4 ms·

Wow...the WSJ has sunk to a new low for me. 'Autos, health care, energy, Wall Street and now telecom. Is there any American industry this Administration doesn'

Wow...the WSJ has sunk to a new low for me. 'Autos, health care, energy, Wall Street and now telecom. Is there any American industry this Administration doesn't want to run?' Are they joking? I know they profess to be 'free marketeers', but are you telling me that they really thought the Obama Administration should NOT have bailed out the Auto industry and forced them through pre-packaged bankruptcies? They should NOT fix the broken health care system? They should not tackle the looming energy crisis and allow wall street to run wild doing anything they want? Sometimes, I would prefer some amount of editorial integrity. The editors at WSJ need to say no Ailes & Murdoch at least some of the time.

hga 17y ago
"[...] are you telling me that they really thought the Obama Administration should NOT have bailed out the Auto industry and forced them through pre-packaged bankruptcies?" Yes, that's exactly what the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal thought. Not to mention it being the first example of Obama's style of "gangster government" as Micheal Barone puts it (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Gangster-Government-becomes-a-long-running-series-91656284.html http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Gangster-Governme...) Do you seriously think Government Motors will survive without endless bailouts (or suppression of its competitors like Toyota (which has its problems, but the piling on is more than unseemly))? The editorial board thinks ObamaCare will make the system worse and won't fix much if anything (heck, after all this fuss, it still isn't going to cover every American citizen and legal resident). That's rather different than the straw man of "should NOT fix the broken health care system". The energy crisis has been "looming" since the early '70s. History pretty convincingly shows that the free market, e.g. Reagan removing oil and gas price controls, beats central planning hands down. I was there; if you weren't, you might want to read up on it. I will agree that they go too far in the promotion of allowing "wall street to run wild doing anything they want", e.g. essays in support of insider trading (excepting those based on the nasty problem of it having no statutory definition) and the backdating of stock options. But they also have all sorts of good points that are backed by evidence (we've accumulated a lot by now). Let's put it this way: given that we're on HN and likely interested in startups: did the government's suppression of IPOs (expensing and SARBOX) help any of us? The game of venture capital that ran from the late '50s to the dot.com bust is over. I've been reading the editorial page of the Journal since 1970 (sic) and I haven't noticed any significant change due to Murdoch. (Where does Alies fit into this???)
- marcamillion 17y ago
  Ok...I will look past the politicking tone of the response and address the content. Regardless of how GM turns out, the fact remains that the actions taken by the administration so far have been very beneficial to the car maker and have set it on the right course for correction. Not only has GM been able to successfully wind down or spin off ailing brands, renegotiate/get out of ridiculous labor contracts, cut down the size of the dealer network, consolidate their supply chain, but they have done so at unprecedented speed - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,531022,00.html?FORM=ZZNR3 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,531022,00.html?FORM=ZZNR... So much so that it's CFO said it might post a profit this year - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/business/18auto.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/business/18auto.html - Yes, I know there is probably a lot of financial shenanigans going on here...but 24 months ago, this would never have been the case (even with financial shenanigans). I would say that this is the best thing that ever happened to GM. If mgmt can revive the brand and focus on good products, in 5 - 10 years we might not even remember that GM went through this period. Not to mention the hundreds of millions (if not billions) in highly subsidized loans and VC money the administration has given to 'electric/hybrid' companies in the auto industry - from Tesla to Fisker (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125383160812639013.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125383160812639013.html) to many others in between, I would be willing to bet that the auto industry in 10 years is going to be radically different than the last 10 years, and I would probably bet that America leads the way in innovation again (after ceding it to Japan and Asia for the last 10 years). Ok...the health care argument, yes the bill wasn't perfect...but guess what..at least he did something. The reality is the current system couldn't stay, and something had to be done. We will see what the final implementation looks like, but I am pretty sure it won't have any death panels. I am not advocating oil & gas price controls, but the fact remains that America (and the West in general) is highly dependent on oil from relatively volatile areas of the world. Yes, people have cried wolf many times and it hasn't always borne out in 'rations', but as a result of the market doing it's thing, we have seen massive price run ups in those commodities (to almost unprecedented levels) right before major economic downturns. From the 70s, to 2000, to last year. One thing that was consistent with all recessions in those times are sky-high energy prices - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unite... The most recent recession was coupled with financial mayhem, so that eclipsed the high energy prices...but it doesn't take away from the fact that the US economy is highly dependent on foreign oil. As far as I know, regulators and the government (both this one and previous ones) never tolerate/promote insider trading or the backdating of stock options. There are some economists that argue that both shouldn't matter in an 'efficient market', because it would only make the market more efficient by pricing in more information more quickly. I am not sure I agree with that, due to misaligned incentives of executives and shareholders, but that's another argument for another thread. Re: the gov't suppressing IPOs...there are so many things wrong with this statement I don't even know where to start. For starters, a startup shouldn't be a 'vehicle' to an IPO. So the mere fact that you think the gov't 'didn't help us any' because they made the road to IPOs a bit more bumpy, I would suggest that perhaps you need to rethink why you are doing a startup in the first place. Even in 'rosier boom boom' times, driving towards an IPO without solid fundamentals is like gambling. If you have solid fundamentals (i.e. strong revenues, gross & net margins + high ROE + high growth potential) then SARBOX won't have too much of a negative impact on your IPO. Don't believe me? Look at Google. SARBOX implemented in 2002 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes-Oxley_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes-Oxley_Act), Google IPOd in 2004 (http://www.google-ipo.com/ http://www.google-ipo.com/). If you aren't familiar with the success of Google's IPO, you should probably review it. If anything, SARBOX made the industry healthier, because it weeded out the crappy startups that were relying on hype and fluff (i.e. quite frankly fraud). Ailes is his sidekick @ News Corp and tends to have more extreme views than Murdoch does. e.g. he strongly supports Glenn Beck. Regardless of your political affiliation, I think that explains itself.

