Crony Capitalism

Teabagger and maybe Trump nominee for something (hopefully other than the Sec. of the VA), Sarah Palin slams Trump and Pence in a Randian manner on bailing out Carrier and Carrier workers calling it as an intrusion on free enterprise. Afterwards she gushes; “I am ecstatic for Carrier employees! Their bosses just decided to keep shop onshore. What a relief for hundreds of workers. Merry Christmas Indiana!”

Foundational to our exceptional nation’s sacred private property rights, a business must have freedom to locate where it wishes. In a free market, if a business makes a mistake (including a marketing mistake that perhaps Carrier executives made), threatening to move elsewhere claiming efficiency’s sake, then the market’s invisible hand punishes. Thankfully, that same hand rewards, based on good business decisions.

But this time-tested truth assumes we’re operating on a level playing field.

When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent. Meanwhile, the invisible hand that best orchestrates a free people’s free enterprise system gets amputated. Then, special interests creep in and manipulate markets. Republicans oppose this, remember? Instead, we support competition on a level playing field, remember? Because we know special interest crony capitalism is one big fail.

Sarah is correct, incentives to business interests to not leave the country and layoff Labor only leaves the country hostage to corporate interests in the future. Trump’s actions and promises leave the door open for other companies to come through asking for a similar deal to save Labor. If he does not keep the company in the US, Labor will also see his promises to change the country as political rhetoric (if they haven’t already) to get elected and not worth much in the end. It will be interesting to follow his actions.

Come to Michigan which has a tough time fixing roads and infrastructure and yet can spend $billions in subsidies to business. Indiana had RTW laws, had multiple subsidies to business including Carrier, and had tax abatement of which none of it stopped companies from leaving Indiana. Under Pence, Indiana gave $Millions to companies that offshored jobs Companies come and go to states or other countries for other reasons which states can not prevent. Poorly spent money bribing companies to stay can also be hard to get back from the companies who had a change of heart. Indiana has had difficulty in getting the incentives back when companies still leave and the incentives are so poorly written they also do little or nothing to stop the company from closing an unspecified nearby plant.

Sarah Palin: But… Wait… The Good Guys Won’t Win With More Crony Capitalism YC Young Conservatives, December 2, 2016