Posts Tagged ‘Excessive Regulation’

Too often, way too often, people confuse democracy with individual liberty.  They are not the same.  In more normal times, to compare them would be like comparing apples to oranges.  But recently, it’s even worst.  They are directly opposed to one another.  Just look at the gay marriage issue and yesterday’s decision to void California Prop 8.  Thankfully, a federal judge ruled that a democratically approved rule that favors some individuals over others and invades one’s right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness was unconstitutional.  Finally!  Tons of praise for that activist judge that actively represented individual liberty (and the Constitution)!

“‘Democratic’ in its original meaning [refers to] unlimited majority rule . . . a social system in which one’s work, one’s property, one’s mind, and one’s life are at the mercy of any gang that may muster the vote of a majority at any moment for any purpose.” – Ayn Rand

Democracy is a method of governing, but nothing in it’s structure protects individual rights.  Democracy does not wait for all to agree, it looks for some sort of majority.  So, by definition, someone will always be in the minority.  And that minority could, and typically does, have their rights diminished, removed, or just squandered.

Individual liberty is quite different.  It is a moral belief, independent of any political mechanism.  Heck, with the ‘right’ person as dictator, individual liberty could potentially be maximized.  The problem is that is incredibly unlikely and, even if it were to occur, it would not be stable or self-sustaining.  Our founding fathers, far from perfect, gave this a lot of thought and decided that a representative democracy, a republic, would be best.  They hoped that having the general population elect representatives (that would, first and foremost, protect the Constitution and it’s emphasis on protecting and enhancing individual liberty) would be the best form of government.

So why are democracies not equivalent to individual liberties?  Madison writes in #10 of the Federalist Papers on the risks associated with democracies:

“A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

We have forgotten that warning and appear to be moving towards a full on embrace of democracy (see the movement towards a popular presidential vote as one example) and the populist mentality that comes with it.  We have stopped talking about defending personal property and liberty and gone right to discussing how best to take from some for the betterment of others.  From Madison to Hayek, we have been warned repeatedly that this is a path to totalitarianism.

It is this poor sense of direction that gave me hope for the Tea Party movement.  At first, it was a large and informal group of individuals that were demanding that our representatives get back on the right path.  The path to individual liberty and low government involvement in individuals’ personal lives.  Yes, at the beginning, it was focused on taxes and our wallets, but it represented much more.  To me, it represented a desire to reassert our moral belief that all are created equal and deserve a society that respects and protects their rights.

However, I fear that it is being hijacked by some small (or not so small, who knows) faction that has changed the dialogue from protecting individual liberty to fighting for democracy.  In the Twittersphere, many a Tea Partying endorser is complaining about the elitist judge going against the 7 million that voted for Prop 8.  By doing so, they are showing their support for mob rule (be it through a populist vote or otherwise) and pushing to the side THE unalienable right to “one’s work, one’s property, one’s mind, and one’s life”.

I just don’t understand this need to prop up the media organizations with federal assistance.  Some fear that we will see the industry drop in numbers and that this will, in some way, limit our freedom of speech.  So, their answer?  Let’s get the government involved!  Yup, that will cure our ills and make speech even more free and opinions much more diverse.

The WSJ has an opinion piece on why we should protect these large dinosaurs.  I have some questions.  First,  aren’t we there already? AP, NewsCorp, ABC, …  Last time I checked, most news articles that are in print or on air are produced by a select few global news organizations.  So, any government involvement will not be to prevent the pool from getting smaller, it will be in protecting the small number we already have.  And, if you are going to be one of the select few chosen to survive with the assistance of federal monies, it is only logical that the federal government get to make up some of the rules on fairness and accuracy, no?  They want that in Healthcare, Auto Bailout, and in the Financial Reform Act, so why not here,also?  Oh, but the feds will need to lean on the expertise of the industry (those select few that have the ability to spend on lobbyists) to craft the new rules.  And the cycle goes until federal help turns into a federally-endorsed oligopoly on news outlets.  Step by step, inch by inch…

So, more questions;

From Wikipedia,

A single point of failure (SPOF) is a part of a system which, if it fails, will stop the entire system from working. They are undesirable in any system whose goal is high availability, be it a network, software application or other industrial system.

The assessment of a potentially single location of failure identifies the critical components of a complex system that would provoke a total systems failure in case of malfunction. Highly reliable systems may not rely on any such individual component.

