Congress %!!s Up Again!

Watching Congress rationalize not providing twenty or so billion dollars to an admittedly obsolete, badly run, yet vital national industry is sheer torture. Congress can oversee the fraudulent funding of "performance bonuses" for wayward Wall Street executives, but somehow, in their infinite wisdom, they can't pony up for the auto industry which has very far reaching tentacles into the U.S. economy. Congressional arguments for refusing to provide funds ring hollow since all the various complaints, which I won't bother to recount, could just as easily have been lodged against the banking cartel that effectively destroyed American finance and kicked the U.S. economy, and quite possibly the entire planet's, off a very steep cliff. Now, according to a Chinese newspaper of some decent repute, The 21st Century Business Herald, several Chinese auto manufacturers are interested in buying some parts of our nation's toppling auto industry.

The last time a Chinese concern tried to buy a key industrial player, in the prior case it was Unocal, the Federal Legislature said no on the grounds that a key company such as Unocal could not be allowed to fall into foreign hands. National security don't you know. One wonders what they would say now to a proposed Chinese buyout of some or all of Detroit, which is, despite its depleted state, the United State's last bastion of heavy automotive manufacture. Where does that fall on your national security Richter Scale, Congress? "No, we're sorry, we'd rather see them fail rather then wind up in your furry foreign hands. I'm afraid we must let this industry die in order to save it." Note to Congress: Please go home now before you botch things even more than you have already.