It’s not that they had a very positive outcome, but the bailouts have taken hold. They’ve taken hold of the government and focused them on all the wrong things. We now have the President of the United States requesting that CEOs of businesses step down and telling them how to run their operations. You’ve got Congress holding hearing about the payment of executives. So now we have people who most likely have no background in finance or automobiles (other than owning one) making decisions about what steps will bring success in those businesses. Doesn’t seem that efficient (or smart) to me and I fully expect us (tax payers) to be further in the hole before they figure out that bankruptcy would have been better. It’s a real shame that instead of taking care of serious budget issues (like why it is so bad to have extremely large deficits as far as the eye can see), you have these silly antics (like CEO firings) that cheapen the government and make them look more like Chávez in Venezuela.

You want some examples of quasi-governmental businesses? How about the USPS. Is that an organization that is a model of efficiency? How about Amtrak? What about the big monopolies (not governmental, but close cousins) such as the utility companies? They really aren’t that much better, but they at least have to answer to stock holders and board of directors first. It’s so painfully obvious that you hate to even have to write about. Well hold onto your hats (and probably wallets as well) people… it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Michael Ramirez has a great cartoon that somewhat relates to this: