GM: The Shriveld Fruit of Central Planning

"The market, that means the buyers; the consumers, that means all the people...[U]nder planning or socialism the goals of production are determined by the supreme planning authority. The individual gets what the authority thinks he ought to get."~~Ludwig von Mises, The Elite Under Capitalism, an essay in Economic Freedom and Intervention

Via Hotair, General Motors "decides" to spend $40 million on a carbon emissions program.

I put the word, decides, in quotation marks because General Motors is no longer in a position to make decisions according to what consumers in the market desire.  They are not interested in supplying what consumers in the market demand and, since the government is the shareholder with the the endless flow of taxpayer funds (the carrot) and holds the power of regulation (the stick), it is likely GM simply is not permitted to decide matters for itself.

Would a majority of private shareholder, if GM had all private shareholders, support $40 million spent on a program neither desired by consumers nor mandated by regulations?

Worse yet, the convoluted anti-free market partnership of government and a major corporation--wrought by bailouts, initiated by Bush and finished by Obama--places the federal government in a position to plan a major sector of what is supposed to be our economy.  It makes cover for the age-old authoritarian impulse to control how people supply for the wants and needs of other people in society. (What is a free market capitalist economy other than one existing for and driven by the desires of individuals?) 

GM's "decisions" therefore political, not economical.  They act at the behest of government command, therefore ignore consumer demand.

Can we demand no more bailouts, please.

Video: Worse Than Elitism

President Obama's latest "town hall" revealed a disturbing attitude toward the attendees and, thus, toward everyday Americans.  The word "elitism" seems insufficient to describe this attitude.

"There are a whole host of things that we've put in place that do make your life better."

Let's think about this:
"..a whole host of things..." = government legislation, spending, and regulation

"...we've..." = the people holding legislative and executive power that have acted

"...put in place..." = placed with foresight to determine some economic and social purpose--what classical liberal economists call central planning. 

"...to make your life better."  And there is the punchline.

Is the president of the U.S. in a postition to know what makes our individual and respective millions of lives good, let alone "better"? Who has the privilege of making that determination, us or him and his circle of advisers? And even if he could somehow ascend to this omniscient position, is it his place to make our lives better--as he sees it--through the coercive force of the federal government? 

How free is a society if its constitutionally elected president assumes this responsibility and then acts upon it?

Thomas Sowell’s excellent book The Vision of The Anointed explains why the “elites” in academia, government, and the media try again and again to implement bad social and economic policy in spite of the fact history teaches such policies have failed and will continue to fail.   In short, they are infatuated with an elevated and delusional sense of their own intelligence and see fixing the world and everyone in it to their liking as their mission in life.  Some samples:
 

“[T]here is, as the bottom line, a power agenda by which the vision of the anointed is to be imposed on the masses.”  

“ ‘Waste,’ ‘quality,’ and ‘real needs’ are terms blithely thrown around, as if some third party can define them for the other people.”