White House Fires CEO of General Motors

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By contributor at 2:58PM
Yeah, you've read that title right. Give it another second to sink in...my mind did a double take when I read it, too. Looks like we're sadly just another step closer to American Motors Incorporated. Rick Wagoner, CEO and Chairman of General Motors, has stepped down under the the Obama administration's 'suggestion' that he resign as "part of the federal government's bailout strategy with the troubled automaker," according to CNN.com. But I like the way the The Dallas Morning News puts it:
The Obama administration used the threat of withholding more bailout money to force out General Motors Corp. chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner, marking one of the most dramatic government interventions in private industry since the economic crisis began last year. In wrestling with the economic crisis, the government has demanded the ouster of the head of American International Group Inc., but only as it took a majority shareholder position. In this case, the administration has ousted a major CEO as part of an ongoing restructuring. The move also indicates that the Treasury Department intends to wade more deeply than most observers expected into the affairs of the country's largest and oldest car company.
GM/the government hasn't yet announced who will permanently fill the position, but to be honest, does it even really matter anymore? It's pretty clear that Uncle Sam is behind the wheel of this monster truck now.
I remember when Stalin started "requesting" companies to stop their regular business build whatever he commands.
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Im exercising my free market right to choose while I still have the freedom. I am buying a Zombama shirt to protest his douchiness.
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It reminds me a bit of the beginnings of Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod, the Soviet auto manufacturer. It started out as a business deal between Ford and the Soviet government, but any US engineers or workers that decided to stay in the USSR had their passports confiscated and quickly became victims of Stalin's Great Terror. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ Two completely different situations, but the lesson remains: government interfering in private business always breeds disaster.
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Disasters. Fights are breaking out over Michigan in response to layoffs spurned by Obama's choice for bankruptcy above all other options: http://tinyurl.com/hopelessobama
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