hga 17y ago

"[...] are you telling me that they really thought the Obama Administration should NOT have bailed out the Auto industry and forced them through pre-packaged bankruptcies?" Yes, that's exactly what the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal thought. Not to mention it being the first example of Obama's style of "gangster government" as Micheal Barone puts it (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Gangster-Government-becomes-a-long-running-series-91656284.html http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Gangster-Governme...) Do you seriously think Government Motors will survive without endless bailouts (or suppression of its competitors like Toyota (which has its problems, but the piling on is more than unseemly))? The editorial board thinks ObamaCare will make the system worse and won't fix much if anything (heck, after all this fuss, it still isn't going to cover every American citizen and legal resident). That's rather different than the straw man of "should NOT fix the broken health care system". The energy crisis has been "looming" since the early '70s. History pretty convincingly shows that the free market, e.g. Reagan removing oil and gas price controls, beats central planning hands down. I was there; if you weren't, you might want to read up on it. I will agree that they go too far in the promotion of allowing "wall street to run wild doing anything they want", e.g. essays in support of insider trading (excepting those based on the nasty problem of it having no statutory definition) and the backdating of stock options. But they also have all sorts of good points that are backed by evidence (we've accumulated a lot by now). Let's put it this way: given that we're on HN and likely interested in startups: did the government's suppression of IPOs (expensing and SARBOX) help any of us? The game of venture capital that ran from the late '50s to the dot.com bust is over. I've been reading the editorial page of the Journal since 1970 (sic) and I haven't noticed any significant change due to Murdoch. (Where does Alies fit into this???)

marcamillion 17y ago
Ok...I will look past the politicking tone of the response and address the content. Regardless of how GM turns out, the fact remains that the actions taken by the administration so far have been very beneficial to the car maker and have set it on the right course for correction. Not only has GM been able to successfully wind down or spin off ailing brands, renegotiate/get out of ridiculous labor contracts, cut down the size of the dealer network, consolidate their supply chain, but they have done so at unprecedented speed - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,531022,00.html?FORM=ZZNR3 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,531022,00.html?FORM=ZZNR... So much so that it's CFO said it might post a profit this year - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/business/18auto.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/business/18auto.html - Yes, I know there is probably a lot of financial shenanigans going on here...but 24 months ago, this would never have been the case (even with financial shenanigans). I would say that this is the best thing that ever happened to GM. If mgmt can revive the brand and focus on good products, in 5 - 10 years we might not even remember that GM went through this period. Not to mention the hundreds of millions (if not billions) in highly subsidized loans and VC money the administration has given to 'electric/hybrid' companies in the auto industry - from Tesla to Fisker (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125383160812639013.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125383160812639013.html) to many others in between, I would be willing to bet that the auto industry in 10 years is going to be radically different than the last 10 years, and I would probably bet that America leads the way in innovation again (after ceding it to Japan and Asia for the last 10 years). Ok...the health care argument, yes the bill wasn't perfect...but guess what..at least he did something. The reality is the current system couldn't stay, and something had to be done. We will see what the final implementation looks like, but I am pretty sure it won't have any death panels. I am not advocating oil & gas price controls, but the fact remains that America (and the West in general) is highly dependent on oil from relatively volatile areas of the world. Yes, people have cried wolf many times and it hasn't always borne out in 'rations', but as a result of the market doing it's thing, we have seen massive price run ups in those commodities (to almost unprecedented levels) right before major economic downturns. From the 70s, to 2000, to last year. One thing that was consistent with all recessions in those times are sky-high energy prices - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unite... The most recent recession was coupled with financial mayhem, so that eclipsed the high energy prices...but it doesn't take away from the fact that the US economy is highly dependent on foreign oil. As far as I know, regulators and the government (both this one and previous ones) never tolerate/promote insider trading or the backdating of stock options. There are some economists that argue that both shouldn't matter in an 'efficient market', because it would only make the market more efficient by pricing in more information more quickly. I am not sure I agree with that, due to misaligned incentives of executives and shareholders, but that's another argument for another thread. Re: the gov't suppressing IPOs...there are so many things wrong with this statement I don't even know where to start. For starters, a startup shouldn't be a 'vehicle' to an IPO. So the mere fact that you think the gov't 'didn't help us any' because they made the road to IPOs a bit more bumpy, I would suggest that perhaps you need to rethink why you are doing a startup in the first place. Even in 'rosier boom boom' times, driving towards an IPO without solid fundamentals is like gambling. If you have solid fundamentals (i.e. strong revenues, gross & net margins + high ROE + high growth potential) then SARBOX won't have too much of a negative impact on your IPO. Don't believe me? Look at Google. SARBOX implemented in 2002 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes-Oxley_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes-Oxley_Act), Google IPOd in 2004 (http://www.google-ipo.com/ http://www.google-ipo.com/). If you aren't familiar with the success of Google's IPO, you should probably review it. If anything, SARBOX made the industry healthier, because it weeded out the crappy startups that were relying on hype and fluff (i.e. quite frankly fraud). Ailes is his sidekick @ News Corp and tends to have more extreme views than Murdoch does. e.g. he strongly supports Glenn Beck. Regardless of your political affiliation, I think that explains itself.