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President Barack Hussein Obama is redefining a new role for government when it comes to business and it is not a pretty picture.

With the firing of General Motors chief Wagoner, the President has used his power to strip the power of the board rooms and shareholders and he has assumed "supreme power".

This act by President Obama signals a sweeping assault against capitalism and the introduction of socialism and ideas that smell of nationalization that are an insult to the way we do business in this country.

So, did he have a choice? The President made it clear to us with his "LET`S BE CLEAR..." rhetoric. He said he had to do it. It was in the best interests of the U.S. economy and in the best interests of General Motors. He had no alternative?

However, he did have an alternative. He could have pressured GM to reorganize the corporate board. The new board could have then fired the GM CEO, maintaining the rights of private enterprise to conduct their own affairs. Even that would have been too much. The shareholders could have taken action.  In the final analysis, General Motors could have failed and failed fair and square.

Bankruptcy and complete and utter failure is good for business. It sorts the bad apples of capitalism from the good ones and keeps the whole barrel from rotting. Capitalism has a way of reviving itself on its own. Businesses come and go. The ones that fail strengthen the positions of the ones who remain and the economy booms again.

Failure of business is an important element in a healthy U.S. economy. Government intervention and encroachment on the rights of business to succeed (or fail) is not.

Barack Obama has no right to conduct the affairs of American business. He is charged with upholding the Constitution of the United States. His new role in the affairs of corporate America is nothing short of extortion as defined by law. He did it with the banks and the bonus packages and he did it with General Motors.

Barack Obama is President of the United States. But he has never run a business. He is a community organizer, not an entrepreneur.

And we have allowed it to happen.

When Josef Stalin sent an emissary to report to him on which system was better: Communism or Capitalism, his emissary returned with the bad news. Capitalism was the better system because it allowed for failure. Stalin`s emissary was subsequently executed for delivering the hard truth.

Government has not been able to run its own affairs. They have mismanaged our money and they have contributed to the economic crisis with which we are now faced. How can they be trusted with governing American business. Once government begins to assume authority over the affairs of private enterprise, American business is no longer American. It is something else entirely.


Will Griffith, Chairman
The Griffith Corporation
www.griffithcorp.com


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Will Griffith
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL

Amen.  Obama is taking us down a road of ruin - no doubt about it.

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James Lindon, Ph.D. Patent Attorney
Lindon & Lindon, LLC
Cleveland, Ohio
Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, Pharmacy Law, Litigation
[this is not legal advice - provided for discussion only]
Intellectual Property for the Individual and Small Business: Identify, Protect, Enforce, Defend.
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
http://www.LindonLaw.com

A much bigger question here is why so many people, even with these kinds of events, continue to be overwhelmingly ecstatic about the new administration.

I`ve been doing a lot of pondering to come up with some sort of analogy or metaphor that describes how I see it. "Wildfire" comes to mind, finally.

We`re entering a situation where we`re about to see a "controlled burn" go totally out of control. People ask, but what can one person do about all the sweeping changes?

Nothing.

The time for trying to prevent these changes is passed. We`ve had four or five elections in the past decades, and each time, so-called conservative Republicans have produced scandals, over-spending, lies, and disappointment. They`ve helped form the background against which President Obama was elected.

So too, people see a lot of dead wood and overgrowth, and believe the best way to clean it out is a controlled burn. They believe they have the control, and believe they can keep the fire contained. Until circumstances change.

When that fire goes out of control, unfortunately the only option is to get out of the way.

But the analogy fails in the "get out of the way" part. How does one get out of the way of a fundamental reorganization of not only the basic country, but the even deeper founding principle of free-market capitalism?

Where in the entire world does anyone go if everywhere in the world is moving toward some sort of socialism?

All we can do is try to protect the very narrow area around our individual lives and try to avoid getting burned to cinders. And that might mean losing material possessions in order to stay alive.

I agree that bad business should be allowed to fail - only because it`s fair. If you can`t save every business, you shouldn`t save any. I`ll wait till the current measures succeed or fail before I begin to praise or panic, though. My only praise for Obama is in regards to foreign affairs and human rights. I dislike the spending, and I don`t think the bailout recipients deserved them. I don`t know whether the bailouts and heavy handed measures will work, so I`ll reserve judgement on them. No use turning chicken little at this point. The sky`s not falling yet. It might, though. It`s hard to say. Either way, it`ll be something to talk about in Coffee Talk. If it fails, everyone can say I told you so - back patting for everyone. If it succeeds, everyone can bemoan the doom yet to come because there`s no way anything but pure capitalism can succeed in the long run. It`s a win win situation.

