Adios, Pontiac
GM has announced that Pontiac is going away as one of its brands. While I personally have no issue with this being made as a business decision, there is evidence that this decision came from pressure from the Federal Government, not from a decision of GM itself (who apparently wanted to keep at least a couple of Pontiac models as niche brand). It unfortunately appears the moniker “Government Motors” is growing more and more apropos.
More and more, it’s appearing the Federal Government is sinking its talons into various businesses and is going to continue making demands and isn’t going to want to let go. Now if a business took Federal bailout money willingly, then I do agree the Federal Government has a strong position to make demands on the business. My primary issue, however, is these should be broad demands, not specific business decisions. This is rather obviously a viewpoint not shared by the Federal Government.
If you add into this the claims of the Federal Government not allowing some banks to repay TARP funds and their attempt to transition Preferred Shares to Common Shares (thus allowing the Federal Government what would be a controlling share of voting stock in many cases), there is a lot of ugly potential out there. I wish I could say that I think the best of what the Obama Administration is doing right now and their only goal is to get everyone back up on their feet and allow a return to the free market. However, the Administration’s pandering to the hard left at this point (granted, the last Administration’s pandering to the Hard Right was just as problematic in other arenas) provides no evidence of a reason for such a level of optimism on my part.
At this point, there isn’t much that can be done other than to watch and gnash my teeth. However, the 2010 election cycle will start up soon, which will offer plenty of opportunities to push for something more.