Though CIRCLE’s main ‘beef’ with large, centralized governments is the high risk (and historical precedence) that they turn against individual freedom and towards tyranny, another issue high on our list is the very idea that the centralization of action produces the most efficient results.  It’s  illogical at its core, at least to us engineers.  That idea of centralization leads to a design flaw called a single point of failure.  As defined above, SPOF’s are bad for any high reliability system.  They are to be avoided at all costs.

To design a large system that is to 1) run under all conditions, 2) be stable no matter the input, and 3) react in deterministic ways, with a single point of failure is ludicrous.  Just think about this hypothetical,

Imagine if we had a communication company that built their business around one cable that went between New York and San Francisco.  Let’s say they expanded their presence up and down the coasts but had all calls routed from one coast to the other over that one cable.  Would that be smart?  What would happen if a ditch digger in the Midwest hit and cut it by accident?  It wouldn’t be good.  The company’s repair crews, of course, would be on the East and West Coast as that is where the customers are, but the cut in the line would be in a small town in Indiana, or a rural stretch of Route 66 in North Texas.  Days would be required to get there and then more time needed to repair it.  No communication between the left and right sides of the country until it got repaired.  The media outlets would scream about how the company was unprepared for such a catastrophic event.

The media would be right but for the wrong reason.  It wasn’t the response that was the issue, it was the design.  They set themselves up for a relatively minor accident (incorrect placement of hole) to result in a complete outage.  Poor design trumps the poor response.

Yet, that is the path our elected officials in the federal government, and many in society, continue to follow.  Every issue is met with the need to centralize the solution.  It’s why the downturn in house prices resulted in a global financial crisis (don’t believe me?  Read The Big Short, The Devil’s Casino, and On The Brink, then get back to me).  Our federal government endorsed 3 ratings agencies, implicitly guaranteed over 50% of mortgages, and instituted policies within the banking system that resulted in a system with a single point of failure.  Nationwide decline in real estate prices?  Kaboom!

It’s the desired route by many when it comes to healthcare.  Instead of reducing the barriers of entry, allowing more to offer healthcare services (state certificates of need for new hospitals and clinics, high compliance costs, etc), the proposed solution is a single payer system.  One group, making decisions on what is allowable, determining treatment prices, providing best practices.  How sturdy do you think that system would be?  Not very, if you ask me.

Reaction to the gulf oil spill?  One central command that approves all offers of international assistance and course of action.  Yet, he doesn’t have the ability to communicate with everyone.  He doesn’t own the resources needed to collect the oil.  But hasn’t he (Thad Allen) been anointed by our president as “in charge”?  SPOF.  We have 4 governors waiting for various federal government agencies to approve things.  We have companies around the world capable of helping but sitting on the sidelines until EPA, Coast Guard, White House officials give the a-okay to act.  This actually isn’t one SPOF, it’s many.  And they are all connected to one basic assumption that central planning and centralized action can solve complex problems. [Don't get me wrong, coordination is needed and useful but that is absent in this instance.  It's the difference between an orchestra conductor and a puppet master.  We need a conductor, we have a puppet master.]

Want another example?  How about the water main that ruptured in Boston a few months ago?  We wrote about it here.  In the infinite wisdom of someone that appears to have very little to spare, it was decided that one mother of a pipe should handle all the water for 2 million people north of Boston.  SPOF.

And just last night, NPR reported on the ongoing issues with school lunches in the Boston Public Schools.  They want one provider for all schools within the system.  They spent much time writing the request for proposal only to get one response.  The problem is so complex that only one company felt willing to take on the challenge.  SPOF.  [ To make this even more entertaining, it turns out that the biggest issue is with 60% of the schools and that a nice solution exists for that segment, but the COO of BPS wants only one provider for all the schools.]

Either by luck or skill, our founding fathers appeared to be quite smart design engineers.  Understanding the risks of single points of failure, they came up with a great idea that respected the complexity of life, handing the responsibility to act in the hands of the individual, leaving the federal government in charge of defending borders and individual freedom.

Today, the federal government finalized the finance reform bill.  From all that I have spoken to that have read through it, it does little to actually correct the isses we experienced over the past 10 years.  Hooray!  One more large monster federal bill that has little benefit but lots of impact.

Two quotes in the attached article unnerved me.  The first was from Mr.  Dodd (senator of CT) where he said;

“No one will know until this is actually in place how it works.”

