Luxury automaker Mercedes Benz is apologizing for using the image of Marxist icon and hero Che Guevera in a marketing campaign, but why?
Had he lived, Guevera undoubtedly would have found some posh nest on which to perch, as one of those privileged proletarians commonly found in "classless" societies, who live in relative splendor while their subjects subsist in Marxism-induced squalor. Think North Korea -- you'll get the picture.
Of course Che would have owned a Mercedes, maybe even three, as long as they were painted camouflage green.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
Automakers Make Lousy Social Engineers
There's good news and bad news out of Detroit this week.
The good news, according to this blog, is that greens and automakers, after decades of being at loggerheads, now seem to be singing from the same sheet music on the need to produce environmentally-friendly cars like the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf. The shaming, badgering and blunt-force bludgeoning of automakers by Gang Green and government regulators finally has bent Motown to the will of the efficiency enforcers. Now these former adversaries are as cozy as two peas in a pod.
And the bad news? The bad news -- and it's a minor glitch, really -- is that American car-buyers just aren't interested in buying most of the environmentally-correct rides Detroit is selling. Paint them any color one chooses, green cars are by-and-large a flop with the people who count most. But that's what happens when you listen to social engineers instead of the market.
The full extent of the flop has yet to be publicly acknowledged. Government Motors has not been eager to honestly report sales figures for the Volt, and, as the piece linked just above explains, the blow has been cushioned (not surprisingly) by government fleet purchases, which are obviously being done for public relations benefits, since paying more for a vehicle that can do less, performance-wise, certainly isn't doing the taxpayers any favors.
One can't help wondering, especially in GM's case, how great an influence government ownership had in the decision to vest so much in a model, the Volt, that any layperson could have recognized as a longshot. Perhaps, sometime soon, an enterprising investigative writer will tell the whole terrible tale. And might it not be easier for a company to take such risks when it knows it has a direct line into the U.S. Treasuy if this misadventure in social engineering undercuts the bottom line? How could it not be?
Such are the hazards when the line between big government and big business becomes as blurred as it is now.
The good news, according to this blog, is that greens and automakers, after decades of being at loggerheads, now seem to be singing from the same sheet music on the need to produce environmentally-friendly cars like the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf. The shaming, badgering and blunt-force bludgeoning of automakers by Gang Green and government regulators finally has bent Motown to the will of the efficiency enforcers. Now these former adversaries are as cozy as two peas in a pod.
And the bad news? The bad news -- and it's a minor glitch, really -- is that American car-buyers just aren't interested in buying most of the environmentally-correct rides Detroit is selling. Paint them any color one chooses, green cars are by-and-large a flop with the people who count most. But that's what happens when you listen to social engineers instead of the market.
The full extent of the flop has yet to be publicly acknowledged. Government Motors has not been eager to honestly report sales figures for the Volt, and, as the piece linked just above explains, the blow has been cushioned (not surprisingly) by government fleet purchases, which are obviously being done for public relations benefits, since paying more for a vehicle that can do less, performance-wise, certainly isn't doing the taxpayers any favors.
One can't help wondering, especially in GM's case, how great an influence government ownership had in the decision to vest so much in a model, the Volt, that any layperson could have recognized as a longshot. Perhaps, sometime soon, an enterprising investigative writer will tell the whole terrible tale. And might it not be easier for a company to take such risks when it knows it has a direct line into the U.S. Treasuy if this misadventure in social engineering undercuts the bottom line? How could it not be?
Such are the hazards when the line between big government and big business becomes as blurred as it is now.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Adding Insult to Injury
There's only one thing worse than a president buying votes with taxpayer money.
That's a president who buys votes he doesn't have to buy with taxpayer money.
That's a president who buys votes he doesn't have to buy with taxpayer money.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Compassionate Capitalism
"Compassionate" capitalists can now showcase their virtue in California by seeking legal standing as a "benefit corporation," which protects against backlash from shareholders cold-hearted enough to actually expect a return on their investments. But such legal theatrics slander all business by implying that capitalism is by nature uncaring and uncompassionate, when the opposite is usually true.
Aren't all companies "benefit corporations" that provide a good or service people want -- a benefit -- through fair and voluntary exchange? Each party benefits through such transactions, the company and the customer. That old bogeyman "exploitation" only applies in cases where such exchanges are forced, which shouldn't occur in a truly free economy (which ours isn't). Both parties recognize and receive some benefit from the transaction or it wouldn't take place.
Compassion and altruism don't animate the actions of either party, company or customer, as Adam Smith famously pointed out. Both are moved by self interest (even though no one ever accuses the customer of greedily "exploiting" the company). The ultimate (and happy) result is mutual satisfaction and growing prosperity for all, which is the magic of the free enterprise system.
Corporations don't exist for long that don't provide a benefit to their customers: serving or pleasing others is what makes them profitable. That qualifies 90 percent of California's companies as "benefit corporations," even if they lack such a grand title. That shareholders also benefit through this arrangement is frosting on the cake. And from where does the money that funds most private charity and philantropy come, if not from the people who do well in business?
No wonder businesses are leaving California in droves. Why continue to serve as a cash cow for state leaders who have such mindless contempt for those who put the gold in the "golden state."
Aren't all companies "benefit corporations" that provide a good or service people want -- a benefit -- through fair and voluntary exchange? Each party benefits through such transactions, the company and the customer. That old bogeyman "exploitation" only applies in cases where such exchanges are forced, which shouldn't occur in a truly free economy (which ours isn't). Both parties recognize and receive some benefit from the transaction or it wouldn't take place.
