Lew Rockwell on Bailouts

At first I simply quoted his first paragraph because I like the statement. Here's a few other quotes from his article, which you should read, Don't Cave!

On the auto-workers:

Wicked unions have thoroughly looted the capital stock of these companies, and the workers themselves are wholly focused on their own well-being rather than that of the company and the consumer. The management is deeply embedded in the regulatory structure of the state, working to effectively turn the American car industry into a public-private partnership of the sort Mussolini would applaud.

On the Big 3 going bankrupt:

In fact, we should welcome their complete bankruptcy. Maybe they can regroup or maybe they can't. That's for the market to decide.

In the meantime, not cranking out these endless cars would be a welcome relief, freeing up labor and capital for more economically useful purposes.

On the consumers:

Wicked unions have thoroughly looted the capital stock of these companies, and the workers themselves are wholly focused on their own well-being rather than that of the company and the consumer. The management is deeply embedded in the regulatory structure of the state, working to effectively turn the American car industry into a public-private partnership of the sort Mussolini would applaud.

On politicians who compromise what they know to be true and right:

People who think along these lines imagine that they personally can control the political process in clever ways, giving a bit here to get more later on. I actually heard these same arguments about the first round of bailouts back in September: we'd better support this now or else it will be worse later.

What is striking about these arguments is how tyrants always use them. Hillary Clinton used to claim that we either pay for her health care program now or pay more later. FDR said we need to support the New Deal now, or else face full-scale socialism later. Actually Hitler was the same way. He justified his entire program on the idea that only National Socialism could stop Bolshevism.

If a dystopian nightmare of the totalitarian state finally arrives in the United States, it will be a result of a compromise, and there will be people around until the very end who will insist that we should be grateful because it could be much worse.

This kind of strategizing also works as a cover for selling your soul.