And the other was from Mr. Frank (representative of MA) where he is quoted;

“We’ve put in the hands of the president a very powerful set of tools for him to reassert American leadership in the world”

Why would any sane person want these quotes attributable to themselves?  Let’s see, the first one says that we just made 2,000 pages of laws and have no clue what the impact will be for the one industry that touches every single citizen.  Or, the 2,000 pages of laws that we all just passed are so general and vague that one can assume that they will be deployed in ways that are completely arbitrary, ways that we can never fully grasp.

The second quote jives with it perfectly.  Mr. Frank essentially celebrates the fact that our representatives, those that we rely on to check and balance the president, have given enormous power to one person.  And to make it all the more exhilarating, a president that has no economic background and has demonstrated a complete lack of respect for free markets.  Oh joy!

And one more thing, please read towards the bottom where they mention that 18,000 auto dealers (actually, the number is closer to 16,000 after the government forced some to close down)(also, at least 20% of them are selling government made cars) are exempt from the consumer protection portion of the law.  Keep in mind, the second largest expense for most citizens is an automobile with the majority of them financed.

Corrupt and stupid make for a very bad combination.  Worse, when it’s mixed with power.

And we should expect something different?

This past weekend, Boston was hit by a tragic, dare I say, life changing event.  No, it wasn’t a SARS epidemic, or the eruption of a volcano, or even a train derailment.  2 million people had to boil water over the course of 3 days.   eeekk!

I would be surprised if you didn’t read about it since it was considered a national event.  On Saturday evening, a big pipe that supplied water to Boston and many surrounding towns burst at a seam. (News article).  Now, before you get weepy eyed over the agony faced by those that fought for bottled water or that needed to boil water for one minute to protect themselves from drinking lake water, understand that the pipe was fixed (within 2 days) and it turned out that the water from the lake tested fine.

However nightmarish this event was, rest assured that our government pounced on this like a kitten on a ball of yarn.  Governor Patrick surveyed the hole created by the broken pipe (is he an engineer?) with rolled-up sleeves.  And thankfully, it didn’t stop there, he was able to convince our president to declare a state of emergency, calling on the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA to aid in the rescue efforts (from what is still unclear to me).  And not to be out done, the state senate will hold hearings to “get to the bottom of this” and determine why a 7 year old 10 foot in diameter pipe that carried tens of millions of gallons of water daily could possibly fail.  They want to make sure they find those at fault and get their pound of flesh.

A number of questions have popped up in my mind.

• Who thought it a great idea to have such concentration in our water supply?
• Are we past the point where mechanical things break just because?
• Is it really so costly and drastic of an event that required national assistance?
• Why did our president react faster to this than to the Gulf oil spill?
• Shouldn’t the state senate be asking why we are so dependent on one system rather than asking how to make that one system more sophisticated?
• Why were store shelves depleted of bottled water yet were stocked with milk and fruit juices which cost less (on average)?

If you’re interested in knowing a little more about the Federal Reserve and the political mess that is about to happen with the Financial Reform Bill, I would suggest the post from John Mauldin.

A friend just sent me this piece.  It’s one thing to talk about personal freedom and the need for individual responsibility from someone that was, in the eyes of many of my socialist-leaning friends, lucky or in the right spot at the right time.  It’s another to hear it from someone that lived within the government assistance programs.

Here’s a little lesson in engineering.  Start with an above ground pool, perfectly still with the surface of the water completely flat.   Let’s say that the pool had a window on the side so that you could see the water level and you place a mark where it currently stands.  Now, let’s place a small boat into the pool.  When you do, the boat sits in the water, not on top of it.  The water that the boat displaces is spread to the other parts of the pool.  The water that makes contact with the bottom of the boat is lower, right?  What about the remaining water in the pool?  When you go back to the window, you will see that the level of water within the pool has risen, maybe not a lot but it is higher.  What you have done is spread the displaced water (that which was where the boat now sits) to the other areas of the pool.

Let’s take this farther.  You want the boat to be larger and to sit lower in the pool so you build a bigger boat and make it heavier.  You will have succeeded at making the boat sit lower and for the water that touches the bottom of the boat to be lower.  Go back to the window and you will see that the water level of the remaining free water (meaning no boat sitting on top of it) has risen even higher.

