Quotes of the day
posted at 9:45 pm on December 14, 2008 by Allahpundit
“What I found this year was a far cry from complacency. The ranks of line executives and engineers are thick with members of the Obama generation, who barely remember when GM was fat and happy. They are hungry to change the beleaguered company and prove its critics wrong. They are also piercingly critical of the old GM, candid to the point of eagerness in owning up to and analyzing the company’s mistakes and faults. The decades of denial are over…
In its rescue proposal to Congress, GM practically begged for a strong federal overseer with the power to force unions, dealers, and creditors to accept further retrenchment. GM wants the stick of a bankruptcy-like arrangement without the stigma of the real thing. In principle, a federal bailout could give GM a hard push into the future by wrenching its balance sheet into alignment with reality…
Whether a bailout can save GM depends, then, on which GM you think you’re bailing out, the calcified shell of the old GM or the new-economy company struggling to emerge. Given the record, counting on GM to succeed would be rash. But consigning it to fail might be even more so.”
*
“I was speaking to an extremely well-informed person yesterday who told me that he thought a GM bankruptcy would inevitably become a fire sale liquidation, create a cascade of bankruptcies of the other Detroit auto companies and suppliers, and therefore kill 2-3 million jobs. He said that he doesn’t like to exaggerate, but that this would be ‘Armageddon’. I take his concerns seriously, but there is a distribution of possible outcomes in the event of a Big 3 bankruptcy, and no matter how confident anybody manages to sound about it, the outcome is highly uncertain…
The money used for this purpose is money that is not used somewhere else. The amount that would ultimately be loaned to the Big 3 is unclear, but most observers believe that when all is said and done, it will be much, much more than the $34 billion that the Big 3 have requested. Let’s assume $100 billion. As a pure thought exercise, how many jobs could we create with an extra $100 billion of venture capital? How much more sustainable would these be than jobs in companies that need to come to Washington to beg for capital?”
Blowback
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What’s this “Obama Generation” shtuff? What a bunch of propagandist hooie.
It’s appalling that some people think that a bankruptcy re-organization would be devastating while accepting government bail-out money and the accompanying strings that go with it would not.
AZfederalist on December 14, 2008 at 9:56 PM
Business failures are as important as business successes in a free market. In this case, business failure means not being at the mercy of unions that insist that people be paid for two years despite the fact that they have been laid off (would that we all had this kind of layoff). I realize that business failure would mean tough times for many people, but no one is guaranteed anything in life, and to pretend that anyone, or any business, is so very important that they cannot possibly be allowed to fail is to agree to bailing them out of perpetual failure.
DrMagnolias on December 14, 2008 at 9:57 PM
For anyone who has read Liberal Fascism, this could be a quote from Goldberg’s work. Corporations are fine with the free market while they’re profitable. But the minute they fall behind, they beg for government intervention.
LastRick on December 14, 2008 at 9:57 PM
You mean people who have never accomplished anything but talk a good game?
PackerBronco on December 14, 2008 at 10:01 PM
Problem is that Congress probably may not be able to give a “federal overseer” the power to “force” unions, dealers and creditors to accept changes. Right now a federal bankruptcy judge is the one who can do that.
Better believe the unions and dealers would challenge the constitutionality of any law giving such judicial powers to a vaguely defined overseer. A bankruptcy judge can set aside contract, including state-protected dealer franchises. A lawsuit would stall it long enugh until Obama took over.
And once Obama took over, the overseer would be replaced by a union-friendly one.
Better for GM to go for a prepackaged bankruptcy in which they present the reorganization plan at the time they file. If it looks like a good package, then the burden is on union and dealers to offer better reorganization alternative.
Wethal on December 14, 2008 at 10:01 PM
much like the financial bailout, until the root causes are fixed, there is no point in doing anything, because it’ll just happen again.
in neither case are those root causes being seriously considered or worked on
lorien1973 on December 14, 2008 at 10:02 PM
No more bail outs for buggy whip makers.
If they take $20 an hour like the rest of the world then okay.
