Posted inUncategorized

How Detroit committed suicide

In the garage of my condo tower, someone parks a 1965 Buick Electra 225 convertible. It is sleek and big and powerful. This was Detroit, and in many ways America, at the zenith of its power.

Buick, like all GM divisions, still enjoyed great autonomy, including having its own design bureau. This car is a work of art. It is the successor to the legendary Roadmaster, and in those days Buick fans were fiercely loyal (my mother being one). GM cars were tiered so people could move up to a new GM brand as they became more affluent, as millions did in the 1950s and 1960s — Chevy to Pontiac to Oldsmobile and even Cadillac. Ah, but the Buick was special: glamorous, racy, classy and exclusive. Built union.

I think of all this, of course, as Chrysler is pushed into bankruptcy and General Motors may well face the same fate. What went wrong, and what does it say about America's future?

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Posted inPolitics: National

Who to blame

So Alan Greenspan is shocked, shocked that gambling was going on in the casino that he and his fellow radicals made of the capital markets. In his testimony before Congress Thursday, he talked about how stunned he was that the markets weren’t self-regulating, that speculation and greed led to this disaster, which he likened to a “once in a century” financial tsunami.

But this is no act of God. The ongoing financial collapse is the direct result of the deregulation, trade, privatization and tax policies enacted by Alan Greenspan and the other rigid ideologues of the Republican Party over the past quarter of a century. The longtime Fed chairman is a disciple of the author Ayn Rand, whose advocacy of a brutal individualism has been turned into a devil-take-the-hindmost reality that would make Atlas blush.

It’s important for the American voter to understand this. The collapse of their savings, the deferment of their retirement dreams, the loss of their homes, the decline in their earnings, the elimination of their jobs – all has been the result of very conscious policies. They were promised an "ownership society," but, as Barack Obama said, the reality is that most Americans are on their own.

If Americans understand this, the election will not be in doubt. And, God willing, the calamity will discredit this extremist philosophy, just as happened in 1932, for decades to come. For this orthodox ideological extremism is every bit as bankrupt and failed as all its false prophet predecessors. Alan Greenspan and company, including former Sen. Phil Gramm, the great – and greatly compensated by the banking industry – deregulator and economic guru to wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III, are the most dangerous of men: true believers.

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