in telecomm, it is just a boneheaded idea to run lines to every corner. We have Satellites, WiMax, and other new technologies coming very soon that makes laying broadband lines a very expensive, broken window, method of getting people high speed connectivity.

And BTW, I chose that sentence from Obama's op-ed because it was one of the least egregious examples of his distrust or lack of understanding of free markets.

Not like McCain understands it either. They both seem to know very little. The difference is that McCain admitted he didn't understand it well. On the other hand, you get the sense that Obama and his followers (especially the college students) (and journalists) are so damn sure they know everything. A quintessential Dunning-Kruger effect if I ever saw one. And there's nothing in the world more dangerous than someone unaware of his shortcomings. Just ask my ex-girlfriends.