Mojave Mark on December 14, 2008 at 10:02 PM
Let them go on the chopping block. I am not certain that it would not lead to liquidation, what I do know is that there is a market for GM and Ford products that will not disappear if they go into bankruptcy. Americans are still going to want to buy the F-150. People likew myself are waiting for the Camaro to come out. If it is avail able there is a high likelihood that I will buy one. If the market still exist so will the auto industry.
Theworldisnotenough on December 14, 2008 at 10:07 PM
The Obama Generation- A generation of people who were not properly educated in free market principles, and US cultural history of entrepreneurship. They lack the basics in good business ethics, success and failure and accountability.
Instead they were taught the benefits of a socialst model of what the US should/could be. One big fat lie!
The problem is they think they know what will work based on nothing but myth. They have arrived and they will change things for the better.
They are the ones they have been waiting for.
Nobody ever taught them there is nothing new under the sun.
katy on December 14, 2008 at 10:14 PM
The idiot messiah has only been in the public eye for a couple of years and he already has a whole generation? Ridiculous. Who is this turd?
And I liked the rest, they want the “stick of a bankruptcy without the stigma”. LOL. Just a new twist on the old liberal idea of rights without responsibilities. The new “Obama generation” … What a friggin’ joke.
progressoverpeace on December 14, 2008 at 10:29 PM
If UAW rolls taxpayers I vow never to buy anything they produce and to disinherit my progeny if they buy anything UAW.
Promise.
Stephen M on December 14, 2008 at 10:30 PM
“What’s the big deal?” a la Jim L gets my vote
Ugly on December 14, 2008 at 10:30 PM
My heart pounded the whole time I was writing to my Congressmen telling them to vote against the financial bailout. It’s not like I take the consequences of these things lightly but we just can’t keep doing these bail outs. It is against everything we stand for as a nation. They need to go to Chapter 11, no one needs a Car Czar, I am sure of it.
Cindy Munford on December 14, 2008 at 10:31 PM
WTH is the “Obama generation”? A bunch of ignorant young people who have never had a hard day in their lives? We need to return to Federalism to take away much of the power of the Fed over domestic affairs. No one would care much about the Federal government, or Obama, if we adhered to the 10th Amendment.
DerKrieger on December 14, 2008 at 10:35 PM
I have your quote of the day right here:
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 10:36 PM
Well said, Cindy. You have put your finger on the exact problem. The deep cowardice exhibited by our public figures (save a few conservative Congressmen) is absolutely stunning. Putting off pain today, at all costs, seems to be their only guiding principle.
progressoverpeace on December 14, 2008 at 10:38 PM
I need money for
alcoholsomthing to eat. Don’t bother sending me to AA, uh I mean a shelter, just give me enough money for some hooch. I’ll bother you tomorrow for more money. Don’t try to get me to go to rehab, I’ll do that AFTER you give me the money for more Thunderbird. Got any change. Spare change. Can you help me out with some money.The difference between a wino and GM; the wino never left me on the side of the road with two small kids waiting for a tow truck, and a wino will go away after hearing HELL NO!
Laura in Maryland on December 14, 2008 at 10:40 PM
The consequences of unemployment in the 12-15% range is far worse than the consequences of the bailout. Dick Cheney wasn’t exaggerating about the consequences for the Republican Party either, but so far the only thing Senate Republicans seem willing to do is play a game of chicken with not only the Democrats but President Bush as well.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 10:41 PM
Yes…the 3 turkey-neck dudes will turn it all around as soon as we give them all they ask for…you betcha.
AUINSC on December 14, 2008 at 10:46 PM
This statement is not even close to the truth … not even in the same universe.
P.S. Preserving our monetary system is more important than any unemployment level. If you don’t understand that, then you really don’t understand anything.
progressoverpeace on December 14, 2008 at 10:48 PM
Hoovernomics didn’t work back in 1930, and won’t work now either. Worrying about debt (not the monetary system) to the point where that means putting people out of work only worsens the overall economy, thus making it that much harder to deal with debt.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 10:51 PM
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/6948
Excellent article from Canada Free Press that plays nicely into this article.
This is what the bailouts means… sad…
katy on December 14, 2008 at 10:52 PM
Who the eff is the Obarfy generation? A turd fools enough people to get elected and now it’s “his” generation? Piss off.
