Could the U.S. government simply use eminent domain to take over car manufacturers?

[ColbertWatcher]

Would it be a good idea? Bad idea?

What could possibly go wrong?

Discuss.

[SharonAnn]

1. I don't think that "eminent domain" would be used to nationalize the auto manufacturers.

Nationalizing could happen in several ways, however. One might be to purchase all the outsanding stock at a price slightly higher than current prices.

[TexasObserver]

2. No.

[ColbertWatcher]

4. But, why noy? n/t

[TexasObserver]

5. Eminent domain means the government must have the real estate.

It's not designed to allow the government to simply take over a business and run it.

Besides, even eminent domain requires that the person from whom the realty is taken be remunerated fairly for it.

[ColbertWatcher]

7. What about a combination of eminent domain and purchase? n/t

[TexasObserver]

10. It would be cheaper, easier, quicker, and cleaner to buy the stock.

Or to buy the assets directly.

There is simply no precedent for trying to use eminent domain to seize an industry in the USA for the purpose of running it.

Eminent domain is mainly used for roads, railways, bridges, overpasses, gas lines, electric lines, oil pipelines, and to raze and rebuild slum areas. It is done by government, but government often uses that right to allow private interests, such as energy companies, to build lines they wish to build.

Doing what you suggest would essentially be putting the car manufacturers out of business, with the intent to what? Redesign the plants, find a new owner, and sell it to them?

What you're suggesting is nationalizing the American auto industry, a move that cannot happen politically, and something Obama would never back.

[ColbertWatcher]

14. What would it be called is the federal government bought all the stock?

BTW, I'm not suggesting anything. I'm only asking what would happen if eminent domain was used.

You're telling me that it's not likely or possible to do that.

I have no problem discussing the idea and finding out it was a bad or even dangerous idea.

I've seen threads disappear with fewer posts, so, meh, NBD.

[Oregone]

3. Why not just buy 100% of the shares of these companies...

Costing a fraction of the price. Then the government can enforce mileage standards, put a hand into innovation, and collect profits for the public coffers.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. Think AMTRAK.

[ColbertWatcher]

9. Would you mind elaborating a little, please? n/t

[TreasonousBastard]

12. The railroads wanted out of the passenger business...

because coal doesn't complain or have to be fed.

OK, AMTRAK was created to fill the void, but there weren't enough bureaucrats who had any idea how to run a railroad, so they hired any experts they could find-- largely the guys who ran the railroads that wanted out of the passenger business, and who hated passengers. Add to that the Congressional kvetching over it and installing hackery in the management, it's a wonder it's survived at all.

So, now you want to fire all the guys who actually have some idea how to run a car company and hire just who to come in and run things? GM and Ford are far more complex than the railroads and it would be hysterical seeing Congress, or any administration, install some hacks in there trying to get a handle on the rather profitable Australian subsidiaries, or the share of Mazda that Ford owns.

Fact is that the three US companies have been selling exactly what the public wanted until a short time ago-- 50% of the market, and most of heavy foreign competition wasn't econoboxes but Tundras, Highlanders, and Lexi. Jeez, even Porsche got into the SUV market because it was so hot here.

Now, NOBODY is buying cars and every manufacturer worldwide is feeling the pinch, so give these guys a bridge loan until things pick up.

And don't micromanage how they should run their businesses.

[Cleita]

8. If we need to put billions into a bailout then we can buy them out and

nationalize them as well. The we can fire the upper management, and appoint a new CEO and other officers from the ranks, who know what they are doing, and will do it for a reasonable salary and compensation. We should also give the unions some money for health care until the new government comes in and gives everyone decent national health care.

[Jack Rabbit]

11. The auto companies aren't worth what they're asking of the government

So it would be easy for the government to attempt a hostile takeover. Somebody above suggested something of the like.

I'm not sure it would be as good of an idea as it sounds. What large corporations need, besides better management, is to be broken up so they aren't such huge bureaucracies. The federal government is nothing if it is not a huge bureaucracy without taking over a large sector of manufacturing.

The old slogan of corporate downsizing from the early nineties has a risible ring to in now: restructure the organization so it can turn on a dime. What I experienced is that this was accomplished by cutting the work force and requiring pointless periodical reports from the employees unfortunate enough to continue working for an artificial person with elephantiasis. And now look at GM, a perfect example of what scientists thought of dinosaurs decades ago: something so big that it would die of bowel disease before it knew it was constipated.

[Stinky The Clown]

13. I don't know the mechanism, but it has been done before

The railroads in 1917

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

15. Six railroads were nationalized in the '70s to create Conrail.

These East Coast railroads were bankrupt, but they were needed for transportation at the time, so the government nationlized them. I think they were re-privatized later. The TSA is the result of the nationlization of private airport security firms.

[Are_grits_groceries]

16. Who knows?

There have been so many signings and so many bills passed with who knows what in the fine print,

that anything is possible.

I hope Obama has a committee of constitutional scholars closely looking at everything that has been done

in the past 8 years by those Nazis. Who knows what has been changed and/or subsumed??

[ColbertWatcher]

19. "Who knows what has been changed and/or subsumed??"

No kidding.

I'm hoping we find out and put an end to all of it.

