NGMCO, Inc, replaces General Motors Corporation, but who minds the store?
Now that the federal bankruptcy judge approved the sale of substantially all of General Motors Corporation's assets to NGMCO, Inc, the future of that carmaker depends on the (almost) three-quarters government ownership plus the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust that owns 17.5 percent of NGMCO. And that future depends on whether the ownership allows NGMCO to operate as a profit-seeking organization or one with a primary goals of job creation and production of environmentally correct products.
The irony is that if jobs and green cars are in the forefront, the company will not create a profit and would continue to exist only as a ward of the state requiring continued financial life support. GM jobs would be workfare, and cars produced based not on demand but government ukase would clog the lots of the surviving GM dealers..
On the other hand, a company unfettered by political control and allowed to make product and personnel choices with a goal of making income for its owners is more likely to be around to provide productive jobs and make cars, including green ones, without being a drag on the U.S. economy and the bane of the American taxpayer.
President Obama is on record as saying that the government isn’t interested in running a car company. Government ownership would mean involvement in only the most basic decisions. Sorry, Mr. President, but that’s like saying, “You can decide what’s for dinner but I’m going to be responsible for refinancing the house.” Guess who decides that fate of that household.
Our hope is that the U.S. Treasury will put its shares in NGMCO, Inc., on the market as soon as practicable. In a free market eonomy, government ownership is an anathema, and ownership of a majority of one of the world’s largest manufacturers is a disaster in waiting.
We’re repeatedly told that Mr. Obama is not a socialist. There’s one sure way to prove it. Put the federal government’s share of ownership on the market as soon as it can be arranged, and set NGMCO, Inc, free to earn a free market profit, absent government control.
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