Cartoon of the Day
CARPE DIEM
Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance
Thursday, December 04, 2008
About Me
- Name: Mark J. Perry
- Location: Washington, D.C., United States
Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. Perry holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University near Washington, D.C. In addition, he holds an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. In addition to a faculty appointment at the University of Michigan-Flint, Perry is also a visiting scholar at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
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7 Comments:
Sad but true. It seems like every nation in the history of the world degenerates into people sticking their hand out instead of putting that hand to work.
Today I am feeling contrarian. The cartoon is misleading, since we took the non-freemarket turn off a few hundred miles back.
We told the US car companies that they have to make cars a certain way (CAFE standards, various regs). We also told them you have to pay your employees a certain way, and made it very difficult to fire them (laws that strengthen unions and specific actions on Detroit). Then, when they can't make it in a slow patch they ask us for a loan and we want to scrutinize their books, criticize their executive compensation, etc, when they ask for help. The left uses this as an argument that de-regulation hasn't worked and that we need more socialism, and we elect what seems like a self proclaimed socialist!
The big three should be asking for regulatory relief, not for bridge loans. The administration and congress should be considering deregulating the government created labor monopoly (aka Unions) and allowing Detroit to build whatever the hell kind of car they want (ditch CAFE!). I bet they would do much better without unions and being able to build just muscle cars and trucks.
Instead, we are going to regulate them even more. We want them to build "green" cars and even more small crappy unsafe cars than before. This is starting to look like Fannie Mae or Amtrak (heavy government control leads to financial difficulty and no one even thinks government control might be the problem).
Ok, I feel a bit better now.
funny cartoon.
however, due to some recent reckless driving, the free market roadway should look more like this
I don't want to feel like I'm competing, but I wanted to share this
cartoon.
What 'free market' in which country are you talking about bobble?
We DON'T have free markets in the USA and haven't had for quite some time...
Save for the hit on the unions, I'd agree on that Marko.
What would it take to exempt them all from environmentalist regulations? There are people(other than myself, of course) who see the Big Three as someone who puts muscle within reach of the common man. They don't put it out of reach in luxury segments as the transplants do, but make it affordable.
If you want the UAW to go away, you make their enemies feel some pain. That is, consider a long-term moratorium on unionbusting(as a predicated condition of the UAW's departure). Now is not the time for cheap shots, but to concentrate on recovery.
By belief that unions are part of the problem is not a cheap shot. I see what unions do in my business, and I think they are bad for business, and ultimately bad for union members. I believe any distortion to the market, whether rent controls, price controls, or labor rate controls, are bad and produce inefficiencies. Why not unshackle the big three and see if they can succeed? Does labor think they can't compete in a free market? They do in just about every other field. I have faith in the American worker and don't believe they need the NLRB to create monopolies for them to exploit businesses.
But I am glad you agree with me on the other points. I really don't think the federal government should be determining how many miles a gallon a car is supposed to get. How do they know more than the market?
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