Government Motors: Why Do We Have A Guy Who Doesn’t Know About Cars Running A Car Company?
The short answer is that he’s politically well-connected.
Seton Motley has the longer answer:
We have been dealing with so much big government heinousness being foisted upon us since January 2009 that the monstrosity that started it all remains largely unexamined – October 2008’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
A $700 billion atrocity about which then-President George W. Bush bizarrely said “I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.”
To best size up what TARP put into practice looks like, let us consider automobile giant General Motors (GM) – a recipient of $49.9 billion in TARP coin – and see how they’ve been doing since.
It ain’t good. And it has nothing to do with saving the free market system – or GM.
One huge problem – and a crystalline visual aide of all that is wrong with TARP and government ownership – is GM Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chairman of the Board Dan Akerson.
Akerson is not – and never has been – a car guy. He himself said so. What is he? He is a DC-connected, Wall Street hedge fund big coin guy. …
So we taxpayer owners of GM are left with an uber-politically connected equity finance and telecom guy, with a self-declared ignorance of all things car – running our car company.
This is why the government shouldn’t own companies. The government can’t run Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security or even its own budget in a solvent manner. Why in the world would we think that the government could run a car company?
Tags: bailouts, general motors, tarp