Exit question: if we lose million of jobs for not bailing-out a group of companies who have been the walking dead for decades, how many jobs do we lose when the hyper over-extended bailouts crash our economy?
The Japanese car companies were once considered a joke and now they make premier products, it’s time for the junk American auto-makers to get the same awakening.
Bishop on December 14, 2008 at 10:53 PM
katy, yet the Canadian government agreed this weekend to bail out their auto industry to the tune of 2.8 billion, which given that the population of Canada is 1/10 that of the U.S. equivalent to a 28 billion dollar bailout.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 10:54 PM
The consequences of unemployment in the 12-15% range is far worse than the consequences of the bailout.
So we better just bail out everyone. Millions of jobs MAY go when the auto makers hit bottom, but how many aggregate jobs would go if you added together all the other industries who are struggling?
$34 billion for Detroit does what exactly when they aren’t changing the systems which created their own mess? Crappy products and unsustainable wage and benefits programs won’t be cured by this money, the problems will come right back in six months or a year.
Bishop on December 14, 2008 at 10:58 PM
There are other options. Many companies have thrived after Chapter 11; KMart and Macy’s come to mind. GM cannot begin to restructure until it gets out from under some of the absurd obligations it has. A bankruptcy judge can give GM a fighting chance by throwing out a lot of the UAW hooey that is dragging down GM.
As much as I grouse about GM, most Americans don’t want to see it go under. The government can stand behind GM with loans and help after Chapter 11.
Laura in Maryland on December 14, 2008 at 10:59 PM
Hey, genius, the depression went on for most of its life under FDR, not Hoover. We got out of what appeared to be an ongoing and eternal economic rot only by the forced, directed, narrow prduction goals of WWII, and then were able to grow out of that accumulated debt thanks to the fact that we were the only industrialized nation left standing with a working currency. Get a clue.
progressoverpeace on December 14, 2008 at 11:00 PM
GM broke even in Q4 2007 with $45B in sales. Sales are now down 40%. So, it needs about $18B (just GM) to survive another quarter unless it reduces staff immediately.
$34B is a small down payment to save that industry. $100B is an underestimate.
A bankruptcy-like reorg is required. It will be painful, and it isn’t guaranteed to work.
The economy of this country is in serious peril. Just throwing money around will make things worse, and that’s what the Dems and W are doing.
Romney needs to step up and put the country before his political ambitions on this one.
He is the only guy who save the auto industry.
notagool on December 14, 2008 at 11:00 PM
This isn’t about ‘Hoovernomics’, it’s about a system of feeding the fat-cats to stay in power. There is no compelling evidence yet that bailing out the big-fat-stupid-3 will do anything other than:
1) Subsidise their stupidity and incompetence with money from people who did nothing wrong in the first place.
2) Further mortgage our children to usury levels of debt, that may never be repaid
3) Protect the status-quo and release those resposible for the mess, from any accountability…and, in fact, reward them for their sins.
So dredging up completely misguided anologies and out-of-context historical vignettes does nothing to address this issue…there are no ‘Hoovervilles’…but if they are in the future, the should be called ‘Pelosivilles’.
AUINSC on December 14, 2008 at 11:00 PM
Star gazer, the Canadians, like the US citizens have even less a say so in the direction of their own gov. This is a journalists’ observation. HELLO?????
It’s a wake up call. It’s called an editorial. What is the matter with your cognitive lobe? Generalizations have their place. But not everything can be scrutinized through it. Learn to differentiate the micro and the macro and you’ll fare better at analysis.
katy on December 14, 2008 at 11:02 PM
Bishop, if both GM and Chrysler go belly up now, it’s certain that millions more will be out of work precisely when the economy is already hurting badly. Bankruptcy right now would more likely lead to Chrysler vanishing and GM being parted out. What a bailout does is buy time for both Detroit and the economy to recover. I remember how controversial the loan to Chrysler in 1980 was, but it saved them and the result was jobs and a stronger automobile sector for a generation. That was a good thing, all in all.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:03 PM
Star gazer. read the article!
katy on December 14, 2008 at 11:04 PM
Not a penny for unproductive, union parasites or their organized crime “leadership”.
