The bailout

[Wildcard Ky]

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p185/Royal_Blue1/untitled.jpg?t=1229090925

 

[TE999]

This would be even funnier if we weren't going into 3 generations of hock to support all these giveaways.

 

[jeninflorida]

its only the first of many....

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p185/Royal_Blue1/untitled.jpg?t=1229090925

 

[Boxlicker101]

I really don't like the idea of bailing somebody out because of their own blunders. Even so, I remember a few years ago when Chrysler needed a lot of help. They got it, and paid it back, and saved thousands of jobs and became solvent again.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

It's not the 1900's anymore. The idea of letting businesses fail on their own in the economic Darwinian jungle isn't tenable anymore. Products are too complex, and the world and national economy are too complicated and too interrelated for that pure capitalistic doctrinaire bullcrap to fly these days. If the Big 3 go down, it's national devastation, not just a case of survival of the fittest, business style.

If they go bankrupt, they won't be able to pay their suppliers, which means thousands of specialty manufacturers of parts and materials will go out of business, and there's the disaster. These small, specialty manufacturers won't be starting up any time soon no matter how the Big 3 reorganize after a Chapter 11, so the US auto industry is effectively dead and gone forever. The people who make the special tubing and fluids, the little pumps and gears, the glues and adhesives, the thousand and one parts you never even think of, those are the ones who will be killed.

It was doctrinaire capitalism that got our economy into this mess and it sure as hell won't be doctrinaire capitalism that gets us out. Doctrinaire capitalism is dead, and everyone knows it.

We can piss away half a trillion dollars on a war that accomplishes absolutely nothing and no one says a word, but ask for 25 billion to save an industry and suddenly everyone gets their shorts n a knot. Where the fuck are our priorities?

 

[Boxlicker101]

It's not the 1900's anymore. The idea of letting businesses fail on their own in the economic Darwinian jungle isn't tenable anymore. Products are too complex, and the world and national economy are too complicated and too interrelated for that pure capitalistic doctrinaire bullcrap to fly these days. If the Big 3 go down, it's national devastation, not just a case of survival of the fittest, business style.

If they go bankrupt, they won't be able to pay their suppliers, which means thousands of specialty manufacturers of parts and materials will go out of business, and there's the disaster. These small, specialty manufacturers won't be starting up any time soon no matter how the Big 3 reorganize after a Chapter 11, so the US auto industry is effectively dead and gone forever. The people who make the special tubing and fluids, the little pumps and gears, the glues and adhesives, the thousand and one parts you never even think of, those are the ones who will be killed.

It was doctrinaire capitalism that got our economy into this mess and it sure as hell won't be doctrinaire capitalism that gets us out. Doctrinaire capitalism is dead, and everyone knows it.

We can piss away half a trillion dollars on a war that accomplishes absolutely nothing and no one says a word, but ask for 25 billion to save an industry and suddenly everyone gets their shorts n a knot. Where the fuck are our priorities?

I wouldn't exactly say: "Nobody says a word."

I don't think anybody likes the idea of a bailout, but it may be necessay. Keep in mind, this is not pouring money down the drain. It's a loan, which might never be repaid in full, but it is not intended to be a gift.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

DOC

Do you suggest that every company in America get a fat government tit to suckle?

Toyota, Honda, and Mercedes arent going bankrupt.

We're in the colossal mess because lots of well-connected, Harvard grads are incompetent.

No one has said a word about the government using the money to develope alternative energy or fuel efficient vehicles. No. We're gonna prop the losers up and hope people can afford land yachts again.

 

[Katyusha]

We can piss away half a trillion dollars on a war that accomplishes absolutely nothing and no one says a word, but ask for 25 billion to save an industry and suddenly everyone gets their shorts n a knot. Where the fuck are our priorities?

It's nearly a trillion now, and I and everyone I know has been bitching about the cost of the war since it began because we knew it wasn't going to accomplish a damn thing and we're just pissing money away for no reason.

My problem with the bailouts is not the idea itself, but the way Congress and the Department of the Treasury is going about it. Contrary to what most of us keep hearing, a lot of Wall Street executives that are still employed are forgoing their bonuses this year. But the bailout money was supposed to be used for lending, to stabilize the industry and the financial sector as a whole, and so far a lot of taxpayer dollars have been used to acquire banks that weren't on the verge of failure. Congress and the Treasury haven't really been willing or able to regulate how those dollars are used, and our economy is still in a tailspin with lending still, for the most part, stalled. In other words the banks are using taxpayer dollars to maximize their size, their influence, and their profits. This is not a problem at all when they're using private capital to do it, but when using tax dollars, it becomes a whole other story.

