What the heck is Corporatism?

Arguing over whether the "change" we are now experiencing is socialism or corporatism feels like rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic, but, then again, what else are you going to do while waiting for a spot to free up on the lifeboats? So here is a thought provoking column from today's RCM on the subject:

Obama and the Reawakening of CorporatismBy Steven Malanga

But we are entering quite a different age right now, one in which the President of the United States and his hand-selected industrial overseers fire the chief executive of General Motors and chart the company’s next moves in order to preserve it. Conservative critics of the president have said that the government’s GM strategy is one of many examples of an America drifting toward socialism. But President Obama is not a socialist. If his agenda harks back to anything, it is to corporatism, the notion that elite groups of individuals molded together into committees or public-private boards can guide society and coordinate the economy from the top town and manage change by evolution, not revolution.

In a rapid, real time illustration of how badly this social/corporate/whateverism is going to crash and burn, GM (henceforth known as Government Motors) teamed up with Segway to produce the first government concept car. HotAir dubs it the Depressionmobile.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

A 200cc 1970's Vespa gets around 80mpg and a top speed in the neighborhood of 60mph. It is 40 year old technology that would kick this things ass. Talk about a giant leap backwards.

Foie Gras Update

Why Won't Geithner Take TARP Repayments?By Investor's Business Daily

Bailouts: Didn't Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner say that it was not the administration's intent to control private companies? Then why is it reportedly reluctant to accept TARP repayments from some banks?

The Ayn Rand Factor

I can't get enough of this topic. Here is an insightful column:

Atlas Shrugged Sales Overturn Policy Calculations
By Robert Tracinski

But the sales figures for Ayn Rand's magnum opus tell us an opposite story. In the midst of this crisis, hundreds of thousands of people are turning to a book that glorifies capitalism.

Meanwhile, where are all of the socialist books on the bestseller lists?

Thus, while Obama has launched the de facto nationalization of two whole industries—finance and automobiles—his administration remains oblivious to the depth and strength of public resistance to socialism in America.

Foie Gras de Banker

“My administration,” the president added, “is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

Wow, Obama firing GM CEO, Rick Wagoner, made headlines last week, but he was also busy intimidating financial executives. Less then a week after AIG exec's publicly endured death threats and ACORN mobs being bussed to their houses, Obama is threatening bank exec's with pitchforks. Nice, so much for rule of law. Realising they had made a Faustian deal, some of them even tried to give the TARP money back, and Obama refused it. Politico has behind the scenes details of the meeting:

Inside Obama's bank CEOs meeting

Dimon also insisted that he’d like to give the government’s TARP money back as soon as practical, and asked the president to “streamline” that process. But Obama didn’t like that idea — arguing that the system still needs government capital.

The president offered an analogy: “This is like a patient who’s on antibiotics,” he said. “Maybe the patient starts feeling better after a couple of days, but you don’t stop taking the medicine until you’ve finished the bottle.” Returning the money too early, the president argued could send a bad signal.

A bad signal for whom, Mr President? Might taxpayers be a little annoyed if they found out that TARP money was being crammed down the throats of banks that didn't want it? Let me offer an analogy:

Several CEOs disagreed, arguing instead that returning TARP money was their patriotic duty, that they didn’t need it anymore, and that publicity surrounding the return would send a positive signal of confidence to the markets.

Sorry guys. He's gotcha where he wants ya.

$3.6T shopping spree!

The House and Senate approved largely identical versions of the President’s $3.6 trillion budget with hardly any cuts -- except in defense. The good news is they dropped the idea of taxing charitable giving and refused another $250B in bailout money.

Congress Approves Obama's $3.6 Trillion Budget

There was speculation last week that the Dem’s would have to choose between socialized medicine or cap-and-trade, but that no longer appears to be the case. A draft version of the “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009” is working it’s way through House committees.