NoDonkey on December 14, 2008 at 11:04 PM
For those few bailout lovers, here. Get ready for what you are walking into:
Nikkei Dec 1989 40,000
Nikkei Dec 2008 8,700
And that’s beside the destruction of our Republic and the loss of our liberty, not that bailout lovers care about our Constitution or anything like that … just words on paper …
progressoverpeace on December 14, 2008 at 11:04 PM
Which showed that Keynes was right about a big stimulus being necessary to get the economy out of a depression caused by deflation. Everyone is so worried about inflation, but never seem to realize that deflation is just as bad, if not worse.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:06 PM
We are making decisions that are short term. Millions out of work. We’ll deal with that. We always have. We need to look long term. I don’t want this country to be soley owned and operated by the federal government for generations to come. We have lost the meaning of delayed gratification.
katy on December 14, 2008 at 11:07 PM
The reason why Japan suffered for so long was that they were too focused on “sound money” and inflation, not deflation.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:07 PM
You evidently didn’t understand the importance of “directed, narrow production goals”? You can’t just make up production goals out of thin air. And thanks for not including the quote for why we were able to outgrow that accumulated debt (for which there is no analogue waiting in our future – just the opposite, actually).
Putting our monetary system at risk, the collpase of which will spell the end of the US, is worse than any economic risk. Every bailout we do, and every guarantee our government takes on for the private sector more closely ties our dollar to the problem and places our form of government on the precipice. Do you understand the cost of that?
progressoverpeace on December 14, 2008 at 11:10 PM
katy, I’d read the article but it’s not loading for me at the moment…
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:11 PM
What an unfortunate fact you brought up to bolster your case, my friend…indeed, if that was so effective, explain why they are now, again, begging at the trough.
AUINSC on December 14, 2008 at 11:11 PM
Not at all.
progressoverpeace on December 14, 2008 at 11:12 PM
progressoverpeace, it wasn’t the narrow goals that mattered, it was putting people to work and paying them.
With regard to levels of debt, here’s an historical example for you – Great Britain as a result of fighting the Napoleonic Wars had a national debt equal to it’s annual GDP, but was able to deal with it. Nations, more than individuals, have the capability to deal with debts such as the one the U.S. currently has. Not by allowing the economy to go sour out of misplaced Hoovernomics, but by getting it back on it’s feet. Then it’s possible to deal with the debt when the economy is better.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:15 PM
It was effective. Lee Iacocca paid off the loan in full, with interest thanks to making a profit from products like the minivan. Plenty of people wanted to write Chrysler off in 1980, but thankfully that didn’t come to pass. It doesn’t have to now either.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:17 PM
katy on December 14, 2008 at 11:18 PM
oops. not sure where the srtike come from
katy on December 14, 2008 at 11:19 PM
O.K. katy, I read the article and it never does talk about economics but only is a screed against labor unions and others who happen to support Democrats. I’d like something more than that as a reason to be against the bailout, thanks.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:19 PM
The question is at what cost? nationalization is too high a price for short term relief. Most Americans are not willing to pay that long term price. That is the Obama plan and it will be a hammer on individual economic freedom for generations.
katy on December 14, 2008 at 11:20 PM
katy, there’s no plan to nationalize the auto industry. Really. The current U.S. automaker bailout is intended as short-term relief, not as a buyout.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:23 PM
Sorry, dude, but undirected production is meaningless and a waste of money, energy and time. That’s what Keynesians don’t seem to understand. Well, that’s one part of what they don’t understand, since they tend to be confused on many levels.
Stop with the “Hoovernomics” when the depression was mostly a phenomenon of FDR’s policies. And it’s interesting that your example is also a post-war example. Hmmmm.
I guess the dependence of our government on the continued existence of our monetary system also interest you very little. What the heck, it’s only liberty at stake, there …
Confidence, as in “The Full Faith and Credit”, is not eternal. It cannot be abused at will, as these bailouts and federal guarantees are doing, and our government cannot exist without it.
progressoverpeace on December 14, 2008 at 11:24 PM
What a bailout does is buy time for both Detroit and the economy to recover.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:03 PM
Wait, what? The Japanese car companies seem to be doing ok, it’s the GM products people are hesitant to buy and for good reason; their products are boring, overpriced and mechanically problematic. Their management is unwilling to take the serious measures necessary to turn things around, and without that, no loans will make a difference no matter their size.
Have you seen the stats? Because of incredibly stupid legacy benefit and wage scales, Detroit auto makers currently lose money on every car they build to the tune of something like $600 per vehicle, while the Japanese makers earn about $1300.
It’s unsustainable and EVERYONE knows it. Propping up a completely failed business model is stupid, everyone knows that too, or mostly everyone.
Bishop on December 14, 2008 at 11:25 PM
These stories would have a lot more credibility if the didn’t find some way to work worship of The Obama™ into them. But then again without hosannas for The One there is no reason to write this pap.
I can hardly wait for the day, in the not too distant future when our children begin each school day with, when the Congress begins each meeting, when the coourts begin each session, with the recitation of the wonders of The Obama™.
johnsteele on December 14, 2008 at 11:28 PM
Really???
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/business/economy/09nationalize.html?_r=2&hp
katy on December 14, 2008 at 11:29 PM
The Auto Industry needs to go belly up. File Chapter 11, then get the help. Rid the Unions! All of them!
sheebe on December 14, 2008 at 11:29 PM
You’re not really understanding Keynes’ main point, which is that it wasn’t producing goods that mattered, if people didn’t have the money to buy them with. What mattered was getting people to work and also paying them so they could buy goods. Keynes wasn’t indifferent to what was produced, but his idea that no matter what you produced, it didn’t matter unless people had purchasing power.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:30 PM
And that’s all before the new enviro-nut regulations that this Congress is waiting to put on everything. Nobody is talking about the fact that the already authorized $25 billion for Detroit is just to pay for Congress’ enviro mandates. Their next mandates will cost $100 billion.
We cannot forget that the Precedent-Elect was absolutely gleeful in detailing his plan to “bankrupt the coal industry”. We all know what libs really want to do with industry.
progressoverpeace on December 14, 2008 at 11:30 PM
Short-term relief is usually for short-term problems. US automakers have been in decline for at least 25 years. How do you propose they increase demand to match the bloated UAW mandated labor costs and job banks.
Laura in Maryland on December 14, 2008 at 11:32 PM
It was effective. Lee Iacocca paid off the loan in full, with interest thanks to making a profit from products like the minivan. Plenty of people wanted to write Chrysler off in 1980, but thankfully that didn’t come to pass. It doesn’t have to now either.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:17 PM
AUINSC had a great point, Chrysler is back at the public teat again. Is this automotive bailout thing going to be cyclical or do we need to recreate the conditions which were present in 1980: a fortuitous innovation (the Minivan) and crummy foreign competition?
Detroit has nothing on which to hang its turnaround and the foreign companies are employing Americans and producing superior products.
Bishop on December 14, 2008 at 11:32 PM
“People” didn’t buy bombs, ships and tanks. I know that’s difficult to understand, but try really hard.
progressoverpeace on December 14, 2008 at 11:32 PM
Wrong. The Great Depression hit hardest from the period 1930-33, and after FDR started putting people back to work however best he could, the economy started doing better. What hurt the U.S. economy was when FDR made paying off the debt the priority, which led to a relapse of the depression from 1937-38. It wasn’t until production of military goods started in earnest after 1940 (we were building up our military before Pearl Harbor, for obvious reasons given the war in Europe and the threat Nazi Germany posed) that the Great Depression truly ended.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:33 PM
Of course they didn’t. But workers were paid and then spent that money which helped to bring the economy out of the depression.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:35 PM
progressoverpeace on December 14, 2008 at 11:30 PM
Won’t that be fun, having the choice of either a white or a black gem like this one:
http://tor.tripod.com/belcars/pages/zaz1.htm
Bishop on December 14, 2008 at 11:35 PM
I see. So as long we pay people to produce anything, even if no one buys what they are being forced to produce, it’s all good since they have money to buy other things? Is that what you’re saying?
