Why not nationalize them?

You know what? While it was certainly worthwhile to point out the manifest hypocrisy of the MSM's double standard on the auto industry bailout and the financial industry bailouts, I think my words in support of the auto industry bailout were wasted. Rather than bailing them out, why not just nationalize these companies? We could replace all the executives with civil servants and cap their wages at reasonable rates, making these companies far more efficient. We could guarantee that not a single worker was laid off. We could also force the companies to make more fuel efficient, cleaner cars because heck, we'd own them! Moreover, we could even use the newly nationalized auto companies as mini policy laboratories. For instance, we could set up a pilot version of a public, single-payer health care plan for auto workers, retirees, and their families, which could later be expanded to the entire population. We could convert their pensions into a single, publicly managed system, which would likely be much more efficient than their privately managed pensions, according to Dean Baker. We could even experiment with cogestion/co-management and allow the autoworkers to manage some of the state-owned factories. We could use Alcasa, a state-owned aluminum company in Venezuela, as a model.

Woah, I just suggested we could learn something from Venezuela. At that point, this post stopped being anywhere near practical and became, pardon my French, more of a lefty wet dream. But heck, I can dream can't I? Now, of course there could be some real downsides to nationalization. If these companies fail anyway, in spite of the efforts of the federal government to save them, the losses would be on us, the taxpayer. Additionally, the publicly owned auto industry would still have to produce cars that people like. Even lefties like me ought to be at least a bit skeptical about that proposition. Nonetheless, I think it's worthwhile to at least consider the possibility. Wouldn't it be great if our national discourse was so bold and so inclusive that nationalization was discussed on the opinion pages of major papers and in the halls of congress (by someone other than my man Bernie Sanders)? That, as I've said before and will certainly say again, would be change we can believe in.