Government MisManagement

If you have been reading this blog very long, you know that one of my concerns is the growing intrusion of government into private business. This concern is not based on any kind of ideology, it is based on the simple observation that government is a lousy manager because it refuses to follow sound management principles and substitutes political advantages for management which leads to lousy management of private industry.

Here is today's awful example.

Nissan has an electric automobile named the Leaf. If you read The Great Recession Conspiracy, you know we are committed to non-petroleum fuels. So electric cars are a generally good thing.

The Leaf is priced at $32,780 and it gets great reviews at edmunds.com. See for yourself.

General Motors also has an electric automobile called the Volt. The Volt is priced at $40,280, and gets lousy reviews at edmunds.com.

So here is the problem. General Motors, which we owned 61% of until last week, is really being managed by the government. See The Great Recession Conspiracy to see who really manages GM and look at their credentials. It is ghastly.

Now the Volt is clearly uncompetitive with the Leaf, so what is the Government Motors response? Is it to lower the price by lowering the costs? No! Is it to improve the performance of the car to get more competitive? No!

The response is a $7,000 credit for anyone buying a Volt. You can do the math. That is exactly the amount necessary to make Volt price competitive with Leaf.

So instead of making a better product, or improving the way it is made, Government Motors is using YOUR MONEY to make a poor product price competitive.

How much more evidence do you need to understand that government is a lousy manager of private sector businesses?

This is not a right or left observation. This is not a Republican or Democrat observation. It is just common sense!! Something lacking that is entirely lacking Washington.