If you have a certain nostalgia for 1980s Soviet advertising, or if you’re interested in the current state of the semi-nationalized automobile industry, you’ll get a chuckle out of this “scenario,” an ad for the 2012 Pelosi GTxi SS/RT Sport.
It’s funny, and yes, it contains some fairly partisan political jabs. That kind of material is something I would studiously avoid in a professional context – especially this blog. That said, we’re not in ordinary times. I would say that the current level of government involvement now means that political analysis of industry developments is more important than ever.
As I have said previously, the government is no longer simply regulating industry or financing it through monetary policy – it is now managing companies with the taxpayers as stockholders who have a right to see their investments protected. This will necessarily require an analysis of politicians and their goals. This may mean our competitive analyses will lay bare political feelings in our own organizations. That was the risk of the U.S. Government’s bailout policies, a dramatically-increased politicization of the American – and global – business environment. And here we are.
Case in point: the radio program deals primarily with the multi-decade conflict between Keynesians, who believe that well-timed government spending can save flagging economies, and market fundamentalists who belief that the entire economy can be managed through tax cuts and manipulation of the interest rate. The Keynesians protest, “government spending led to winning World War II and got us out of the Depression!” Market fundamentalists tend to argue that the slump of the 1970s proved that it’s not a cure-all – and that only deregulation, tax cuts, and Greenspan’s masterful operation of the interest rates saved us from big government stagnation.