Fuck Rachel Maddow

I listened to Rachel Maddow on the way home from work today and her take on the loans to the Big 3 really got under my skin.

Specifically, she said:

1. Southern politicians not supporting domestic auto makers while fawning over foreign auto makers is tantamount to treason.

2. She inferred that the only opposition to this idea is coming from “the plantation caucus” which consists of southern republicans (when did Maddow get so bawdy? Making up a pejorative for these pols that conjures visions of slavery…).

3. She compared state and local tax incentives received by foreign automakers to a bail out loan.

4. She also stated that incentivization is counter to free market principles.

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

1. It is not treasonous to withhold monetary support for failing businesses. It makes sense. I doubt some of the opponents have such a pristine position – I believe the union-busting jive being played up is accurate since republicans don’t like unions. Maddow, and many other lefty commentators, have the whole situation twisted. Giving a $XX billion loan to companies that are not functional (GM and Chrysler) now that SUV and truck demand has dropped off does nothing to save any union jobs. GM and Chrysler have been slowly dismantling and undermining their unionized workforce for 30 years.

2. I don’t know why an otherwise sharp and reasonable person would reduce herself to something as juvenile as “the plantation caucus.” Olbermann would do it, but Maddow isn’t Olbermann. At least she wasn’t before.

3. When state and local governments make deals with companies that limit their tax exposure, they are trying to create an environment that will be beneficial for the rich people behind the corporation as well as people in the area that need work. It isn’t ‘corporate welfare’ to not tax a business, it is fair. A business does not benefit from the existence of government and its services, the owners of the business do. Corporate taxation is ridiculous because corporations are not people, they simply treat taxes as a portion of their overhead and pass their cost along to consumers. Corporate taxes are just a way for politicians to make it look like they are making companies ‘pay their fair share.’ They don’t pay anything, the end user does. Here is a simple example:

Company A wants to make a profit of $5 after all of their costs to produce a unit are factored in to the price of the product. It costs them $10 to design, build and market the product. The government(s) charge a tax of $1 per unit. Company A does not say “OK, we will sell it for $15 and just cut our profit by 20%.” They sell the product for $16, treat the tax as a cost and still make their $5 profit per unit.

Taxes shouldn’t be levied on a construct (a figment of our collective imagination) that passes costs onto consumers. Taxes should be levied (if at all) on the people that benefit from the profits (in this case the employees, owners and stockholders of Company A). This will never happen because then democrats wouldn’t have anything to show they were working hard to make corporate America pay, and all of the corporate machinery in place to deal with corporate taxes (accountants, attorneys, etc) would be out of a job. And republicans would have to allow the American investor to pay the same taxes on their investment income that people that work for a living pay on their wages.

4. When a government offers tax breaks to companies to do business in their area, it is not against the free market. In a truly free market, the government would not tax companies at all. If anything, tax breaks actually create a more free market.

No, Really. Fuck Rachel Maddow

Of course, Rachel Maddow doesn’t care about any of this. She wants to make a childish political point and carry water for the democratic party. In doing so, she has shown she will stoop to using words that stir up America’s racist history as well as twist the information available to make it look like the republicans that oppose the bail out are all hypocrites. Hypocrites and politicians are basically the same beast to me and I will show you an example which is regularly talked about by Maddow and her ilk, socialized medicine. The left claims that socialized medicine will free the corporations from the burden of providing health care for their employees. This is a perfect example of a government incentive, the only difference between it and tax breaks for Honda in Alabama is that Alabama gets jobs out of it, with government-sponsored health care, the people get the same thing they get now, but the corporation gets free from the equation…

It is also depressing that they think these loans will somehow save Detroit and all the jobs associated with GM, Ford and Chrysler. However, a loan isn’t going to save them any more than a loan would save a consulting firm offering Y2K compliance services. The Big 3 are a part of American history, they are not a part of the future – and they shouldn’t be after the way that they have turned their back on the American worker. And don’t give me that shit about the 250,000 union jobs associated with the Big 3. In 20 years if they are still around those “union” jobs won’t be any better than the non-union jobs because the UAW, just like the railroad unions and countless others, have sold away their future members to better their workers today. A union used to stand for something, now it is just a way to protect the interests of senior members and screwing anyone that comes along in the future.

As long as people like Maddow get tapped to have prime-time TV talk shows, we are fucked. And it sucks to say that because I used to like her a lot. My like just dropped a rung today.