April 1, 2006 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
02:44
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| Hello, my name is Stephan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio at freedomainradio.com, and today we're going to talk about sweet and bitter justice. | |
| So, at the moment, Delphi, which is the nation's biggest auto parts maker, on Friday had to ask a federal judge, pretty please, permission to throw out some of its labor agreements and a move that could cost 20,000 union workers their jobs and leave thousands of others with less than half their current wages. | |
| Now, for those of you who are not up on the intricacies of car manufacturers' economic histories, this is General Motors spun off Delphi in 1999 and remains its biggest customer. | |
| Now, General Motors, of course, is one of the wonderful corporate entities hanging off the teats of the state and sucking taxpayers dry. | |
| in terms of corporate handouts. | |
| So to me there is an ugly but sweet justice in watching one of the largest corporate welfare parasites in American economic history now begging the state for just a little permission so it can survive just a little bit longer and hold off union demands just a little bit more. | |
| Because this is what happens when you rely on the power of the government. | |
| It's all sweetness, love, and roses. | |
| First up for the first couple years, maybe the first 10 or 20 years, And then after that, it all turns ugly. | |
| So now we have a company that took hundreds of millions of dollars out of the taxpayers' wallets and was perfectly happy to have the state on its side. | |
| And now it's hit hard times. | |
| It's hit bankruptcy. | |
| And now the state is no longer going to listen to this company. | |
| Instead, it's going to start listening to the unions. | |
| And it's probably going to end up forcing this company into horrible kinds of restructurings and possibly even complete bankruptcy. | |
| Because this is what happens when you get involved with the state. | |
| How many times do we need to see or hear or read about this morality tale? | |
| That getting involved in a compulsory social mechanism like the state will give you a short-term gain, sort of like a hit of heroin. | |
| You'll get a short-term boost and then in the long run your life just turns to a complete load of crap. | |
| And so if you do want to see this kind of moral boomerang occurring, just have a look at the history of Delphi and General Motors and see just how much compassion, caring, and kindness that they're getting from the state now. | |
| And just ask yourselves, how much of this compassion do they actually deserve? | |
| Given that they were more than happy to use the state power to suck the wallets dry of taxpayers for the last 30 or 40 years. | |
| So now they've fallen on hard times and the government is no longer their friend. | |
| Should we as taxpayers really have a lot of sympathy? | |
| I'm not sure that I think we should. | |
| So please have a listen to my show coming up this week, The Stateless Society, which is being broadcast on Free Thought Radio. |
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