In what can only be described as the nationalization of what was once American private industry the President of the United States has seen fit to relieve the CEO of General Motors of his job. And he did it in a most gutless and cowardly way.

While the president once again sat before the adoring news media television cameras he had his aides announce the sentence and carry out corporate beheading. As Obama sat with CBS newsman Bob Schieffer discussing his discontent with the progress automakers have made in reconfiguring their union controlled business, “administration officials” met with Rick Wagoner and informed him he would need to step down if GM was to receive any more financial assistance from Uncle Sam Obama.

This action can certainly be interpreted as change and is also another addition to the long list of historic firsts. It makes it abundantly clear why Ford CEO Alan Mulally has gone to such great lengths to avoid accepting government handouts. General Motors made a deal with the devil and now the devil wants his due. Where is Daniel Webster when we need him?

Regardless of what you think of Rick Wagoner, his past job performance, his experience or his abilities going forward, it is beyond chilling to witness the federal government’s usurpation of the General Motors board of directors and the share holders voting rights.

Wagoner accepted the sword offered him and dutifully fell upon it having been unable to negotiate a financial tourniquet with the autoworkers union. Union officials saw no reason to use their old methods of strong-arm tactics or negotiate in earnest with the major auto manufacturers now that they have their hit man in the White House.

During his tenure at the helm of GM Wagoner made some serious mistakes as far as new car designs and the public’s fickle love-hate relationship with big cars and trucks. But in his limited defense Wagoner was playing poker with a pinochle deck from the start. It was under his leadership that GM began to make small but significant steps in renegotiating union contracts that his predecessors had agreed to in an effort to keep labor peace. While the actions taken under Wagoner’s leadership were not sufficient to allow GM to become globally competitive in labor costs they did paint a bulls-eye on him, with the union only waiting for the right marksman to take the shot. They got exactly what they were looking for in this past presidential election and it only took him 60 days to pull the trigger.

The Obama administration is going to great lengths to appear to be playing hardball with the GM and Chrysler management. The reason behind this is apparent only if you look beyond the current rhetoric to the likely outcome.

In his speech the day after Wagoner got the axe, Obama made it clear where his allegiance lies. “The pain being felt in places that rely on our auto industry is not the fault of our workers… And it is not the fault of all the families and communities that supported manufacturing plants throughout the generations… Rather, it is a failure of leadership.” I agree with the president. But the failure of leadership was in their inability to successfully negotiate labor contracts that allowed the company to maintain profitability against the headwinds of a global marketplace.

This new tact taken by the Obama administration will have the exact opposite result of what the rank and file is looking for. It is unlikely that any legally constrained restructuring of these companies will allow them to continue to carry the oppressive legacy costs and unrealistic union pay scales and health insurance. But with the actions and comments made today this president of hope and change is laying the groundwork for the blame game to follow. He hopes to change the attention from what he promised on the campaign trail to blame the automakers management for the outcome.

The decision the board needs to make seems clearer now than ever. GM must free itself of the old union contracts that are bleeding them dry and it must also free itself of the parasitic federal government. The only way to do that is through the bankruptcy court. There will never be any security, independence or meaningful growth at this or any company as long as nearly every business decision is debated in the inept halls of congress and second guessed by a man who has never held a private sector job in his adult life.

Let this be a valuable lesson for all companies in the future. Beware the politics of liberal socialism.

Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles. And by opposing end them. To buy black, to spend white no more, and by a purchase to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to – tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To buy, to spend; to spend, perchance to dream.

But is this dream racism or capitalism? Ay, there’s the rub.

My apologies to Shakespearean purists for my unabashed rewrite of his lyrical soliloquy. But the opening scene of act three of Hamlet seemed to fit perfectly into the opening scene of act one of “Ebony Experiment”.

The Ebony Experiment is at this point the commitment of a single upscale black couple to spend their money only in black owned businesses for a year.

The Andersons are a successful couple currently living in an upper middleclass racially mixed suburb of Chicago. Maggie Anderson grew up outside of Miami and earned an MBA and a law degree from the University of Chicago. Her husband John Anderson is a financial advisor who grew up in Detroit and holds a degree from Harvard University and an MBA from Northwestern University.

They decided the best way for them to support the black community was to make an exerted effort to spend their money exclusively in black owned businesses. They are obviously bright folks who knew their idea would be both controversial and challenging.

Maggie drives past numerous grocery stores on her 14 mile trek to Chicago to shop at a black owned grocery store. They travel even farther to get to Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood to buy vitamins from a black owned business there. They even travel to communities as far as 50 miles away to buy gasoline cards from black owned gas stations which they use to fill up their cars locally. Commitment is clearly one quality this couple is not short on.