[Peace Patriot]

17. CAN the U.S. government do this? Absolutely. We are the sovereign people

of this land. The government is our servant, in theory. We are "king." We say who does business here, and under what conditions. We can pull corporate charters, break up monopolies, disband corporations and seize their assets, for the common good. We can ban--or, if we wish, heavily tax--foreign corporations, or U.S. corporations that move their headquarters elsewhere and/or outsource jobs. We can also keep a business operating, with many different ways to do it, including nationalization, seizure of assets and appointing management. Key industries--especially those that provide vital services, such as food production, water, energy (including gas), communications--but also, any big employer, should not be permitted to endanger the people and the nation, by mismanagement, looting, price-gouging, outsourcing, or any other profiteering practice. We are the sovereign. We are "the king." We, the people, own all the land and set up all the rules that permit land ownership, trade and the use of resources. And any laws that have been passed prior to now can be changed, including the U.S. Constitution, to insure the welfare and safety of our country and our people.

That is the system that our Founders set up. It has been pretty much hijacked by global corporate predators and war profiteers, some U.S.-based, some not. And this, of course, is our difficulty. Our sovereignty as a people has been viciously attacked and usurped.

One example: When ES&S voting machines 'disappeared' 18,000 Democratic votes for Congress, in FL-13, in 2006, and the election was 'won' by the Bushwhack by about 350 votes, the lawyers for the Democrat (Christine Jennings) took the matter to court and asked to review the 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY code in ES&S voting machines, to try to determine what happened to those 18,000 votes. ES&S refused, and argued that their "right" to profit from our election system, with their 'TRADE SECRET' code, trumps the right of the voters to know how their votes were counted. It is not surprising that a U.S. corporation would take such an arrogant, and unbelievably undemocratic, position. What was surprising, though, was that the judge agreed with ES&S. Voters have no right to know how their votes are counted. Corporate profits (not to mention the corporate ability to steal our elections) rule. And this tremendously important legal development was pretty much black-holed in the corpo/fascist 'news.'

Jennings took the matter to Congress (the final arbiter of who sits in Congress), and they did nothing, of course. They buried the issue with a lying scumbag GAO report. (And the head of the GAO resigned immediately afterward, complaining of Congressional interference.)

That's how things stand. Even our right to vote has been eaten by the global corporate predator monster.*

So, whether we, the people, can do what is best for us and for our country, or can successfully petition our government to do so, is highly in doubt, and has been for some time.

------

*(ES&S manufactures their voting machines in sweatshops in the Philippines. See Dan Rather's "The Trouble With Touchscreens," www.HD.net.)

[TexasObserver]

18. Pure fantasy.

The government must act within the constitution, and the Supreme Court would never approve such a scheme.

All that stuff you wrote about voting is irrelevant to this topic. You seem to think your personal understanding of sovereignty controls what the Supreme Court will or will not do. Frankly, they would laugh at your argument, the way they laughed at the Obama birth certificate appellant.

This line is especially laughable:

"We can pull corporate charters, break up monopolies, disband corporations and seize their assets, for the common good."

Seriously, that's crazy talk.

[Peace Patriot]

20. If we charter them, we can bust them up. Corporations operate only with the permission

of the sovereign people of this land. They have no rights under the Constitution. Zero. Zip. None. We PERMIT them to operate here. We charter them, and can place any conditions that we wish upon those charters. And, although it is well known that we can tax and regulate them, it is not very well known that we actually charter them, as a function of state government--not the federal government--and can deny charters, pull charters, and require anything that we deem in the public interest as a condition of the charter. All it takes to utilize our real powers as a sovereign people is improved democracy.

That is a fact.

And you did not read my comment very carefully. "Improved democracy" is a big "if." We have the power, in theory. But how do we exercise it, when our representatives in government are so tight with the corporations, and are so corrupt in so many ways--bought and paid for by the filthy campaign contribution system, lobbyists, revolving door employment, big contracts and other bad, corrupt government/corporate practices?

Really, the global corporate predators who rule over us are as bad as the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages--a transnationl, over-arching oligarchy that has its own "doctrines," enforced on all of us with propaganda, that consigns to Hell anyone who has resources that it wants or who doesn't kowtow to its lies, and that gobbles up land and wealth as tribute, ever gaining more power, and that rules governments and armies.

We need to throw off these tyrants. And I gave the perfect example of the arrogance of corporate power--ES&S refusing to disclose its 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting code, even in a highly dubious election like FL-13 in 2006--and the judge agreeing, and our own party doing nothing about it.

"...the Supreme Court would never approve such a scheme." Who cares? They are our SERVANTS. That is the government that was founded here, in 1776. We rule. We can change the Constitution to make them elected, to shorten their terms, or to add justices to vote the way we want them to and outvote the others--all perfectly legal, under the current Constitution, and within our power as a people. Indeed, we can add justices without changing the Constitution (which does not specify the number of justices).

You mix up what seems possible or feasible, under current conditions, given the out-of-control corporate power that is oppressing us, with what our Founders designed and thus what is theoretically possible, given sufficiently strong democratic institutions and an aroused and active citizenry. Thomas Jefferson said that we should have a revolution every twenty years. We are lo-o-ong overdue for ours. And the corporations and the rich have so fucked things up, that it is time to start thinking about our fundamental powers as a people and what WE can do to straighten things out, and re-found our country and our democracy.

We, of course, have to think of what is feasible and practical, and we need to squarely face current conditions, if we are to successfully strategize to improve our democracy. But no revolution ever occurred with people saying, "Seriously, that's crazy talk." What I have said, above, is, in truth, conservative in the true meaning of the word--conserving our fundamental law (the Constitution), conserving our traditions (democracy, accountability, transparency), and conserving our historical identity (as a revolutionary country), as well as conserving our resources (our workforce, our communities, our services, our financial stability, our manufacturing capability, our food production, and natural resources--oil, gas, forests, water, etc.) Everything that we are, and have built up over the decades, is in great peril, from corporate rule. We need to understand this, and think it through, and re-establish the basic principles of the American Revolution, the most important one being rule by the sovereign people.