notagool on December 23, 2008 at 11:25 AM

So I don’t exist? So those cars that are on the road don’t exist either?

Some of us know muscle is overpriced on transplants, and that we won’t drive golfcarts just because that’s what’s offered.

IMHO, Americans are not that stupid.

Otherwise, how will the UAW contintue to maintain excellent lifestyles for its members even though nobody wants to buy the cards it builds.

Is there anything more idiotic than spending more than 100k dollars on a full page “thanks for letting me waste your money” ad ? [...]

For those in Detroit who have never operated a lemonade stand, or any other business, the way profits are generated is by making products at a price people want to buy them for, and then producing them, with all costs allocated, for less than you are selling them for. It’s not apparent that this is a principle that Detroit understands.

And while you are at it, when you spend marketing money, spend it to sell cars, not on Bull**** ads that accomplish nothing.

Point taken; he certainly had lots of help. I meant (so far as I know) the first explicitly anti-capitalist President, at least the first to effectively attack it. But, I agree, what he writes there has much to recommend it.

upinak on December 22, 2008 at 6:23 PM

That is because the voting public think ALL the other states keep sending lying, thieving, narcissistic bastards back to Washington, while they keep sending the only smart and honest ones back. When there are more people on the dole than there are to fill up the pot, then the necessary changes will be made and the likes of Chris Dodd, Barney and xxx Kennedy(you fill in the xxx) will only be a painful memory.

JDPerren on December 22, 2008 at 9:41 PM

I don’t know about Teddy being THE one to initiate casting capitalism aside, but the words still ring true.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp survey revealed that 63% of Americans are okay with the president’s $13 billion bailout of the Detroit automakers. While most support the bailout, 85% don’t think an automaker bankruptcy would lead to the apocal…

It is a shame that there were no pre conditions on the bank bailouts which do not seem to require repayment. These banks got taxpayer money to cover their gambling debts yet show little interest in cutting some slack for their own debtors, like easing rediculous overdraft and late charges and penalty interest hikes.

Since new credit card rules are coming in this summer to prevent banks from raising interest on current balances, expect the bailed out banks to move fast to raise interest now on their credit card holders or shut down lines of credit before the new rules come in.

The car companies are making cars for the taxpayer money they would get. The banks are not making loans and they have just been handed a 6 month time frame to take advantage of the weak before the government protections kick in

As these credit lines are reeled in, the car makers will be squeezed even worse. In six months we will see the real crash from the new banking rules if what they say about the US being a cnsumer economy is true

the_nile on December 22, 2008 at 7:58 PM

No, the South lines up to be the next scapegoat.

I’d be interested to know how much the transplants are paying the South to resist in Congress.

The question should be – Would you buy an auto from the Big 3 if they continue getting money from the government?

Yes. Unless the transplants can start making Detroit style cars for Detroit prices (read: spurning the environmentalists and asking the most devoted to Detroit how they’d want to see something built), they don’t have anything worth buying.

I’ve had enough of them designing cars as if they listened to the “lifestyle environmentalists”. When they start taking cues from Detroit in that manner, they’ll have the ear of plenty of people.

Whatever help extended to the Big Three should have only come after the UAW came to the table with real concessions.

I respectfully disagree. Under no circumstances whatsoever could it be moral to give taxpayer money to GM and Chrysler, and not simply because they’ve done a poor job at their business. If they were all saints and the most deserving people in the country, it is still a violation of the most fundamental principles on which this country was founded and I for one still believe in them.

That’s the question that ought to be on the lips of everyone who is talking about bailing out the automakers.

……….. comrade.

Only 28 percent would approve of providing the automakers more money, with 70 percent saying let them go bankrupt.

The problem is , this was just a “bridge loan” until Mars, they need more money by then.

Bush probably did the right thing by not being the convenient scapegoat when the shit really hits the fan.The Dems owns it all now.

As long as they don’t get their chicks for free.

flipflop on December 22, 2008 at 7:12 PM

Nah. No star power.
Besides, it would probably hurt their rep.