Squashed

A Hugo Chavez style nationalization of the auto industry is probably a singularly bad idea—but I also don’t mean that headline as a satire. Bear with me for a few paragraphs—then feel free to tell me what’s wrong with my crazy plan. Think of it as a thought exercise.

The background

We’ve got a handful of problems. The American auto industry is near bankruptcy. The American auto industry isn’t particularly enthusiastic about lowering emissions or raising efficiency—and vehicle emissions contribute significantly to global warming. Also, we have a serious general purpose economic collapse. Finally, having a functioning domestic auto industry has some serious national security benefits.

Some history

The Great Depression sucked. As many conservatives have pointed out recently, FDR’s New Deal really wasn’t enough to end it. It really took World War II to pull the United States out of the Great Depression. But what people often don’t mention is why a war pulled the country out of an economic depression. World War II was not a good time to be a libertarian. Besides drafting soldiers and interning Japanese-Americans we came the closest we’ve ever come to a dictator-style command economy. Rosie the Riveter wasn’t making civilian vehicles—and neither she nor whomever nominally owned her factory had a lot to say in the matter. Granted, we had a pretty good reason to functionally seize control of a slew of industries—but the idea that World War II ending the great depression somehow suggests that New Deal style government tampering didn’t work is goofy. There might have been more efficient ways to end the depression than World War II—but the way the depression actually ended involved everything form price controls to tax increases.

Some recent suggestions

Recently a number of proposals have been made.

• Bailout the auto industry
• We need a “Green Manhattan Project”
• Increase fuel efficiency standards

A Proposal

Let’s nationalize the auto industry. We can retool some of the plants to create large numbers of highly efficient vehicles. We can then sell both the cars and the technology to recoup the cost.

A synthesis?

You’re probably thinking, wait a minute, that’s a crazy solution. That’s not the sort of thing we do in this country—and we really don’t want to start setting this precedent. (If you did not think this, you really should have.)

Could we tweak this idea and come up with a half-decent proposal? Rather than just grabbing the industry, we could use half the money we’d planned to use as a bailout to buy already existing (but unused or underused) infrastructure. This injection of capital could keep the companies afloat. We use the other half to set up smaller companies that would hire essentially the same employees, retool the plants, create new cars, and eventually pay back their loans. If we wanted to get really fancy, we could set up companies with a charter to produce and sell something like 100,000 cars that got something like 100 mpg (or better yet, comparably efficient trucks). If they can accomplish this goal, within some time frame, some or all of the interest on the initial loans could be forgiven and the company could be purely private.

A Caveat:

If your friends are as lame as me and are talking about the advantages and disadvantages of bailing out the auto industry, don’t say something like, “What we really need to do is nationalize the auto industry.” It’s really not that great an idea. Your friends will think you’re crazy. They might even go Joe the McCarthy on you. You’ll never be taken seriously again.

So…why?

Why am I even mentioning it? I think the idea sucks a lot less than some of the other proposals out there. Letting the whole auto industry fail is really not acceptable. Throwing money into the companies as they currently exist seems like a waste of money and has the unfortunate effect of awarding incompetent management. What would you propose?

Does Hillary Clinton’s “experience” make her a strong candidate for Secretary of State? During the election, she ran on her experience—and none of her opponents particularly challenged her. (Go ahead, run with those scisssors!) By this point, Hillary Clinton is practically synonymous with experience. And experience in foreign affairs is unquestionably an important quality for the Secretary of State. Does Clinton actually have the relevant experience or is this a convenient campaign myth?

There’s been some rumbling on the right about the revival of the “Fairness Doctrine.” As Southpol points out, this is a scare tactic. In an age of podcasts and cable channels, forcing balance on the radio waves would be moronic and pointless. It is such an obviously bad idea that even if somebody tried to implement it, the move couldn’t get any traction. Conservative talk radio is secure.

I’m more interested in why a liberal equivalent hasn’t really succeeded. There have been attempts, but none have really taken off. I have a few hypotheses as to why.

First, public radio may scratch the itch for many people who want to have people talk at them on the way to or from work. While public radio isn’t overtly partisan like conservative talk radio, it implicitly embodies some traditionally liberal values. Public radio, for example, tries to tell an interesting and well-produced story, which almost always means attempting to tell both sides of the story. The idea that people you disagree with might have a valid and interesting story shouldn’t be inherently liberal, but the right has gone extra far right lately.

Secondly, nobody likes a self-righteous, liberal jerk. Much of talk radio is about personalities. When conservatism nearly descends into self-parody, it’s entertaining. Witness P.J. O’Rourke. The whole, “I may be a jerk—but I’m telling you tough truths” works a whole lot better when the purported truth-teller is to the right. If you agree with Rush Limbaugh on 90% of the time, you can still feel okay about yourself because at least you’re not quite as insensitive as he is. You’re willing to go a bit further than he is to help somebody who clearly needs it. It doesn’t work on the left. If you’re on board for 90% of what the liberal demagaugue says, you stuck feeling like you just don’t care about helping the poor as much as that guy is. You’re stuck thinking, “Well, it would be nice to do everything he wants, but it’s too expensive and impractical.” That makes for poor entertainment. The self-righteously conservative are hilarious. The self-righteously liberal are infuriating.