by Seton Motley You’ve heard the expression “building on success.”
Where you identify something that’s working – and work to maximize and further broaden its fruition. In large part by determining what’s working – and seeking to replicate it.
The Left has always remained blissfully unfamiliar with this concept.
Probably at least in part because they are perpetually too busy building instead on failure.
Take the Barack Obama Administration and their D.C. Leftist cohorts.
They in 2009 spent nearly $1 trillion on an alleged economic stimulus. Which would, we were told, keep unemployment below 8%.
Oops.
That having failed miserably, the D.C. Leftists built upon their failure by spending more “stimulus” coin on
Cash for Clunkers, Cash for Caulkers and a whole host of other pitifully failed attempts at publicly invigorating the private sector.
Oops.
Building on failure.
We all now anxiously await September’s latest-in-a-long-line of famous President Obama problem-solving speeches. In which, we are told, he will focus like a laser on creating the jobs they have thus far failed miserably at creating with their top-down, centrally-planned borrowing and spending.
In which, we are told, he will…propose spending more borrowed government money in yet another top-down, centrally-planned borrowing and spending binge.
Building on failure.
The Leftists knew this wouldn’t work – we all did – because we had already spent in 2008 $700 billion on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Which was supposed to stave off a recession/Depression and start us rapidly on the road to Recovery.
Oops.
Building on failure.
But we knew TARP wouldn’t work, because it was the beginning of our Third Age of Bailout.
And the first two – Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Great Society – failed utterly to end the fiscal calamities they were intended to end. They in fact ensconced and prolonged them.
(How’s that 40+ year War on Poverty doing? Oh yes, 47 million+ on food stamps – and counting.)
So we knew that TARP, the alleged “stimulus” and the wide array of other government spending in which we’ve engaged this go round would end in just the same way – disastrously. But we did it anyway.
Building on failure.
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Which brings us to General Motors (GM).
Which with its $50 billion portion of our Third Age of Bailout has quickly devolved from a profit-seeking car company into just and yet another Leftist ideological entity.
That in its own right loves building on failure.
Let us revel in the inanity.
There’s the incredibly pathetic Chevy Volt. Which costs GM $41,000 to make – and you and I $41,000 to buy.
You’ll be forgiven for not knowing the latter, because so few of you have made said purchase.
The Volt sales tally has been since its December 2010 launch atrocious. And has actually gotten worse – an incredibly anemic 321 in January down to an even more incredibly anemic 125 in July.
That’s 2.5 Volts per state. Stretched out over 31 days. One every (just about) 12-1/2 days.
Impressive.
GM claims the terrible total was because they were “virtually sold out.” Which makes little sense since they have been making 1,330+ per month. And their biggest sales month was less than a quarter of that number.
By my math, if supply increases while sales decrease – it would be virtually impossible to be “virtually sold out.”
And so it is.
A search of cars.com site showed nearly 500 Chevy Volts listed for sale. I had originally assumed that GM dealers were advertising vehicles that were not actually available for sale, since GM has stated that there were only a “few” Volts available. I decided to call a few dealers within 75 miles of my location to determine what the true situation was. I stopped my research after finding that five of the first six dealers I called had Volts in inventory available for immediate sale.
Despite being in Detroit, Government Motors has mastered the art of being D.C. Disingenuous.
Here in Reality, if we are trying to sell something – and it ain’t selling – we stop making it. Or at the very least dramatically reduce how many we’re making.
But this is Government (Motors). They build on failure.
GM’s gearing up to make 5,000 Volts per month – while selling 125. And falling.
A car on which they, again, make no money.
A model which they are now seeking to replicate – with a Cadillac version.
This is all undoubtedly worth every penny of the $11-$14 billion (or more) we’re going to lose on the bailout.
Government Motors: Building a failure – and then building on it.
Big Government