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Making limitless possibilities much more limited.

Thank you Gentleman, as always, for the insight and comments. To Matt, I would like to say that it is not a question of whether or not the current economic policies of this Administration will fail...but WHEN.

You can not have the government assume the role of who runs which businesses and expect anything productive from it.

When the economic failures are evident to everyone, I assure you there will be no back patting. We will be too busy trying to salvage something of an economic future for our children and our grandchildren.

And I would add that the sky is not falling for those of us who approach business in a responsible, fiscally conservative way.

With regard to President Obama`s foreign policy, he has just been berated by key members of the G-20 for his stimulus package and out-of-control spending. Whatever success The White House spins out of this summit will be without substance.

I admire your position on human rights and I hope we can have some influence in areas ignored. With the genocide and persecution of Christians in Egypt and India, not to mention the horrors taking place in the Darfur Region of The Sudan, there is much for us to do. Humanity should take care of humanity. On this we can all agree.

I urge President Obama to continue his efforts toward human rights and to follow the example of President George W. Bush. President Bush`s efforts toward AIDS in Africa, while ignored by most, was an outstanding and monumental testament to what our country can do when our focus is right.

Have a great weekend gentlemen and be safe.

Will Griffith



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Will Griffith
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL

It was corporate lawlessness from severe underregulation that got us here. I don`t know what will or won`t work, but I don`t see the harm in trying something new. Still, I don`t aim to stake a strong position on either side in this argument, because I don`t know how it will turn out, and I hate being wrong, especially if it proceeds my being vocal. I don`t think anybody knows how it`ll turn out. Failure in the Soviet Union is a good argument against the changes underway, but success in much of Europe might be an argument for it. What I do know is that I seemingly have two choices: support the style of government that caused the mess, or support the style of government that might make it worse. We know the evil of unregulated capitalism. We`re suffering from it. I`ll take the unknown evil for now. It might be the lesser. If it`s the greater, we always have Jeb Bush or Sara Palin for 2012. Sara Palin would be an interesting choice for those of us looking for a more theocratic government. Who knows?

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Making limitless possibilities much more limited.

Simply because a political leader has a strong personal faith and upholds certain values that work for their families, does not mean that they want a theocratic government.

I would rather have a politician who has a belief system and adheres to their faith than one that has no set of principles at all.

President Obama has his work cut out for him in this term. He is getting a lot of help from those RINOS (Republicans In Name Only) who have thrown fiscal conservatism right out of the window for their own personal and political agendas.

Let`s face it...Washington is a mess and if it was not so severe an issue, I would be laughing right now at watching the Capitol Hill elite trying to fix private enterprise. They can`t manage our money with any sense of conscience. Both parties are to blame and I would call upon RNC Chairman Michael Steele to do less photo shoots with GQ and start responding to the issues like he was hired to do.

Have a great weekend Matt.

Will



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Will Griffith
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL

Too many people (way too many!) hold that "corporate lawlessness" got us into this position.

The natural outcome of that lawlessness would have been for those corporations to suddenly fail and go bankrupt. Yes, it took awhile, and yes, there were major infractions. But when the bubble burst, it all came crashing down on THOSE corporations.

Not the rest of the world! Not the rest of the corporations, and not those business people who did NOT engage in lawlessness.

What naturally would have happened, would have been for those companies to immediately fail. Given the egregious and criminal actions, the executives would have been indicted, tried, and put in jail.

NONE of that happened! Why? Because those people who want a centralized government and an engineered society wouldn`t allow it. They wouldn`t allow the companies to fail, and wouldn`t put the criminals in jail.

The big question is...why not?

My personal opinion is that the politicians and other advocates of bailing out the criminals are on the payroll of the very criminals they`re supposed to prosecute. Who makes money when Detroit gets federalized? Who makes money when AIG, Citigroup, and the big investment houses are bailed out?

To say that capitalism has failed is ridiculous. Capitalism indeed brought to bear the fundamental principles of "survival of the fittest."

It`s only that government politicians believe they have the arrogance and elite secret knowledge of what defines "fitness."

Well said Craig. My wife Aly is always impressed by your ability to break things down into a common sense approach to an issue. Well done.

To the participants in this dialogue, our thanks. It is always a great conversation with our round table here.

Will



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Will Griffith
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL