UPDATED: GM about to smash another record!
Great news- they're within spittin' distance of surpassing the 2004 record set for most GM recalls ever! :) News report wrote: General Motors recalls another 2.7 million vehicles The latest ...
Forum Discussion
I don’t come to this forum to discuss politics; I get plenty of that in other venues. So I’ll make this my last comment in this thread.
My background is, for the past 20 plus years I’ve studies politics, political theory, political economy, and globalization. At first it was just something in was interested in but as time went on, without even realizing it, I started to get deeper into these subjects. When I retired from GM 8 years ago this all became a second career, mostly teaching and doing research. This doesn’t make me any smarter than the next person. All it means is I’ve delved deeper into these topics than the average Joe or Jane and while I have my own personal beliefs, it gives me a perspective a lot of folks don’t have…nothing more, nothing less.
I see and hear a lot of people throw around the term “socialism”, most often in in association with “big government”. In theoretical terms socialism doesn’t have a thing to do with “big government”, but in American politics it has become a catch phrase that means nothing because it encompasses everything. In other words, most people don’t know what it means they just use it as an insult.
But let’s assume for the sake of argument socialism DOES mean “big government” to most people. All of us to some extent enjoy the benefits of “big government”—the roads we travel on, the bridges we cross, the rest parks we stop at, the state and national parks we camp at, and some of folks have begun to collect that social security check every month (all of which are made possible through taxation). Anyone can expand this list, but the point is we do not, and I don’t think most people would want to, live in a pure capitalist or pure socialist society. In fact, nowhere in the world does there exist a “pure” capitalist or “pure” socialist economy, certainly not according to this “big government” definition.
The question then is not WHETHER the government (any government) should be involved in the economy (or private enterprise), but to WHAT EXTENT and WHERE. This is the root of the argument, and to be frank, I don’t think a lot of people don’t think this one through. Someone mentioned foreign automakers receiving subsidies from their governments. One reason for this is other industrialized countries take a different approach to this question. Another is businesses in other industrialized countries typically have a business plan that covers decades versus the 3-5 years American businesses have.
Businesses in other industrialized countries typically focus on long term growth and are not as vulnerable to dips in the global market. US businesses on the other hand must focus on making the shareholders happy in the (relative) short term which makes them extremely vulnerable to dips in the global market. Governments in other industrialized countries have policies in place that help soften the blow of (relative) short term economic downturns (for both employers and workers), outside of unemployment and food stamps, the US does not.
I could ramble on about this a lot longer, but I’ll finish with this. Consider the GM recalls being discussed here. A “pure market” solution to these problems, absent any kind of government involvement, would be something like “if enough people die from these defects people would stop buying GM products (exercising choice in the free market) and GM would be forced, of their own accord (in response to market signals) to fix the problems or go out of business”. Instead, we have government instituted safety standards that dictate these recalls. Personally…I prefer the latter.
My background is, for the past 20 plus years I’ve studies politics, political theory, political economy, and globalization. At first it was just something in was interested in but as time went on, without even realizing it, I started to get deeper into these subjects. When I retired from GM 8 years ago this all became a second career, mostly teaching and doing research. This doesn’t make me any smarter than the next person. All it means is I’ve delved deeper into these topics than the average Joe or Jane and while I have my own personal beliefs, it gives me a perspective a lot of folks don’t have…nothing more, nothing less.
I see and hear a lot of people throw around the term “socialism”, most often in in association with “big government”. In theoretical terms socialism doesn’t have a thing to do with “big government”, but in American politics it has become a catch phrase that means nothing because it encompasses everything. In other words, most people don’t know what it means they just use it as an insult.
But let’s assume for the sake of argument socialism DOES mean “big government” to most people. All of us to some extent enjoy the benefits of “big government”—the roads we travel on, the bridges we cross, the rest parks we stop at, the state and national parks we camp at, and some of folks have begun to collect that social security check every month (all of which are made possible through taxation). Anyone can expand this list, but the point is we do not, and I don’t think most people would want to, live in a pure capitalist or pure socialist society. In fact, nowhere in the world does there exist a “pure” capitalist or “pure” socialist economy, certainly not according to this “big government” definition.
The question then is not WHETHER the government (any government) should be involved in the economy (or private enterprise), but to WHAT EXTENT and WHERE. This is the root of the argument, and to be frank, I don’t think a lot of people don’t think this one through. Someone mentioned foreign automakers receiving subsidies from their governments. One reason for this is other industrialized countries take a different approach to this question. Another is businesses in other industrialized countries typically have a business plan that covers decades versus the 3-5 years American businesses have.
Businesses in other industrialized countries typically focus on long term growth and are not as vulnerable to dips in the global market. US businesses on the other hand must focus on making the shareholders happy in the (relative) short term which makes them extremely vulnerable to dips in the global market. Governments in other industrialized countries have policies in place that help soften the blow of (relative) short term economic downturns (for both employers and workers), outside of unemployment and food stamps, the US does not.
I could ramble on about this a lot longer, but I’ll finish with this. Consider the GM recalls being discussed here. A “pure market” solution to these problems, absent any kind of government involvement, would be something like “if enough people die from these defects people would stop buying GM products (exercising choice in the free market) and GM would be forced, of their own accord (in response to market signals) to fix the problems or go out of business”. Instead, we have government instituted safety standards that dictate these recalls. Personally…I prefer the latter.