Why produce anything? Why not just pay people to buy stuff?
progressoverpeace on December 14, 2008 at 11:37 PM
Star gazer didn’t answer the nationalization question in the NYT piece? hummmmm.
katy on December 14, 2008 at 11:37 PM
I hacked into Pelosi’s secret auto enviro plan: Flintsone mobiles. Footpower will result in zero polution, and the materials normally used to produce an engine will not have to be created in dirty, messy factories. Also, American automakers can save a fortune in parts and labor, finally allowing them to price their vehicles comparably with their foreign competitors. As a bonus, we can use the space under the hood for composting.
Laura in Maryland on December 14, 2008 at 11:38 PM
I’ve been describing to people the future cars to come out of the Congressionally run automakers, and that is exactly what it looks like.
progressoverpeace on December 14, 2008 at 11:39 PM
That’s a very good question. But you also have to weigh the alternative of just letting the U.S. auto industry vanish just when the economy can least afford it. From what I’ve read, both management and workers are willing to make sacrifices as a condition of the bailout, so it’s a matter of weighing the pros and cons of the details, IMO. I’m not in favor of simply acting out of ideological convictions, whether they’re anti-union or protectionist.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:39 PM
LOL … though too close to the truth.
progressoverpeace on December 14, 2008 at 11:40 PM
katy, when I get a moment, I’ll read your NYT piece. That takes longer than a couple of minutes since you first put up the link, ya know.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:41 PM
Let all the Detroit auto makers go bust. Then the foreign guys in the South can buy the plants, restructure and bring the economy back.
Goodness, this isn’t rocket science. When the majority of the population in their infinite wisdom say this is the way to go, why can’t Congress get it?
Special Forces Grunt on December 14, 2008 at 11:42 PM
It obvisously wasn’t enough. Here they are again. Why is that and how many more times will be be asked to bail them out? And since that time they have lost enormous amounts of market share…The entire US auto industry is being owned by foreign car companies now…how does a bailout help? How does it change the internal, horrendous management and labor policies that brought them here in the first place? It doesn’t…it’s just a political payoff for union votes!
AUINSC on December 14, 2008 at 11:42 PM
But workers were paid and then spent that money which helped to bring the economy out of the depression.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:35 PM
And look what happened to various companies after the war ended. The Higgins boat company went out of business, the aircraft and tank companies reduced staff to prewar levels, the companies which made outmoded equipment died-off.
My God, millions of people were no longer required to build armaments….thank the heavens we loaned them billions to keep producing products for a market that didn’t exist.
Bishop on December 14, 2008 at 11:42 PM
katy, after a scan, the article isn’t talking about nationalization but is making a comparison to it. No one questions that any bailout had to come with strings attached, and some of them would certainly limit what Chrysler and GM could do. But that a far cry from what Truman’s direct federal takeover of steel mills was.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:44 PM
That some military-related businesses went under is not the point. It’s that the money their workers were paid helped to jump-start the overall U.S. economy by boosting other businesses.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:46 PM
You seem to be an advocate for central planning. That didn’t work so well for the Soviets (thank goodness they didn’t ask Congress for a bailout).
Laura in Maryland on December 14, 2008 at 11:46 PM
[The Republican conservatives just say no to bailout. GM and Chrysler CEO's and UAW Bandits then point their own greed at their own heads]
GM and Chrysler CEO’s and UAW Bandits: [speaking in a low voice] Hold it! If we don’t get the bailout billions, America gets it!
George W. Bush: Hold it, men. They’re not bluffing.
Dick Cheney: Listen to them, men, They’re just crazy enough to do it!
GM and Chrysler CEO’s and UAW Bandits: [low voice] Give us those Billions or we swear we’ll blow ourselves and the American economy to Hell!
GM and Chrysler CEO’s and UAW Bandits: [now speaking in a higher voice] Oh, lo’dy, lo’d, they’s desp’it! Do what they sayyyy, do what they sayyyy…
[The Bush administration drops their objections (and principles). GM and Chrysler CEO's and UAW Bandits jam their failing companies into their own neck and drag themselves through the congress and towards mass layoffs]
Harry Reid: Isn’t anybody going to help the poor American worker?
Dick Cheney: Hush, Harry, that’s a sure way to get them killed by those Hoover Republicans!
