Question ?

Facts:

Don't lump all the unions together and paint them with the same brush on this one. The CAW has done an awful lot to make the situation more tolerable, including, a four year freeze on wages + a negotiated cut, and an 8-year freeze on pension increases (no indexing to inflation for 8 years). They also made a concession that redirected a portion of wages into a pension plan that was chronically underfunded due to lax pension regulation in both Canada and the US.

In fact, the UAW has already made concessions repeatedly in the year. It's ridiculous that people with a three year contract are asked to make concessions in March for a plan everyone knew at the time wouldn't work and said so, then get blamed in September for its failure, and are asked for concessions again for another plan that everyone knew at the time wouldn't work. If they went along they'd be facing a 3rd round of concessions in 2010. Keep in mind that these unions asked for further concessions already gave up $19/hour of salary and benefits. If you want to know why so many people can't pay their mortgage, try planning buying a house then having the company take out $19/hour out of your salary, completely devastating your budget! When they made these concessions the exact details were a 3-year plan with no further concessions. 6 months later the company was at it again!

http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2009...ysler-workers/

People are quick to blame unions, yet the executives are unwilling to cut their benefits or salaries by the same % they demand of the average worker. They've mismanaged the companies for years and run it into the ground. GM has known it has had too many brands since 1990 and its internal reviews repeatedly recommended doing something about it. They've done nothing for almost 20 years despite this, and as a result have spent a fortune advertising and producing more brands than the company can support.

As for the original posters question.

No, this is hardly the end of capitalism or its high point. Anti-communists are clutching at straws in the search for an enemy. The cold war is long over and good riddance. Capitalism has won, but that doesn't mean it has to be stupid. Capitalism is the principle that capital generates wealth. It doesn't argue for a complete absence of government from the marketplace (although some economists and politicians do). The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith touches on this rather effectively, and its easy to find a copy online.

Obama is certainly not a communist just like McCain is not a fascist. People try and label relatively middling positions on the political spectrum with extremes reserved for the ends. Obama is in fact politically to the right of a lot of leaders of current capitalist democracies.

Government run utilities are in fact commonplace in many parts of the world. The problems with privatization are that it requires extensive regulation, as many free-market utilities are monopolies and price fixing becomes a major issue. When the utilities are run by the government they aren't run for income generation, which ensures a reasonable cap on prices that is closely related to cost of service. Providing a few essential services in this way is not the downfall of capitalism. Only the most absurd of radicals would treat this as a foot in the door, government has no interest in getting in the marketplace for luxuries, commodities, or any non-essential services. Is it that bad they want to ensure that senior citizens aren't dying because a for profit utility is turning off their heat in the depth of a Michigan winter?