"Smokey, this isn't 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules."

I always knew that The Big Lebowski was a movie far ahead of its time in many aspects, but I never thought that Walter Sobchak's overzealous, self-righteous tirades would be applicable to America's current economic turbulence. In this scenario, Smokey is a fused Bush/Obama administration and the rules are those unwritten definitions of good and bad business decision-making - definitions that apparently don't seem to apply anymore. I guess I would be Sobchak, but instead of wildly wielding a pistol I've chosen to blog through my discontent.

Smokey has decided that by loaning millions of dollars to our domestic auto industries, the government will somehow be able to "unbankrupt" the already bankrupt Chrysler and GM, whose market-share has been steadily declining since the 1970's. Back when the rules mattered, the understanding had always been such: businesses that make bad management decisions should and will fail. From the graveyards of these failed enterprises will arise new and, hopefully, wiser ones. For some reason, Smokey is sure of the government's ability to loan the auto industry's way to economic solvency. In addition to the $17.4 billion that GM and Chrysler received as the Bush administration left the building, they are asking for a combined $22 billion from Obama and the Democratic Congress. This loan is meant to hold the companies over for a while - that is, until they ask for the next loan. Politicians on the hill are already aware of the alternative to the government as a life-line (remember the rules?). Those in opposition to the alternative stress the importance of "social responsibility;" after all, national unemployment at a 30-year high of 7.5% (the figures flirt with 10% on the coasts) and Detroit is already a ghost-town.

This is a curious argument. No one recalls GM and Chrysler, now wards of Washington, considering their "social responsibility" when they signed lucrative labor contracts at the behest of the all-powerful labor unions. Nevermind the ludicrousness of subsidizing the lives of employees who decide to retire at age 48. When the auto industries decided to sign these contracts, what crystal ball told them that they could not only sustain, but increase, their sales indefinitely? How could the crystal ball be sure that they would be able to honor the labor contracts they signed decades down the line?

There are only two imaginable possibilities: either the companies lacked the foresight to avoid this pitfall or they were aware of their imprudence and chose to keep their heads in the sand, confident that the government wouldn't abandon its track record of corporate welfare and come to their aid. Recall, the government came to Chrysler's rescue in 1979 with $1.5 million worth of loans (can you say PRECEDENT?) In either case, and the latter seems more likely, it is clear that the talk of "social responsibility" is a recent, ad-hoc phenomenon. Nobody - not GM, not Chrysler, and not the labor unions - thought of anybody but themselves when they reached their agreements. So the only question that remains is Sobchak's:

"Am I the only one who gives a f*** about the rules?"