Ok...I will look past the politicking tone of the response and address the content.

Regardless of how GM turns out, the fact remains that the actions taken by the administration so far have been very beneficial to the car maker and have set it on the right course for correction. Not only has GM been able to successfully wind down or spin off ailing brands, renegotiate/get out of ridiculous labor contracts, cut down the size of the dealer network, consolidate their supply chain, but they have done so at unprecedented speed - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,531022,00.html?FORM=ZZNR...

So much so that it's CFO said it might post a profit this year - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/business/18auto.html - Yes, I know there is probably a lot of financial shenanigans going on here...but 24 months ago, this would never have been the case (even with financial shenanigans). I would say that this is the best thing that ever happened to GM. If mgmt can revive the brand and focus on good products, in 5 - 10 years we might not even remember that GM went through this period.

Not to mention the hundreds of millions (if not billions) in highly subsidized loans and VC money the administration has given to 'electric/hybrid' companies in the auto industry - from Tesla to Fisker (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125383160812639013.html) to many others in between, I would be willing to bet that the auto industry in 10 years is going to be radically different than the last 10 years, and I would probably bet that America leads the way in innovation again (after ceding it to Japan and Asia for the last 10 years).

Ok...the health care argument, yes the bill wasn't perfect...but guess what..at least he did something. The reality is the current system couldn't stay, and something had to be done. We will see what the final implementation looks like, but I am pretty sure it won't have any death panels.

I am not advocating oil & gas price controls, but the fact remains that America (and the West in general) is highly dependent on oil from relatively volatile areas of the world. Yes, people have cried wolf many times and it hasn't always borne out in 'rations', but as a result of the market doing it's thing, we have seen massive price run ups in those commodities (to almost unprecedented levels) right before major economic downturns. From the 70s, to 2000, to last year. One thing that was consistent with all recessions in those times are sky-high energy prices - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unite...
The most recent recession was coupled with financial mayhem, so that eclipsed the high energy prices...but it doesn't take away from the fact that the US economy is highly dependent on foreign oil.

As far as I know, regulators and the government (both this one and previous ones) never tolerate/promote insider trading or the backdating of stock options. There are some economists that argue that both shouldn't matter in an 'efficient market', because it would only make the market more efficient by pricing in more information more quickly. I am not sure I agree with that, due to misaligned incentives of executives and shareholders, but that's another argument for another thread.

Re: the gov't suppressing IPOs...there are so many things wrong with this statement I don't even know where to start. For starters, a startup shouldn't be a 'vehicle' to an IPO. So the mere fact that you think the gov't 'didn't help us any' because they made the road to IPOs a bit more bumpy, I would suggest that perhaps you need to rethink why you are doing a startup in the first place. Even in 'rosier boom boom' times, driving towards an IPO without solid fundamentals is like gambling. If you have solid fundamentals (i.e. strong revenues, gross & net margins + high ROE + high growth potential) then SARBOX won't have too much of a negative impact on your IPO. Don't believe me? Look at Google. SARBOX implemented in 2002 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes-Oxley_Act), Google IPOd in 2004 (http://www.google-ipo.com/). If you aren't familiar with the success of Google's IPO, you should probably review it. If anything, SARBOX made the industry healthier, because it weeded out the crappy startups that were relying on hype and fluff (i.e. quite frankly fraud).

Ailes is his sidekick @ News Corp and tends to have more extreme views than Murdoch does. e.g. he strongly supports Glenn Beck. Regardless of your political affiliation, I think that explains itself.