House Democrats release draft energy, climate bill

The bill by Reps. Henry Waxman of California and Ed Markey of Massachusetts would establish a cap-and-trade program curbing U.S. emissions 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, with a midcentury target of 83 percent reductions of the heat-trapping gases. It also creates a nationwide renewable electricity standard that reaches 25 percent by 2025, new energy efficiency programs and limits on the carbon content of motor fuels, and requires greenhouse gas standards for new heavy duty vehicles and engines.

Mathmatical modeling and global warming

Anyone who has worked with mathematical modeling knows it can be a great tool, but it has to be supported with hard data. That is the huge problem with global warming theories and why they amount to little more than superstitions. They rely solely on models, yet the models fail to produce predictions that support their accuracy.

American Thinker has a great essay with more details:

It's the Climate Warming Models, Stupid!
By Gregory Young

In addition to the difficulties mentioned above, is the late arriving Anthropogenic (man-made) Global Warming (AGW) prejudice that has set the evolution of climate modeling back a few decades. Previously known and accepted climate components have been summarily stripped from the equation -- such as the dominant factors involving the Sun and the importance of water vapor in the atmosphere as the dominant greenhouse gas. This is because in the cause to acquire lucrative AGW-biased government grants, many scientists have opted to blatantly skew their climate models to amplify AGW-favoring evidence and amplify anthropogenic CO2 importance. In this manner, they then qualify to receive funding and ensure publication.

Describing the compounded inaccuracies of these Johnny-come-lately modelers who would rather be funded than scientifically astute, Dr. Tim Ball, a former climate scientist at the University of Winnipeg sardonically clarifies: "The analogy that I use is that my car is not running that well, so I'm going to ignore the engine (which is the sun) and I'm going to ignore the transmission (which is the water vapor) and I'm going to look at one nut on the right rear wheel (which is the Human produced CO2) ... the science is that bad!"

Then they came for middle management,

But I said nothing because I don't work in the financial industry.

Officials seek new power over financial companies

WASHINGTON – Pointing with dismay to the AIG debacle, the nation's top economic officials argued Tuesday for unprecedented powers to regulate and even take over financial goliaths whose collapse could imperil the entire economy. President Barack Obama agreed and said he hoped "it doesn't take too long to
convince Congress."

Yes, let's hurry up. Afterall, we wouldn't want there to be any time to debate all this. It might dawn on someone that it is unconstitutional.

Beyond AIG: A bill to let Big Government set your salary
By Byron YorkChief Political Correspondent 3/31/09 (Hat tip HotAir)

It was nearly two weeks ago that the House of Representatives, acting in a near-frenzy after the disclosure of bonuses paid to executives of AIG, passed a bill that would impose a 90 percent retroactive tax on those bonuses. Despite the overwhelming 328-93 vote, support for the measure began to collapse almost immediately. Within days, the Obama White House backed away from it, as did the Senate Democratic leadership. The bill stalled, and the populist storm that spawned it seemed to pass.

But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the "Pay for Performance Act of 2009," would impose government controls on the pay of all employees -- not just top executives -- of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

Lordy, just when I think it is safe to take off, the tinfoil hat, stories like this start spilling out of the internet. How long did it take them to go from CEOs to regular Joes? One week, at the most, how long will it take to make the leap from companies recieving bailouts to any company they feel like? I thought I was wading a bit far into the deep end of the pool when I posted this about manufactured crisis, but it is hard to think of a more perfect example of:

1. manufacturing a crisis
2. expanding government to deal with the fake crisis.

First, they bail out AIG. Geithner knows all about the bonuses, but he doesn't touch them. Next, people become outraged that exec's got bonuses. Obama anounces "we won't reward failure," and now we get all this legislation about limiting bonuses and salaries. If you just let failing companies fail, you don't need to federal legislation to regulate their paychecks, but that's not the idea.

They keep using the same play over and over again. This is exactly the same thing that is going on with global warming. They announce that the world is going to end, and the only way to save it is if they tax you within an inch of your livelyhood.

I am going to need more tinfoil.