A lot of people seem to have their knickers in a twist about the fact that GM, Ford, and Chrysler executives are dragging their sorry carcasses before Congress to beg for money.

Sure, these companies spent the better part of the last decade producing gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs, and in the 70′s and 80′s, they churned out largely unreliable pieces of crap. What’s not clear to me, though, is how that has much bearing on the question of whether they should receive government assistance in weathering the current financial and economic crisis.

To the “let them fail” crowd, I’d ask what you’d do with the tens of thousands of unemployed workers such a strategy would generate.

As for those who disagree with these companies’ production choices and business models, I would suggest that a government bailout is just about the perfect time to force the automakers in a new direction. They want government money? Great—clean yourselves up if you want to get it.

The other point to keep in mind is that while we can get plenty outraged at these guys for asking for $25 billion or $34 billion, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds and hundreds of billions we’ve already shelled out to the financial industry. At least the car manufacturers make a product with some discernible value.

Apparently we’re all supposed to be very upset by this news:

Out of Town News, the newsstand that has offered a cornucopia of newspapers and magazines as a Harvard Square landmark for more than 50 years, could close.

The owners have informed Cambridge officials that they have no plans to renew their lease after it expires Jan. 31. City officials say they are hoping to find another newsstand to take its place, but acknowledge that the business climate is grim as more customers get their news online rather than in print.

This story has been all over my RSS reader like a rash for the past few days, and even made it to the headlines on All Things Considered on Thursday. I know I’m supposed to be outraged by a small and historic store being forced out of business by online competition, but I have to wonder if it’s not being blown out of proportion by the prominence of Harvard graduates in the liberal blogosphere.

Beyond that, I find it rather amusing to hear and read a bunch of people complaining about the loss of a store they apparently couldn’t be bothered to patronize enough to keep it in business.

The real question, though, is whether Bernanke is reaching for his pacemaker, or for a knife…

From the New York Times’ coverage of the failure of the bailout legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives:

Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican, said he was “resolute” in his opposition to the measure because it would betray party principles and amount to “a coffin on top of Ronald Reagan’s coffin.”

Well, at least some of us understand our priorities.

There will undoubtedly be enough analysis of today’s events to drown even the most enthusiastic devotees of economic and political news. Nonetheless, it’s important not to lose track of the absolutely bat-shit crazy reasoning going on amongst the legislators who are actually responsible for making these decision.

Am I the only one who looks at this this picture and thinks, “What, me worry?”

Let’s take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?

• August 6, 2001 – “All right, you’ve covered your ass now.”
• September 11, 2001 – President reads My Pet Goat
• January 28, 2003 – “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
• February 6, 2003 – Colin Powell tells the UN about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, mobile labs, etc.
• May 1, 2003 – “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”
• September 2, 2005 – “Brownie, you’re doin a heckuva job.”
• May 2007 – “I don’t recall.”
• September 10, 2008 – “In sometimes lurid detail, the report also accuses him of having intimate relations with two subordinates, one of whom regularly sold him cocaine.”

Now, to the present.

Following last week’s chaos in the U.S. financial markets, the Bush administration is asking for virtually unlimited and completely unchecked authority to spend $700 billion buying up “mortgage-related assets.”
(more…)

I was listening to PRI’s Marketplace earlier this week, and had the misfortune to hear an entirely predictable bit of commentary by former Bush speechwriter, Iraq war apologist, and “axis of evil” author David Frum.

After a relatively accurate description of the lead-up to the current meltdown of the U.S. financial market, Frum ends with the following gem:

This crisis was enabled and intensified by government. So how does it make sense to say that the solution to the crisis is still more government?

The argument Frum is trying to make here goes something like this: I get in my car, drive to the grocery store, and then say, “My car is the thing that got me to this store, so it’s crazy to think that it will get me home.”

But this is the classic “deregulation” myth, isn’t it? Free-market fundamentalists like Frum aren’t looking for less government regulation—they’re looking for government regulatory policies that are favorable to business.

John McCain, in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, on how he would fix Social Security:

The way I would fix Social Security is to sit down with Republicans and Democrats together at a table, voicing my opposition to tax increases, and sitting down and negotiating a fix to Social Security, which is the only way that Social Security is going to be fixed. That’s my solution to the Social Security system.

Well, um… okay. The interview, incidentally, is titled “I’m Always for Less Regulation.”

Jon Talton has a killer post over at Rogue Columnist on the oft-remarked upon but (typically) poorly analyzed decline of the traditional newspaper.

We hear endlessly that the troubles are a result of the Internet, new technology, “people don’t read anymore,” and, my favorite, “people don’t have as much time as they used to.” As if there was once a 36-hour day, or people who once worked 12-hour shifts while raising large families had this abundance of time.

These forces are real. And yes, a big swath of the public is distracted by celebrity gossip and gets its “news” from blogs, television and talk radio. What’s less noted is how newspapers themselves contributed to the dumbing down of America. What’s most frustrating is that the discussion fails to focus on the more significant reasons behind the decline in newspaper journalism.

Talton goes on to detail the reasons newspapers essentially ignored the changes wrought upon their business model by technology. Instead of adapting to these changes, the industry contracted into a fetal position throughout the Nineties and into the current decade, and now finds itself with a consistently dwindling readership and little opportunity to change that trend.

The whole post is worth reading.

An article in this morning’s New York Times describes the drop in holiday business for retailers such as Target, Starbucks, and Coach, stores once thought to be relatively impervious to receding economic tides. These stores, which have been relied upon to consistently deliver high growth numbers every year are this year reporting weaker-than-expected growth, or, as in Target’s case, a drop of 1% from last December.

Such news is hardly surprising, given that the economy pretty much sucks for the vast majority of the population. Every day seems to bring more bad news, and the collapsing housing and credit markets are making it increasingly difficult for people to spend their way past the cemetery.

The amusing part of the article, however, is this bit about Michigan shopper Lynn Brisbois:

“I was very limited in what I did this year,” said the mother of two, who gave her twin daughters cash instead of head-to-toe clothing from Abercrombie, a brand they covet.

I’m trying to think up a sentence that more accurately sums up the current state of economic and class affairs in this country. So far, I have had no luck.