GM and Chrysler CEO’s and UAW Bandits: [higher voice] Oooh! He’p us, he’p us! Somebody he’p use! He’p us! He’p us! He’p us!
GM and Chrysler CEO’s and UAW Bandits: [lower voice] Shut up!
[GM and Chrysler CEO's and UAW Bandits place their own hands over their own mouths, drag themselves through the door into President Bush's bailout billions office]
GM and Chrysler CEO’s and UAW Bandits: Ooh, babies we are so talented! And they are so DUMB!
MB4 on December 14, 2008 at 11:47 PM
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:39 PM
I’m with you, I don’t want to see Detroit go bust either, but there has been no concrete steps taken by the involved parties on which to structure the loans for these companies. The companies wouldn’t “vanish” anyway.
The other question is would they need the loans if those union and management policies were immediately implemented? Reducing the pay to Toyota levels, restructuring the job bank disaster they have, those steps alone would improve their bottom line.
Bishop on December 14, 2008 at 11:47 PM
Honestly… how can anyone be a comitted observer of politics today and not see the plans the dems have for the future of this country in term of nationalization, socialism and an end to free markets? Anything else is the result of cultism or a lobotomy
katy on December 14, 2008 at 11:48 PM
What is wrong with Chapter 11 bankruptcy. You seem to think this is bailout or depression. Also, the union head would not agree to wage cuts until the contract runs out in 22011. That is not the workers / union making sacrifices.
Laura in Maryland on December 14, 2008 at 11:50 PM
You’re wrong star gazer. If it smells like crap, looks like crap, it is crap. If we step in it it’s our own fault for putting socialist at the helm. It is nationalism!
katy on December 14, 2008 at 11:50 PM
It’s not central planning to stimulate the economy by acts like giving out a stimulus payment or public works programs or extending unemployment benefits. Keynes was by no means a Marxist, he was working within the capitalist system as he knew it, and it was Keynes view that sometimes governments must act to right the economy when confronted with the sort of deflation seen in 1930 that we’re seeing an echo of now.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:51 PM
Read my lips:
NO MORE BAILOUTS
WisCon on December 14, 2008 at 11:51 PM
Unless you’re talking about the federal government completely taking over the U.S. auto industry, it’s not nationalism. It wasn’t nationalizing Chrysler when the loan was made to them back in 1980 either.
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:52 PM
Why? Does the prospect of millions more unemployed Americans make more sense than a bailout to buy time for Detroit to save what it can of GM and Chrysler?
starfleet_dude on December 14, 2008 at 11:53 PM
Paying workers to produce crap is not the way to ‘jump-start’ the economy. Allowing innovative new companies the freedom to start disruptive, exciting, new ventures is…the big 3 are dying because they suck…they produce products that nobody wants…subsidising that in the name of short-term economic gain is ridiculous…it deprives companies that are competitive from capital that goes to these dead rust buckets. Companies that are actually making money (and their workers) are paying for this crap…to their detriment. BTW, I’ll bet the US could produce a few new car companies (provided the leftists don’t prevent it) in short order if these life-sucking, crap making, behomeths are allowed to die the deaths they so richly deserve. There is a reason companies fail…at least they can fertilize the soil with their carcasses.
AUINSC on December 14, 2008 at 11:54 PM
You’re hiding behind Keynes. When you advocate having the government pick and choose who thrives and who dies, who works and what is produced and how, that is the beginning of central planning.
Laura in Maryland on December 14, 2008 at 11:54 PM
That some military-related businesses went under is not the point. It’s that the money their workers were paid helped to jump-start the overall U.S. economy by boosting other businesses.
It IS the point, because after the war many companies went bust or layed-off in the millions. They could have made the same claim as Detroit is currently making: if we don’t get assistance, millions will be out of work and everyone will die.
We didn’t need Higgins boats any longer and 20,000 workers lost their jobs overnight. We didn’t need Victory ships, B17′s or jungle boots either, mostly because…well…there wasn’t a market that supporter their manufacture.
Detroit is making products that are too costly and inferior to their competition, keeping them alive without serious reform gains us nothing other than taxpayer subsidized, costly, inferior products.
Bishop on December 14, 2008 at 11:55 PM
I wonder if congress would give me a billion dollar “bridge loan” to revive the 8 track tape industry?