Now Congress wants to impose all these conditions on the auto industry that they didn't impose on the banks but the precedent has already been set in people's minds. The general population is strongly opposed to more bailouts because they think that other corporations will use the money for their own gain and not for the good of the public or even for the good of their own employees and everyone in their supply chains. A lot of people haven't heard that, after being raked across the coals by Congress for flying to Washington on separate private jets, the CEO's of the Big 3 went back to Washington for their second round of hearings in hybrid cars. A lot of people haven't heard that Ford and GM have both begun working on selling most of their corporate jets and re-tooling executive contracts so that their use of the remaining planes is far more limited than it has been.

People expect the Big 3 to behave exactly as the banks have, regardless of any conditions Congress imposes on them, and so they're getting their panties in a wad because so far the Wall Street bailout has done very little. The question that's being asked is, "Why should *more* tax dollars be used in a bailout that isn't going to help us at all?" even if Congress has an effective way of enforcing how the automakers use their money.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

KATYUSHA

Naah. The Iraq War accomplished 3 things: Saddam is kaput, we control the Iraqi oil, and Iraq is a strategic location to control Iran's appetite for the oil states around the Persian Gulf.

 

[jeninflorida]

yes, but that was a different time....I do not think that GM can make a come back.

I really don't like the idea of bailing somebody out because of their own blunders. Even so, I remember a few years ago when Chrysler needed a lot of help. They got it, and paid it back, and saved thousands of jobs and became solvent again.

 

[jeninflorida]

the only way to create fast weath is to build something...lots of jobs would be lost if the big 3 go out....

my only issue with GM, cost structure is out of wack....union is out of control....too many cars that poeple do not want...and number of cars sold each year is a negative growth.

jumping subjects
America does not make resin (i think that is the correct spelling for the glue), what else are we unable to make? if a trade war broke out with china how long would it take for america to recover?

It's not the 1900's anymore. The idea of letting businesses fail on their own in the economic Darwinian jungle isn't tenable anymore. Products are too complex, and the world and national economy are too complicated and too interrelated for that pure capitalistic doctrinaire bullcrap to fly these days. If the Big 3 go down, it's national devastation, not just a case of survival of the fittest, business style.

If they go bankrupt, they won't be able to pay their suppliers, which means thousands of specialty manufacturers of parts and materials will go out of business, and there's the disaster. These small, specialty manufacturers won't be starting up any time soon no matter how the Big 3 reorganize after a Chapter 11, so the US auto industry is effectively dead and gone forever. The people who make the special tubing and fluids, the little pumps and gears, the glues and adhesives, the thousand and one parts you never even think of, those are the ones who will be killed.

It was doctrinaire capitalism that got our economy into this mess and it sure as hell won't be doctrinaire capitalism that gets us out. Doctrinaire capitalism is dead, and everyone knows it.

We can piss away half a trillion dollars on a war that accomplishes absolutely nothing and no one says a word, but ask for 25 billion to save an industry and suddenly everyone gets their shorts n a knot. Where the fuck are our priorities?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

DOC

Do you suggest that every company in America get a fat government tit to suckle?

Toyota, Honda, and Mercedes arent going bankrupt.

We're in the colossal mess because lots of well-connected, Harvard grads are incompetent.

No one has said a word about the government using the money to develope alternative energy or fuel efficient vehicles. No. We're gonna prop the losers up and hope people can afford land yachts again.

Japanese and European industry routinely gets huge infusions of cash from their governments for R&D and project start-ups. It's only the US that clings to this fairy-tale notion of pure capitalism and we're getting crushed.

This isn't just a matter of the economy anymore. This is national defense.

 

[unregistered]

 

[dr_mabeuse]

DOC

Do you suggest that every company in America get a fat government tit to suckle?

Not at all. But the IT industry, biotech, robotics, and nuclear should be getting government research money. (If there was any left to give.)

 

[jeninflorida]

Gm is not gonna make it, the only way they can is for the goverment to purchae them...then each tax payer can put in money to support the company. they have a bad business model, bad cost structure, and bad leadership

Why hasn't anyone in D.C stopped to think that the bail out wont work if Mr. and Mrs. America can't afford to buy a car!? If car sales stay depressed because of the general state of the economy, then all the bailout is doing is making GM's payrole for a few more months.

 

[unregistered]

Exactly.

 

[jomar]

This is exactly right. A bailout will do little more than delay the inevitable. GM can file bankruptcy now or in a few months when the bailout money is spent.

New car sales are not likely to increase in the foreseeable future.

The pre-owned market is where the real money is made these days anyway.

 

[Boxlicker101]

This is exactly right. A bailout will do little more than delay the inevitable. GM can file bankruptcy now or in a few months when the bailout money is spent.

New car sales are not likely to increase in the foreseeable future.

Bankruptcy fo a huge corp. such as GM would cause waves through the economy, especially among those companies who ae their suppliers. If they get paid off, the damage is terrible, but less than it might have been.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

.....and bailing them out means no goodies for anyone else. None of the programs you REALLY want will happen because the UAW stuffed all the money in their pockets. I mean, thats why you elected Obama, right? So all the fat cats could clean out the treasury and could fill it up again for the next busload of parasites.