Tuesday, December 9, 2008

The Automaker bailout is wrong!

Today's post has nothing to do with trading stocks, but it is important. A number of these big-picture issues came up at our last Wallstreak meeting.

It looks like some form of automaker bailout is getting closer. Even worse, the CEO's and management who made poor decisions at the top will keep their jobs. The government will throw bad money after good, and use taxpayer money to prop up companies that can't compete. The UAW will remain strong, and be around to vex the automakers in the future. Why not let the Big 3 and their crappy management die, but bail out individual workers by paying for extended unemployment benefits and job retraining costs. If the US government really wanted to invest in the future, it would fund startup companies like Tesla Motors (http://www.teslamotors.com/), which make electric cars, and was about to introduce a series of family sedans , that is, until the price of oil began to plummet. And on the topic of oil, frankly, I believe that oil is being manipulated artificially downward by the very same speculators who manipulated it upward earlier this year.

The more I learn about the economy, the stock market, and how things really work behind the scenes, the more cynical I become. In the end, the rich and powerful protect themselves by working the system, and by screwing over the Average Joe. Wall Street CEOs are still going to get multi-million dollar bonuses, after running major financial institutions into the ground, and lopping off 35-40% off of most people's retirement savings in the process. Dylan Rattigan on Fast Money gets this, and won't stop his rants -- Go Dylan! Also, for a good cynical /consipiracy website, see Gaming The Market (http://www.gamingthemarket.com/)

1 comment:

gamingthemarket said...

Who said I'm cynical! Thanks for the link amigo. I regret not going to the meeting you guys had, sounds interesting.