Kjeil on December 14, 2008 at 11:56 PM
Well, consider for a moment if Obama’s first “success” is propping up the automakers. Do you suppose he and his congressional allies wouldn’t keep propping them up, if needed, for the entire time he is in office?
It is a smart move, if an immoral one.
18-1 on December 14, 2008 at 11:56 PM
As we learned so clearly while watching the implosion of the communist bloc countries nearly twenty years ago, the whole reason companies and economies grow is precisely because there’s no government bureaucrat overseeing the myriad decisions that lead to the production of anything, let alone a car. The former Soviet Union had all sorts of product czars, and the result was horrendously bad products of insufficient supply. As Hedrick Smith noted in his essential book, The Russians, Soviet citizens waited in line for every consumer item, and were regularly unsatisfied assuming they were able to purchase anything at all. Thanks to a policy crack-up in Washington, we’ll now get to see the failure of Soviet-style planning up close.
- John Tamny
MB4 on December 14, 2008 at 11:57 PM
This isn’t 1980 and the congress and White House were not this radical and there was no green movement trying to scare the hell out of the planet. You’re talking apples and oranges. There is also no agreement to pay back the bailout. Pelosi has her eyes on turning the auto industry into her own private green experiment. It’s a nightmare waiting in the wings.
katy on December 14, 2008 at 11:58 PM
Bingo
katy on December 14, 2008 at 11:59 PM
When you advocate having the government pick and choose who thrives and who dies, who works and what is produced and how, that is the beginning of central planning.
Ding ding ding. Winner.
The question becomes what the cutoff numbers will be; how many people you employ, your gross earnings, perhaps what states you are most heavily invested in, and then all bets are off.
Bishop on December 15, 2008 at 12:00 AM
If military hardware isn’t crap as a consumer good, nothing is. But when the money made from producing it winds up being spent on goods and stimulating the economy, that’s what Keynes said would work better than simply producing goods that no one had money to buy.
starfleet_dude on December 15, 2008 at 12:01 AM
MB4 on December 15, 2008 at 12:02 AM
Good one. I have to make one snarky point; central planning may cause bread lines, but we’ll never see Buick lines.
Laura in Maryland on December 15, 2008 at 12:02 AM
I wonder if congress would give me a billion dollar “bridge loan” to revive the 8 track tape industry?
Kjeil on December 14, 2008 at 11:56 PM
If not, I have a company which produces beta-max tapes which I would happily sell to you for the rock-bottom price of ten million dollars. You might get advice from others that beta-max is dead technology, but don’t be fooled, as soon as the economy turns around, they will be all the rage again.
Bishop on December 15, 2008 at 12:04 AM
Yet not long ago Detroit was doing well, but then of course gas prices went through the roof just when the housing bubble burst as well. It isn’t unreasonable to see what could be done. You can be sure that Canada is acting to save its auto sector, and that Japan and Korea and Sweden and others are doing the same. The result is that the U.S. likely loses a very high-tech and profitable business for the sake of ideological purity, and making the recession even worse to boot.
starfleet_dude on December 15, 2008 at 12:06 AM
Chapter 11 is the right place for GM and Chrysler. The laws and process are well known and have much expedience. It’s hard to foul up. Any other course opens the door to the usual suspects; feeding time in the ol’ pigpen.
Fairness is not a goal worth pursuing. Transfer of responsibility doesn’t work either. And talking about the task is stupid. Chapter 11 does the job it was made to do.
There will be problems but what part of life doesn’t? Go with experience and you will never be too far off. Do the novel and you will find that is an historical failure dusted off for frauds sake. Get on with the job.
Bush’s heart is in the right place but this is a job for minds. Butt out, George. PDQ. Corker has come “outta nowhere” to do the heavy lifting; telling truth in this day does indeed take courage.
The really welcome news is that GOP’s demise is like Mark Twain’s … Seems there is a hellvalot of life in the ol’ gal yet. The fear and loathing of a Bambi admin. may yet become a triumph of skill and experience over youth and enthusiasm. Yeaahhaaa!!
Caststeel on December 15, 2008 at 12:06 AM
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