And so is Pat Buchanan apparently. And so am I. Per Chrystia Freeland, managing editor of the Financial Times.
I know friends don't let friends watch Morning Joe, but today I'm glad I tuned into the fireworks on this morning's show during discussion of the possible bailout of the Big Three.
It was in this discussion where Pat Buchanan spoke passionately about a return to economic patriotism where our American governmental leaders protected and supported American industry and Joe Scarborough forcefully declared his support for a bailout because bankruptcy would mean the end of GM and that was unacceptable.
And I agreed with them.
Chrystia just sort of smiled and furrowed her brows cynically listening to their viewpoint, jokingly called them socialists and at one point chastised them for holding such views out of step with conservative free market idolatry despite being Republicans.
The irony being, as I detailed in the previous diary, What Lincoln would tell Obama about the economy, once upon a time Republicans were the party of the American School of Economics which advocated:
1. protecting industry through selective high tariffs (especially 1861–1932) and some include through subsidies (especially 1932–70)
2. government investments in infrastructure creating targeted internal improvements (especially in transportation)
3. a national bank with policies that promote the growth of productive enterprises.[8][9][10][11]
It was these policies that built America's first middle class and created wealth for America that did not rely on empire building or exploitation of workers. And apparently Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough understand this, whatever their many faults in other arenas and on many other occasions.
Mika and Chrystia, of course, did not understand this. Mika kept insisting that it makes no sense to help GM because foreign cars are better and no way Detroit can compete with the foreigners with all those pesky union-negotiated perks for their employees. Chrystia complained this amounted the U.S. government picking winners and losers in the economy and that if we were bailing out Detroit then surely we need to bailout those foreign automakers in the South who have factories here in America.
Sadly they just don't get it. In the face of a REAL ECONOMIC CRISIS, a dispassionate and disinterested objectivist Ayn Rand-inspired government response to this will not do.
One in ten Americans has a job connected to the automotive industry. Letting the Big Three go into bankruptcy at a time of recession could very well plunge us into depression.
We have to have a government that acts in wise, deliberate and transparent manner (unlike with the Goldman Sachs bailout) to protect the American economy.
Now keep in mind this... I am not naive to all of the HUGE mistakes that the Big Three have made over the years and all of their self-inflicted wound. I actually just rewatched "Roger & Me" two days ago and 20 years after its release Roger Smith still makes my skin crawl and my blood boil for the mistakes he perpetrated against the people of Flint, Michigan, General Motors employees and the American people squandering the goodwill that company's brand had built up with the public.
Still, letting General Motors fail will not undue all those past mistakes.
As Jeffrey Sachs said later in the show, letting GM fail could be an even bigger negative shock to the economic system than Paulson letting Lehman Brothers (the Goldman Sachs rival) fail.
To my astonishment, I join Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough in calling on Washington to dig deep to discover a little economic patriotism when considering the bailout of the Detroit automakers.