The Trouble with Compromise
I remember growing up learning that compromise was the greatest virtue. At home I learned to share; at school I learned about Henry Clay ("The Great Compromiser") and the Missouri Compromise.
There are (very) basically two ways to get the automobile industry back on track.
1.) The market will correct itself. If the Big Three files for bankruptcy, then an external investor will intervene to reinvent the company and make it work better
There are (very) basically two ways to get the automobile industry back on track.
1.) The market will correct itself. If the Big Three files for bankruptcy, then an external investor will intervene to reinvent the company and make it work better
2.) The government can bail out the Big Three under the conditions of improving operations and making more efficient cars.
I favor the government approach because it will ensure that labor is protected and will put environment as a priority. In general, government wants to protect people and business wants to protect business. And I prefer people to business. (I'm forgetting for the moment that businesses are made up of and therefore protect people.)
When it comes to a government-supervised reconstruction of the auto industry, critics are likely correct: The government won't do a good job. If the left (or right) has a good idea about how to do it, then they will have to bend over backwards to compromise to get a restructuring program through congress. This compromise will undoubtedly make the program close-to-worthless.
What starts with good intentions ends with good legislation, which is bad in practice.
Why can't democrats win 100 Senate seats?
I favor the government approach because it will ensure that labor is protected and will put environment as a priority. In general, government wants to protect people and business wants to protect business. And I prefer people to business. (I'm forgetting for the moment that businesses are made up of and therefore protect people.)
When it comes to a government-supervised reconstruction of the auto industry, critics are likely correct: The government won't do a good job. If the left (or right) has a good idea about how to do it, then they will have to bend over backwards to compromise to get a restructuring program through congress. This compromise will undoubtedly make the program close-to-worthless.
What starts with good intentions ends with good legislation, which is bad in practice.
Why can't democrats win 100 Senate seats?
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Totally incoherent.
November 21, 2008 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have to agree.
November 22, 2008 9:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
This isn't a left or right problem. All 100 seats in the Senate for democrats gets us is an abrupt rightward shift sometime in the future when that left majority becomes exploitative. We don't do well at the extremes.
Our most prosperous decades as a country were in the post World War II years, when partisan politics had died to a certain extent in order to get big things done for the middle class. But then any number of social problems went unsolved while a greater number of Americans thrived financially, many others were thrown under the bus by representatives of the left and right.
This is true of our current economy as well, wrecked by both parties for at least the last 30 years and possibly as far back as the sixties when tax starting going down and expenditures started going up. Both democrats and republicans have "protected" American businesses from their stupidity in a variety of interesting and ultimately ineffective ways.
Why? Because politicians have an inability to tell us the truth no matter what party they are in. Barack Obama is the first guy elected in all the time I have been voting to win on the truth. It's going to take compromise and laying down our rhetorical swords to get anything done about these enormous problems we've been putting off for decades.
We can't afford to half the country fighting against our new president's agenda every step of the way..
November 22, 2008 9:24 AM | Reply | Permalink