There.  you have finished lesson one of CIRCLE’s unaccredited marine sciences course.  What, you don’t see this as practical knowledge since you have no above ground pool or a desire to put a boat into the one you have?  Well, this is something that can be applied to other systems.

Take healthcare.  Replace the pool with our healthcare economy.  Think of the surface of the water as the prices paid for all healthcare services.  Think of the boat as Medicare and Medicaid.  The water level under the boat is the price levels set by the government for healthcare goods and services (remember, their prime goal is to lower the price of those services that are currently available in the market but because they are big, they can use their size to demand lower prices, similar to taking on more weight within a boat).  So, when the government pressures healthcare facilities and providers to take less, what happens to the those that reside outside of the government program?  Or in the case of the pool analogy, the people that reside outside of the boat?  Remember, the heavier the boat, the higher the surface water moves.  Your answer should be (if I have done my job) is that we, those reside outside of the government system, pay higher and higher prices.  Do you think there is a direct link between the more people on government healthcare and overall healthcare inflation?  I do.

So, some may say that we should all reside under the boat so we, too, can get lower healthcare rates.  Well, if only that were true…

Let’s go back to the pool (metaphorically).  Let’s take a large object that covers the entire inside of the pool and start placing lots of weight on it.  Does the water go down?  If you have a tight seal on that, no, but the object doesn’t go down either.  Ok, let’s make it so some of the water can leak out, making it easier to have the object drop within the pool.  Where does the water go?  Over the side and out of the pool, forever.

Go back and apply this to healthcare.  The water in the system represents our healthcare economy.  Water leaving the pool is analogous to money leaving the healthcare economy.  Where does it go?  Some of it may go to other investment opportunities but much will just cease to exist.   The money that resided within the healthcare economy, prior to us pushing it out of the pool, was used to pay doctors so they could pay off student loans.  It went to pay the nurse or technician so they could sustain their living standard.  It was used to invest in research and development projects to bring to market better value added goods and services.  In essence, it went to make more money that would reside within the pool.  But we kicked it out by forcing the water level down.

That is how I think of the debate on Universal Healthcare.  If you force an unnatural monopoly ( the large object that covers the pool) onto people they will avoid it at all cost.  You may be comforted in paying lower fees now (sitting lower in the boat), but you have dramatically taken away the funds needed (the water within the pool) to make advances and to support those that provide the services.

Today is voting day in Massachusetts.  It appears to be a fierce fight between two big-government politicians (and Joe Kennedy, no relation to the late senator).  Many think that Mr. Obama wants Coakley to win so that he can push through a very unpopular healthcare reform bill. I think otherwise.

I think he wants Brown to win. Why? Because by having R’s have 41 votes, he will be freed from the ultra liberal shackles (no slavery pun intended) of Reid and Pelosi.  He will finally be in charge rather than having to bow to a few bi-coastal congressmen.   With this new found freedom comes an ability to push through a more “balanced” and “fair” healthcare reform bill that is just as intrusive, just as reliant on centralized government manipulation as the one currently being proposed.  The big difference will be in the way the press and congressmen on both sides present it.

Both sides will shake hands, slap each other on the back, do a high five, or some other self congratulatory masturbation celebrating their ability to “cross the aisle” in the name of protecting the people of America.

In the end, Obama saves his first term, Congress becomes a little more functional (unfortunately), and we suffer under an increasing weight of centralized government manipulation.  Congratulations!

Over the past 3 or so months, I have been hit by many healthcare reform proponents using a very consistent message that makes me think MoveOn.org penned a script to use when confronted with rational opposition.  They all use the highway system as an example of a central government success story and want to apply it to the healthcare reform debate.

I see two issues with this.  First, what similarities are there between building and maintaining highways and imposing a centralized approach to healthcare services?  It’s not size relative to the economy.  Highway infrastructure accounts for less than 1% of GDP while healthcare is upwards of 16%.  It’s not employment, only 600,000 work in the government highway system versus the 14 million plus that work in the healthcare industry.  Maybe it’s in the rate of innovation of the two sectors?  No.  Actually, there is no rational reason for using the highway system as an example.

Second, how could anyone look to the US highway system as a great example of success in centralized government manipulation?  I’m not even sure where to start.  How many of you have been driving home during rush hour to see the highway crew block off one or two lanes for a mile or so and have no one out there working?  How much over budget was the Big Dig of Massachusetts?  Well, they did finish it on time… NOT!  How many stories are there of payoffs and corruption within the highway construction industry?  Answer:  Too many.

