Robert "Fourth" Reich proposes something chilling in the wake of government's takeover of the auto industry, from the NRO:
As Chrysler headed into bankruptcy, the government got the company’s creditors that were dependent on TARP funds to do its bidding and take a substantial “haircut.” The banks, too, knew to heed the directive of the ultimate interlocking directorate.
As the next logical step, former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich has proposed putting public directors on the boards of all companies in which the government has an ownership stake. “In exercising their oversight function,” Reich writes, “they should seek guidance from the president and his top economic officials.”
Over time, this public-private arrangement will be subject to all the traditional pitfalls of interlocking directorates, from collusion to conflicts of interest to strategic myopia. The directorates have at times been used to create cartels, commonly defined as “a form of collusion between firms in the same industry aimed at restricting output and increasing prices.”
What's worse? This is the sort of thing Mussolini did. Whenever college students say something about "corporate fascism," it's usually due to a brain spasm. Now that we actually have it, not a peep from the kids. They voted for the fascist. Due to our public education system, most Americans are ignorant sheep. "Mussa-who?"
