If you had any familiarly with "the president's opponents", you would know we label this as "crony capitalism" (much more akin to original formula Italian fascist corporatism), and have so since at least the 2009 cram-down of Chrysler's secured bond holders. While of course partisan, this OPED by the Republican governor of Indiana lays out the issues and some of the longer term consequences and outcomes: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870356160457528...

Note Apple's board includes one "Albert Gore Jr., Former Vice President of the United States": http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/ It's good to have friends in high places.

(Also note the cramdown was a remarkably bad long term idea; most specifically, because it ensures in the future heavily unionized companies in trouble will find it very difficult to pledge their assets for money to get themselves out of it. One of the major reasons Ford didn't have to declare bankruptcy is that its then new CEO, previously a Boeing lifer, in 2006 pledged all the company's assets to borrow $23.6 billion dollars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Mulally#Ford_Motor_Company .)

Thanks, good sir, for confirming everything I was saying.

(It's funny that you begin by assuming I am unfamiliar with such positions. Thinking they are goofy, humorous and exaggerated is very different from never having been exposed to them. It was exactly this exposure that compelled me to write this, even knowing that it would be a target of downvotes and flames.)

"Action against regulation of large corporations with good relationships with the government" is only a subset of "action against regulation of business".

A subset is still included in the larger set. So thank you for agreeing with me.

PS: I don't think the "good relationships with government" have been established to be causal to the result, beyond vague innuendo.

It's upsetting that some proponents of this administration dismiss its critics because they presume that they dislike him categorically. It is this sort of bigoted presumption and political antagonism that is causing the erosion of political discourse in this country. This issue is not that Obama has critics, it's that some people believe that he shouldn't.

Why is it so difficult for people to accept that those who disagree with them aren't just trying to antagonize them, and may have actual, legitimate political orientations and views?

Instead of dismissing everyone with whom you disagree and painting them as irrational bigots, why don't you attempt to discuss something with them?

I ended up ending a friendship because they posited that anyone who disagreed with an Obama policy was a racist that was too dumb to admit it.

Some of the criticism that's raised against presidents is about personal attributes, not policy. However, this kind of criticism is not a new phenomenon, and Obama isn't the greatest victim of this. For a recent example, many people were more fond of pointing at GWB's buffoonery than the problems with his policies and the actions of his administration.

Political debate in a de-facto two party system easily turns into a fight between partisan hacks.

Actually, even left and right aren't clear in real life politics. Is "crony capitalism" right or left?

Agreed it seems as though most political reporting, especially on the partisan channels, has been reduced to irrelevant attacks based around embarrassming incidents and off-hand statements. It doesn't even seem as though people want to discus the issues.

It's upsetting that you dismiss my dismissal, because a lot of the "criticism" I do see, including in this thread, amounts to little more than a transparently knee-jerk reaction that tends to be very lazy with the details. I am not mocking every criticism of Obama I have ever seen, only the crazy people who see the word "Obama" and instantly start talking about Kenya and health care regardless of the topic, drawing comparisons with the Axis powers (yes! this happened on this thread very early!) and a whole bunch of other shit that has nothing to do with anything. I don't think you can deny that this line of thought exists in the American psyche and it has more influence than it ought to.

But I would like to make another thing clear: Obama is a center-right politician. Your first line implies that I am a "proponent of [his] administration" but I am considerably to the left of that guy. But a large component of the attitude I am mocking is that many Obama haters really don't care about the details, they just know they're against the guy. Here's a guy who's got a tax plan from George Bush, a health care plan from Dole/Gingrich and implemented by Romney, a more competent wiretapper, assassin, and immigrant-deporter than his predecessor - even if some of these critics previously held similar beliefs as Obama, they don't care about any of that, he's just Satan to them. This includes congresspeople who are now against things they previously sponsored, because it's now an Obama plan. Witness on this thread that the administration is actually blocking "government intrusion in the marketplace", and people are really just finding excuses to find faults with this because of what party it comes from. I'd say on the balance they've proved my initial assertion right, far more than I expected even from the pseudo-libertarians I am accustomed to seeing on HN.

I respect your views and sympathize with many of them, but your original comment did nothing to rationally confront the issues in the way that your second comment did. Your original post pertained to "the president's opponents," which seemed to include all of them. It just appeared as a off-handed, categorical attack, similar to the ones that you decried. I acknowledge that the reactionary, bigoted uber-right is frustrating, but immediately jumping on them in a way that didn't pertain to the the specifics of this case seemed like an unwarranted attack. I wish that you had explained your displeasure in a more thorough and thoughtful way that didn't seem like a political straw man, like you did in your second comment. Sorry if my initial response seemed condescending.

Please explain how this instance of the government choosing winners and losers arbitrarily is pro free market?

Creating arbitrary rules that don't apply to businesses who are serving the 'public interest' (politically connected) is only one step away from a planned economy.

My reading of the source material is that the administration is blocking an instance of a government entity "picking winners and losers". If you take off your John Galt Goggles maybe you would parse it that way too.

The administration blocked government intervention when it applied to their friends. Others do not get the same treatment. Did the administration dissolve the USITC? Did it declare the Tariff Act of 1930 unenforced? No, it simply picks and chooses who the rules apply to.

Can you show me the counter-example that proves this alleged favoritism? Some action by US ITC or recent enforcement of the Tariff Act that you feel is particularly egregious?

My previous experience with Obama-haters and pseudo-libertarians tells me the answer is probably no. But I am open to evidence to the contrary. Absent that I can't just assume an Apple/Obama conspiracy by default.