Compassion and altruism don't animate the actions of either party, company or customer, as Adam Smith famously pointed out. Both are moved by self interest (even though no one ever accuses the customer of greedily "exploiting" the company). The ultimate (and happy) result is mutual satisfaction and growing prosperity for all, which is the magic of the free enterprise system.
Corporations don't exist for long that don't provide a benefit to their customers: serving or pleasing others is what makes them profitable. That qualifies 90 percent of California's companies as "benefit corporations," even if they lack such a grand title. That shareholders also benefit through this arrangement is frosting on the cake. And from where does the money that funds most private charity and philantropy come, if not from the people who do well in business?
No wonder businesses are leaving California in droves. Why continue to serve as a cash cow for state leaders who have such mindless contempt for those who put the gold in the "golden state."
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Keeping Presidents in their Place
This conservatarian recoils when he sees self-styled conservatives playing a game of Job Creation Derby with the president, or with any of the other job destroyers on the Left. In a truly free market system, and under the Republican form of government with which Americans were blessed, presidents ought to have minimal influence over the economy. Any president who claims or believes he can "create jobs" like a wizard is a president with too much ego and too much power. We can't be said to be practicing "free enterprise" if any politician holds such sway over the economy. I can't support any candidate for president who doesn't have the humility to recognize the limits of economic interventionism.
Swept-up in the irrational exuberance of the moment, and in trying to compete with a President who has assumed God-like powers, some conservatives seem to have forgotten that we're the non-interventionists. Such presidential posturing isn't just presumptuous. It doesn't just raise impossibly high public expectations, resulting inevitably in disappointment and cynicism. The worst thing about it is that it's incompatible with the economic and political systems we Americans claim to revere. In short, it's unAmerican.
A president's job ought to be enforcing a few simple rules, protecting private property and other civil liberties and otherwise getting government out of the way, allowing the real job-creators and wealth-producers to do their thing. A president, if he or she wants to be helpful to the economy, should focus on preventing government from killing jobs -- and on creating a general economic climate hospitable to free enterprise, rather than trying to plant the seeds himself. The rest will happen naturally.
Any Republican who wants to compete with the President as a "job creator" is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
(To be fair to Newt Gingrich, it's worth conceding that the campaign ad that prompted this post talks a good game about clearing away existing hurdles to economic development, rather than engaging in the kind of Keynesian spending binges Democrats call "stimulus." But Newt's chameleon-like history as a consummate Washington insider and manipulator makes me wary.)
Swept-up in the irrational exuberance of the moment, and in trying to compete with a President who has assumed God-like powers, some conservatives seem to have forgotten that we're the non-interventionists. Such presidential posturing isn't just presumptuous. It doesn't just raise impossibly high public expectations, resulting inevitably in disappointment and cynicism. The worst thing about it is that it's incompatible with the economic and political systems we Americans claim to revere. In short, it's unAmerican.
A president's job ought to be enforcing a few simple rules, protecting private property and other civil liberties and otherwise getting government out of the way, allowing the real job-creators and wealth-producers to do their thing. A president, if he or she wants to be helpful to the economy, should focus on preventing government from killing jobs -- and on creating a general economic climate hospitable to free enterprise, rather than trying to plant the seeds himself. The rest will happen naturally.
Any Republican who wants to compete with the President as a "job creator" is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
(To be fair to Newt Gingrich, it's worth conceding that the campaign ad that prompted this post talks a good game about clearing away existing hurdles to economic development, rather than engaging in the kind of Keynesian spending binges Democrats call "stimulus." But Newt's chameleon-like history as a consummate Washington insider and manipulator makes me wary.)
Monday, December 19, 2011
Keynes to The Kingdom
Robert Samuelson, a writer I admire, sees Keynesianism in eclipse, but I'm not sure we should nail down the coffin lid just yet. I thought Keynes was confirmed dead years ago, only to see him resurrected with relish, ala Vlad the BigSpender, after the housing bubble burst and this President was elected.
Just a few years ago, before the Bush/Obama bailouts and spending binges drove the economy further into the ditch, exposing the limits of government pump priming, the Left was gleefully declaring Adam Smith dead. Markets had once again failed us, they said. Keynesianism is the way to go.
Now Keynes is being pulled off his pedestal and replaced by. . . . well, we still haven't figured that out. Keynes will not die, or even rest, until statists concede that government kills far, far more jobs than it "creates." And that, I'm coming to believe, is a religious position, over which reason and fact have no bearing.
Just a few years ago, before the Bush/Obama bailouts and spending binges drove the economy further into the ditch, exposing the limits of government pump priming, the Left was gleefully declaring Adam Smith dead. Markets had once again failed us, they said. Keynesianism is the way to go.
Now Keynes is being pulled off his pedestal and replaced by. . . . well, we still haven't figured that out. Keynes will not die, or even rest, until statists concede that government kills far, far more jobs than it "creates." And that, I'm coming to believe, is a religious position, over which reason and fact have no bearing.
Deadly Delusions
It's interesting that the media focuses so much attention on Kim Jong-il's more frivolous "insane delusions" while ignoring his most insane delusions of all: that Marxism makes sense; that communism is humane and just; that individuals exist to serve as slaves of the state.
Such delusions aren't just insane, they're deadly, as the bloody history of the 20th Century shows. The sad thing is that such delusions won't die alongside this demented tyrant. They are carried forward, in watered-down form, by leaders, academics, pundits and people who aren't widely seen as deluded at all.
Such delusions aren't just insane, they're deadly, as the bloody history of the 20th Century shows. The sad thing is that such delusions won't die alongside this demented tyrant. They are carried forward, in watered-down form, by leaders, academics, pundits and people who aren't widely seen as deluded at all.
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