Friday, June 5, 2009

I'm not sure this was part of the narrative

by Smitty (h/t Instapundit)

The Weekly Standard reports:
Senator Lamar Alexander introduced the "Auto Stock for Every Taxpayer Act" today, which would "require the Treasury to distribute to individual taxpayers all its stock in General Motors (GM) and Chrysler within one year following the emergence of the companies from bankruptcy proceedings.”
I see a few problems with this:
  • The Treasury Department stole those shares fair and square. Loss of the asset could have deleterious effects on various graft, kickback, and corruption schemes. Distributing shares has not been deemed The Right Thing to Do.
  • If people have something to lose, they may cease to vote as if they've nothing to lose. Thus, this is a violation of the 'total enslavement' doctrine.
  • Some of the lumpentproletariat may even figure out the game, and become harder to manipulate. Heaven forbid, they may even become as educated as someone who went to Yale or Havard, given enough generations. This would not do.
  • Lamar Alexander is a Republican, and thus cannot be permitted to diminish the glow of The One.
  • He Who Must Not Be Named would be displeased.

1 comment:

  1. Even coming from Sen. Alexander, this still seems like a cop-out. The company has still been nationalized; giving stock to we, the unwashed masses, just turns us all into minority stockholders. The UAW, Europeans, and Chinese banks will still be the high rollers even under this act. One of those hard-to-undo kinda things.

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