Hugo Chavez Takes A Cue From Obama, Threatens To Nationalize Auto Makers
Threatens to nationalize them if they don’t make the cars he thinks should be made.
Remember that the line big government types here in America were selling us about the auto bailouts was that the car companies were failing because they weren’t making the right cars. The car companies got their bailouts by bowing and scraping before Congress and promising to make cars more to the liking of our political elite (not for their use, mind you, but for the rest of us).
Now the Obama administration is basically dictating the day-to-day operations of these companies.
Which is all eerily similar to what socialist kleptocrat Hugh Chavez is doing in Venezuela. More subtle, perhaps, but it all leads to the same place no?
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, beset by a recession that is hurting his popularity, has turned his sights on international car companies, threatening them with nationalization and pledging to ramp up government intervention in their local businesses.
The populist leader has threatened to expropriate Toyota Motor Corp.’s local assembly plant if the Japanese car maker doesn’t produce more vehicles designed for rural areas and transfer new technologies and manufacturing methods to its local unit. He said other car companies were also guilty of not transferring enough technology, mentioning Fiat SpA of Italy, which controls Chrysler Group LLC, and General Motors Co.
Venezuela isn’t about to get out of its economic malaise by Hugo Chavez trying to take over and run these companies himself. And America’s economy won’t be made more prosperous by our government taking over companies and running them.
Tags: Asshats, Domestic Issues, Politics
