Say Anything Blog

Henry Payne at National Review explains why:

In his announcement today that Chrysler is entering bankruptcy to resolve its debts, nothing President Obama said changed Chrysler’s fundamental labor disadvantage vs. its non-union U.S. competitors. Indeed, the UAW will now own 55 percent of Chrysler in a debt-for-equity exchange that finances the union’s health-care trust fund.

Obama mouthed the fiction that Chrysler’s troubles stem from “failing to make the fuel-efficient cars like its foreign competitors.” In fact, Chrysler’s uncompetitive labor costs long ago made it impossible for the company to manufacture anything but large SUVs and minivans at a profit.

Chrysler will also be one-tenth owned by the feds, meaning that a private, for-profit company will be majority-held by two entities whose priorities are not making cars at a profit but saving union jobs and expanding the web of regulation.

What’s the worst that could happen?

Obama also took a shot at unnamed “hedge funds” today, blaming them for driving Chrysler into bankruptcy.  Which sounds an awful lot like a calculated distraction to me.

I doubt that most Americans could define what a hedge fund is, other than to say it has something to do with greedy big-money Wall Street stuff.  Which is exactly the definition Obama and his fellow liberals have worked to hard to instill in the public at large.  It used to be that liberals could just blast Wall Street and investors by name, but in this modern age of individual investment (something like 85% of Americans are invested in the stock market) that doesn’t work any more.  You start taking shots at investors…and that’s just about everyone.  But “hedge fund.”  Now that sounds sinister.

So if you need a scapegoat for a mess like Chrysler is in, there’s no need to blame who is actually responsible (greedy labor unions and meddlesome politicians) when you can blame the anonymous “hedge funds” that everyone knows they should dislike even if they’re not quite sure why.