What about the fact that most roads are locally managed and most commercial traffic flow over local roads, not highways.  Let’s not forget that government highways may be a monopoly within long distance transportation by automobile, it is not a monopoly of all transportation (private rails constitute the majority of goods transported, air freight is a large business that circumvents the highway system, barges also are a reasonably good transporter outside the highway system for the central part of the US).  I’m also very impressed with the myopic view these people have when they use the highway system as an example.  Do they not read about the crumbling infrastructure of our national bridges and tunnels?  Is that what they want our healthcare system to turn into?

What seems lost on some are the vast differences between these two systems.  Our highway infrastructure is long lasting (20-60 years between replacement cycles), static in the area of innovation (possibly due to government regulations), and not a monopoly of all transportation.  Our healthcare system and the proposed reform policies are completely different.  Innovation within the current healthcare system is enormous and funded by private enterprises on the order of 10 to 1 over government funds.  All medical services have a variable cost component that is significantly above zero unlike our highway system where an extra truck or two are hard to notice on the wear and tear of the infrastructure.   Oh, and let’s not forget that the proposed reform policies are attempting to turn the entire healthcare industry into a monopoly, not just a very small fraction of the medical care infrastructure.

I think it says a lot about their position when the best example of centralized government manipulation is the US highway system.  Remember this note the next time you hit a pothole.

The healthcare reform bill being presented by our current administration follows the same thought process as the European and Canadian socialized programs; they are pessimistic with respect to advancements to healthcare and human nature.  In both cases, the focal point is on lowering costs through mandating lower pricing from healthcare providers.  Don’t believe me?  See this quote from Chris Jennings, a health policy expert from the Clinton administration when they were pushing HillaryCare (he is currently assisting the new administration).

“…the power of the public option would come from government’s ability to present doctors and hospitals with a stark choice: accept lower reimbursements or lose access to large numbers of patients.”

So let’s take a step back and think about this.  By wanting to attack the problem of rising costs and lack of complete coverage, our government believes that the best way is to force providers to take less for their goods and services.  In doing so, you will start a cycle of less people going into the field of medicine (since it’s harder to make a dollar doing doctor stuff versus being an electrician) and reduce the future advancements (as capital will go to those areas that offer more promise).

So, I would like us to think optimistically and produce solutions that allow for, and leverage, advancements.  Here are some of my wishes for a reformed healthcare industry.  These ideas are not original to me but those that I have seen presented by others that I find valuable for us to pursue.

1.  Mandate coverage (similar to auto liability as mentioned by a friend) with the intent to offset costs that may be taxing to the healthcare system when costs are pushed to the hospitals and doctors through bad debt (this would be, in my mind, meant to cover the big, expensive stuff like cancer, emergencies, etc), and that it would be delivered through private insurance companies.  This would not be preventative care coverage as I see that as a choice of the individual.  It is an individual’s responsibility to maintain ones health.

2.  Privatize Medicaid by slowly adjusting income qualification levels to be location based (a $44,000 AGI in rural Indiana is completely acceptable to live on, whereas $44,000 in NYC, Boston would not). One way to do this would be for the federal and state governments to go through a bidding process with nationwide insurers, keeping some control.  [The reason I find this important is the amount of expense and inflexibility placed into the system that produces no productive end.  This comes from speaking with hospital administrators and medical professionals that spend upwards of 20% of revenue trying to conform to outdated govt regulations]

3.  Offer a government sponsored (though privately administered) major disability plan (similar to the re-insurance industry) that would act as a supplemental to a regular plan for those with pre-existing conditions.  The way I see it working, it would allow a private insurance contract to be more accurately priced for the chronically ill (as the maximum distribution would be known as the government plan would kick in above some level) for the more preventative care side of healthcare as well as the risks of new ailments.  This would only be offered to those with pre-existing conditions. Also administered through private insurance companies that would have to compete every few years for the business.

4.  Stimulate competition amongst the 1,500 insurers by allowing them to cross state lines, setting the federally mandated standard level of care at the lowest coverage currently offered by the states.  See this study for some good detail.

5.  Reform malpractice laws and payouts.  Having a penalty of $50,000,000 with half of it going to the lawyers is not an effective way of ‘teaching the doctor/hospital a lesson’.  With malpractice insurance composing 15%+ of a procedure’s cost, one needs to rethink how we penalize them for making mistakes or true malpractice.

