Free kibbles

This essay about the judge and the process lays out the stakes in the GM bankruptcy:

Gerber will preside as creditors challenge the government’s allocation of $82.3 billion of GM assets and $172.8 billion of debt, owed to more than 100,000 creditors. At stake are the jobs, health and retirement benefits of about 90,000 U.S. workers and their families, the economic viability of their communities and about $50 billion in loans from U.S. taxpayers.

The article also destroys any argument that GM should have been making smaller, more fuel efficient cars by reporting which lines GM will keep - GM's most profitable lines - and they aren't producers of small, fuel efficient cars, just the opposite:

The reinvented GM will sell Cadillacs, Chevrolets, Buicks and GMC trucks in the U.S., stripped of billions in debt and wage costs.

Government ownership of 60 percent of the company is beyond fascist - it's outright socialist.

GM bankruptcy FAQ. GM's official restructuring site. Michigan's 12.9 percent unemployment rate leads the country. Obama is just the opposite of a reluctant share holder, GM hasn't made a profit since 2004, and GM is being replaced on the Dow by Cisco. GM selling quintessentially American Hummer brand to Chinese company. This is our future as well as present until and unless the people finally figure out that our government is crushing our country.

Among a lot of accurate analysis, this guy lays partial blame on GM's demise on government for not creating socialized medicine. No kidding. He thinks government wasn't intrusive enough in our lives. But you know this guy has a problem with freedom when he lays a share of blame on consumers. GM is bankrupt for one reason - it took on too many obligations that it couldn't pay for (sounds a lot like government). The only reason GM took on so many obligations is government gave the power of coercion to unions, leading to unsustainable deals with the UAW. The reason GM couldn't make more money is government put so many restrictions on domestic car companies that it couldn't compete well in the world market. Finally, the burden of US taxes made it nearly impossible for GM and every other US company to compete in a world market. That's why GM's overseas facilities, facilities that aren't burdened by the US government in these three ways, are profitable.

Mises scholar predicts a long, wasteful run for Goverment Motors comparable to the experience of Romania's car czar.

"Too luxurious for the idiots," Ceausescu decreed when he saw the first Dacia car made in Romania. Immediately, the radio, right side mirror and backseat heating were dropped. Other "unnecessary luxuries" were soon eliminated by the bureaucrats and their workers' union that were running the factory. The car that finally hit the market was a stripped-down version of the old, stripped-down Renault 12. "Perfect for the idiots," Ceausescu approved. Indeed, the Romanian people, who had never before had any car, came to cherish the Dacia.

I'm looking forward to similar performance from Government Motors.

How did the famous Jaguar, one of the most prestigious cars in the world, become a joke? In 1945, the British voters, tired of four years of war, kicked out Winston Churchill and elected a leftist parliament led by Labour's Clement Attlee. Attlee nationalized the automobile, trucking and coal industries, as well as communication facilities, civil aviation, electricity and steel. Britain was already saddled by crushing war debts. Now it was sapped of economic vigor. The old empire quickly passed into history.

I'm not saying we're repeating history... yes I am. That sure sounds a lot like what I see going on here.

Mises scholar points out the role moral hazard played in creating the current crisis:

Greenspan also used the Fed's monopoly on the creation of bad money to create moral hazards that would prove damaging. The bubbles that he fueled during his tenure are one example. Another was recently pointed out by the great Alabama-bred investor, Jim Rogers of Investment Biker and Quantum Fund fame, who noted in BusinessWeek last month that Greenspan's 1998 decision to bail out Long-Term Capital Management has proven especially nefarious. LTCM was (and is) a multibillion-dollar investment group, operated by Greenspan's friends, which Lew Rockwell called "a crazy Connecticut hedge fund that believed it could predict the future by paying Nobel laureates vast sums to concoct a mathematical model that perfectly predicted the past."

When LTCM's mistakes caught up with it, Greenspan orchestrated a bailout, justified by the now familiar — although false — specter of systemic risk. Rogers noted the moral hazard this action caused, as well as how it hindered the otherwise corrective power of the market in the years to come. Said Rogers: "If [LTCM] had been allowed to fail, Lehman and the rest of them would've lost a huge amount of money, their capital would've been impaired, and it would've put a terrible crimp on Wall Street. It would have slowed them down for years. Instead of losing capital, losing assets, and losing incompetent people, they [simply] hired more incompetent people."
...
When market forces react in ways predicted following a period of overproduction resulting from bad credit, the state blames markets themselves and claims the right to socialize large segments of the economy. The government can claim to own most of our houses through its ownership of Fannie and Freddie, making it, in a sense, the largest single owner of housing since the Soviets. Today, either the Fed or the Treasury own AIG and preferred shares of hundreds of banks; and they may assume de facto ownership over several hedge funds before this is over. It is not consoling that this was once predicted as inevitable — by Karl Marx.

Bernanke makes Greenspan look like a piker, and Obama does the same to Bush.

As this continues, the craziness will stop and sounder minds will reassert themselves.

I don't share that optimism. I don't think we'll fix it until after the collapse of the US. Too many people are brainwashed and the entrenched powers are stronger than ever.

The FTC's attack on the Whole Foods and Wild Oats merger proves that defining markets overly narrowly then accusing companies in those narrow markets of monopoly power is just another way government grabs power from the people.

Study shows that math gap between men and women is almost closed, but not in my house.

I already knew that Americans overwhelmingly were against shutting down Guantanamo, but Gallop has verified it. Obama really stepped in it when he gave that irresponsible order to shut it down.

Mises has a far more intriguing personal story than Judge Sotomayor.

The US Olympic Committee thinks it owns the phrase "Chicago 2016", and it is trying to stop a Chicago charity from using that phrase to raise money for the families of dead firefighters, police and paramedics.

The state of Queensland in Australia is selling off socialized businesses and extracting itself from the private sector to cut costs and enable economic growth. We have the stupidest aristocrats in the world.

Mises scholar claims "the language [of the Second Amendment] was clearly written to limit the federal government." Is he reading the same Second Amendment I have in my copy of the Constitution? The First Amendment begins "Congress shall pass no law...". Clearly, the First Amendment was intended to limit the power of the Federal government. The Second Amendment never limits its restrictions to Congress. It begins by talking about the security of a free state, "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free state," as in the state of Virginia or the state of Massachusetts. It ends saying "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Where in the text of this amendment does it restrict itself to limiting only the Federal government? A stand alone reading of the Second Amendment clearly acknowledges and protects a natural right of the people to keep and bear arms from infringement by government at any level, and a comparison to the First Amendment only makes this more obvious.

German Chancelor Merkel takes on the Fed.

Smearing Christians and anti-abortionists and comparing them to Islamic terrorists is irresponsible.