They have hired a public relations firm to create a web site promoting the Ebony Experiment and have tapped researchers from Northwestern University to study the impact. They are even looking for financial backing to get this experiment out to the masses and see if they can take it beyond the borders of Illinois.

But as committed as they are to the challenge of even finding suitable black businesses in which to shop, they are at the same time being challenged by the slings and arrows of alleged racism.

Some respondents to their web site have gone so far as to threaten to retaliate by ceasing to do any business with black owned companies and to make every effort to avoid hiring black employees.

From what is being portrayed it appears that the Andersons don’t have the same restrictions on how they make their money as they do on how they spend it. But is what the Andersons are doing racist or is it simply capitalism at its finest? Capitalism means that the spender gets to vote with his wallet on what and where he will spend his money. Certainly there are whites that avoid going into black owned stores simply because they are black owned stores. I guess if the whites are considered racist for doing so than the Andersons must be considered racist for doing the exact same thing.

What they are doing is certainly not illegal, at least not yet. And I would have a hard time considering it to be immoral. I am a capitalist through and through and I believe capitalism provides the ultimate voting experience. The Andersons worked hard and now enjoy the fruits of their labors. If they vote to spend those fruits only at a black owned market then so be it.

But while perhaps magnanimous, how could it not be considered racist if their spending decisions are solely racially motivated with the intent to support one community at the expense of another. The Andersons say the Ebony Experiment is not racist.

Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?

I guess it depends on the color of the rose.

It truly is the ultimate voting experience where people get to vote with their hard earned dollars for the things that make the most sense.

Voters complain about politicians they don’t like, but somehow they still seem to get elected or reelected. This is usually because some special interest group dumped a ton of cash into the candidate’s coffers in hopes of getting a little quid pro quo once he or she is elected. The recent election of the new Messiah is a perfect example.

Voters bought the promise of hope and change and elected a guy with absolutely no qualifications or background in executive decision making, economics or world affairs to be leader the United States and most of the free world. But they bought the rhetoric because it didn’t cost them anything to buy it.

The United Autoworkers Union and the Teamsters Union are powerful forces to be reckoned with when it comes to getting politicians elected. They certainly proved their worth to the Obama campaign and are now beginning to reap the benefits. But all their money and organization can’t get people to vote with their wallets to buy the products their union members provide. Congress is now looking to bail out the Big Three unionized automakers only because the consumers won’t.

Consumers have the ultimate authority over life and death in a capitalistic society. Products and services consumers like succeed and grow and the ones they don’t go away. A savvy marketing campaign can be the difference between success and failure of a free market product. But even the best marketing campaign in the world can’t make a success out of an inferior or unpopular product. Eventually the law of numbers catches up and its fate is decided. It’s all about the money.

Such is the case as well in the most recent edition of “Rod Blagojevich Superstar”. In Illinois and around the country people are questioning how a guy who just got the heave hoe from the governor’s mansion can be getting a six figure book deal. The answer is simple; it’s all about the money.

Lightning Rod Blagojevich is currently the Illinois version of Monica Lewinski. He is scorned and ridiculed but still somehow like a six car pileup that people don’t want to look at but feel they have to. He also spent time in the office of power until political fallout brought him to his knees.

Illinoisans and folks from around the country are shocked and outraged that he has been give a six figure book deal from Phoenix Books to write a tattle tale tell all “exposing the dark side of politics”. Even the Illinois Senate has been caught up in the frenzy by debating legislation that would prevent the ex-governor from making a profit from his flagitious two terms. The outrage is real, but to me very confusing.

When then ex-president Richard Nixon wrote his first book after leaving office news programs were packed with reports of protests and outraged protesters. But the book was a best seller and even spawned a second book. Conversely ex-governor James McGreevy wrote a book that almost nobody bothered buying after leaving the New Jersey governor’s mansion and his female wife to explore his new found gay lifestyle.

The beauty of living in a capitalistic society is that we as consumers get to decide the fate of the products that we don’t like. Phoenix Books paid Big Rod big money because they think the book will sell. If it doesn’t sell, the company suffers a humiliating loss, both financially and in the public sentiment. The key is does Phoenix Books know what the book buying public wants to read more than the book buying public? It’s all about the money.

If you don’t like the ex-governor and you don’t like the fact that he is going to make some dough from snitching on those that impeached him, don’t buy the book. But if this book is a financial success you can bet there will be a second and a third etc.

The Blagojevich series could be the next Harry Potter. But the public is the ultimate wizard maker in this fantasy.

Because it’s always all about the money.