6.  Don’t allow unlimited tax deductions for health insurance expense, and make the tax code fair (eliminate the favor of deductions given to big businesses).

7.  Revert the FDA back to its original mission: test the safety of new products.  It has turned into an averaging mechanism, where we are getting to more tailored drugs as we refine the technology yet the FDA will not approve based on averages over large samples.  If they were to go back and approve based only on safety, it would allow doctors more flexibility to tailor treatment to the needs of the individual, removing the limited accessibility of potentially helpful drugs.  (from conversations with pharmas, given the genome project, we can invent drugs to target specific DNA types but have problems getting through FDA as they are incapable of setting up useful (and economical) clinical trials (all due to their archaic definition of drug effectiveness)).  With FDA clinical trials representing more than 50% of the drug development costs, this would positively impact the development cycle, both in speed to drug and volume of treatments.

I’m not an athlete but I do know that the best way to slow down during a race is to turn your head and look at your competitor.  I hear many say that, in the end, it is a race against yourself so push hard and focus on the finish line.  I wish someone would give that advice to our current government.  From our Supreme Court Justices referencing international laws to our current administration looking to Europe for healthcare reform, I see so much time being spent looking at those behind us.

Did I offend anyone?  Sorry, but for those readers outside the US, I hate to be the one to tell you that your nation’s progress toward individual freedom lags the US (there may be argument from Singapore, Australia, NZ, and a few others, but I feel comfortable in defending my statement).  I can’t take credit for it, it’s just a fact that the US fought for independence from tyranny in the late 1700′s and has led the movement against oppression since.  This is the part of the world where those desiring freedom of expression, freedom to succeed or fail, freedom to think as an individual, freedom to pursue unlimited success, etc have come for centuries.  The US has grown to be the largest economy very quickly due to the relatively low barriers placed in our way by the whimsical acts of authoritarians.

So, why is our current administration looking to those that lag for ideas on how to advance our society?  Does Tiger Woods look to the golfer in 30th place and try to copy his swing?  Does Bill Gates try to copy the strategy of the executives of Kodak, Digital Equipment, NCR, or Unisys (for those that aren’t into technology history, those are all failed tech companies)?  No, they are the laggards, the losers.

Whomever was the one to propose the single-payer healthcare plan (aka the government-option, aka co-op plan, aka socialized medicine) should have been laughed out of the room immediately for suggesting something that those that are losing talent (brain drain of UK in the 80′s), that grow much slower than us (Europe GDP has been anemic compared to ours), and that offer little in advancement of personal freedom (class segmentation in UK, France, India) have adopted.  The response should have been “Are you nuts?  Why do we want to go backwards?  We (the nation) have fought long and hard to obtain and maintain our individual rights and you want to suggest we take a step back?  Oppression is oppression no matter what name you give it.  Get Out!”

So, my recommendation to our government, look forward, not backward.  Advance freedom, don’t rescind it.  Leverage the skill and knowledge base that collectively makes up our healthcare society rather than alienating it and risk losing it.

No doubt this will be taken as a scare tactic by those that favor government run healthcare, but examples of this behavior already exist within our country (think of our financial system and how a few people in Washington got to choose which ones survived and which failed, or the automobile companies and which managers were given new powers and which were pushed out by the auto czar).

The article is Klavan’s way of expressing the end that could come about from the government’s desire to control healthcare.  This quote sums up, for me, the attitude that appears pervasive in D.C.

“Free people can treat each other justly, but they can’t make life fair. To get rid of the unfairness among individuals, you have to exercise power over them. The more fairness you want, the more power you need. Thus, all dreams of fairness become dreams of tyranny in the end.”

With General Motors filing for bankruptcy today and our esteem federal government taking operational control (has our government ever been successful at turning a real profit?), I thought it timely that the Wall Street Journal would find  someone that has experience in a government’s running of a car company.  In this article,  Lt. Gen Pacepa, once a Soviet bloc car czar, describes his experiences and lack of successes.  Enjoy!

Oh, and remember that under the new union agreement (you know, the one that gives the UAW about 17% of the new GM while the more secure bond holders get much less), GM is not allowed to import from their global factories the more fuel efficient small cars made for non-US markets.  Bravo to the union for struggling along with us and our environment.