To give the CEO's $9 MILLION pay packages? WTF? GM CEO Ed Whitacre gets a $9 MILLION pay package as the USA is bankrupt beyond oblivion. So this is why the taxpayer's money was used? To bail out the auto industry, turn GM into Government Motors, and give the CEO a salary of almost $2 million/year? Former CEO Fritz Henderson was rehired at $60,000/month for 20 hours. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/GM-CEO-Whitacre-receives-9M-apf-362235582.html?x=0&.v=5 I have nothing against CEO's getting big bucks but not on taxpayer/bailout money.
It really makes you question whether the government could be so stupid to fall for such an idiotic solution or whether it was really just a plan to get the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Yes, I do understand it. Part of the auto industry bailout should have been no salaries over 100k for at least 5 years or until the BILLIONS of dollars in loans were paid back. This was a slap in the face of the American taxpayer. You don't reward someone for trashing their company. You let it fail and let capitalism do its thing. Let the free market work. Let someone come in and buy it up for pennies on the dollar and rebuild it. NOT give it billions in taxpayer money only to reward the failures.
The usual response to this is "Well, we nver really had a free market. If only we could give it a try!"
part of the reason I am begining to view the free market as a form of religion. the rejection of anything but the theoritical ideal is pretty much a faith based asseration IMO
I have a feeling the GM bailout was more to support the labor union jobs than to help the corporation.
That's the beauty of it; Austrian school types can always trace back any failings of the market to some prior government interference (distortion). Since there is no way any sane country is ever going to allow a true devil take the hindmost completely unregulated marketplace, they will always have a ready excuse for any failure.
I don't think the type of market matters so much. A public that's ignorant and apathetic will get it up the rear and a public that tries to be conscious and aware of where the product comes from and how its produced get what they want.
But it always happens. So there cannot be a truly "free" market just like there is never "true" communism. Basically because whoever is in charge doesn't really want freedom OR truth. Irregardless of the economic or political system.
I disagree. The free market has always worked. Capitalism is a big part of what made this country great/prosperous. Good point. All we have are Japanese and Italian..
Nonsense. Nothing is more efficient than the free market; in the free market, people can make decisions based on results and logic, and they can invest into areas of interest. Centralized planning doesn't work. Just compare East Germany with West Germany. Your statement that "the free market doesn't work" is utter bullshit.