Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - 169 Free Thought Radio Intro #1: Current Events: GM and the State
Aired: 2006-04-01
Duration: 02:44


=== Corporate Heroin Hit (02:43) ===

[00:00:00]  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.
[00:00:10]  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.
[00:00:29]  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.
[00:00:41]  Now, General Motors, of course, is one of the wonderful corporate entities hanging off the teats of the state and sucking taxpayers dry.
[00:00:48]  in terms of corporate handouts.
[00:00:50]  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.
[00:01:08]  Because this is what happens when you rely on the power of the government.
[00:01:11]  It's all sweetness, love, and roses.
[00:01:13]  First up for the first couple years, maybe the first 10 or 20 years, And then after that, it all turns ugly.
[00:01:21]  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.
[00:01:30]  And now it's hit hard times.
[00:01:32]  It's hit bankruptcy.
[00:01:33]  And now the state is no longer going to listen to this company.
[00:01:36]  Instead, it's going to start listening to the unions.
[00:01:38]  And it's probably going to end up forcing this company into horrible kinds of restructurings and possibly even complete bankruptcy.
[00:01:45]  Because this is what happens when you get involved with the state.
[00:01:49]  How many times do we need to see or hear or read about this morality tale?
[00:01:53]  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.
[00:02:01]  You'll get a short-term boost and then in the long run your life just turns to a complete load of crap.
[00:02:06]  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.
[00:02:18]  And just ask yourselves, how much of this compassion do they actually deserve?
[00:02:23]  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.
[00:02:30]  So now they've fallen on hard times and the government is no longer their friend.
[00:02:33]  Should we as taxpayers really have a lot of sympathy?
[00:02:36]  I'm not sure that I think we should.
[00:02:38]  So please have a listen to my show coming up this week, The Stateless Society, which is being broadcast on Free Thought Radio.