Kill it for now and let Obama deal with it later. He wont do the right thing and let them file Chapter eleven. He also won’t have the guts to challenge the UAW and the labor agreements. That leaves a huge gaping hole for Republians to exploit. Everybody should start boning up on the UAW jobs bank now. It’s a disgrace.

The Franknfurter Mobile
Designed by Barney Frank – it goes both ways.

The financial meltdown is like Christmas to them (if they belived in such a thing). The Neo_coms are using this as an excuse to not only run roughshod over annoying little roadblocks like the Constitution, but to remake our Capitalist into a soviet style command economy.

Foolishly, GWB has tee’d up the perfect situation for them with the ‘bailout’ package. He primed the fear pump, secured massive funding, and removed accountability because its essentially a secret program.

Wait till the Neo-Coms get hold of healthcare…. about July… in order to ‘save’ it.

They’re making the ultimate Faustian bargain if they accept the money from the Democrats.

Maybe that’s what they want, now.

I was talking to a buddy of mine who is a lawyer at some major firm or another, the name escapes me as we don’t particular like to talk about our jobs outside of work, but he was particularly upset the other day about the horrifically long hours he’s been working (especially because he can’t wait to give much of that money to Barak, he was a McCain supporter)

Anyway, I digress. He said he’d been working 13 hour days, so of course I asked on what, and he let slip he has a hand in the bailout of the Big 3. Before I could start rattling off my frustrations, he said

“The whole problem with the bailout is they want the big 3 to do exactly what they have been doing that got them into this mess. They won’t allow any concessions of the UAW, and they want cars to be produced that either people don’t want, or can’t afford, basically making the bailout impossible to pay back, and it will require another one in the future. If they would just let the management do the job they WANT to do, that they NEED to do, this problem never would have happened in the first place, and they wouldn’t be in this situation now, or be doomed to repeat the situation continuously until they do fail.”

I told my friend if the big 3 are aware of what needs to be done, and they’ve let their lobbyists know, then to do their damndeset to hold their position and not doom we the taxpayers into another spending spree we can’t afford. He said he’d try his best, though I remain in doubt of a favorable outcome.

…would you feel comfortable spending $30,000-$50,000
for a car that might not have dealerships for service in a year or two or later – like 5,6 years down the road when the car really needs service?

SO I hear now the auto-parts suppliers want a bail out.

I will go for the bail out if I can get a FREE Escalade with
custom rims….

…stunts like this: http://www.freep.com/article/20081113/BUSINESS01/311130002

they deserve Ch. 11. “Morons” would not start to describe them.

Check out this article. The idea that Congress wants to run the banking industry, the auto industry, the healtcare industry, and (if Maxine Waters is to be beleived) the oil industry, when they can’t even run thier own restaurants in the black, is enough to make you want to emigrate. Off planet.

Just like so many armchair quarterbacks thinks they could do better than the head coach in a bad game. This is the one lesson I wish the Republicans would learn and evangelize – the key issue is NOT making “smart decisions” for the economy, but rather rejecting the need for the “smart decisions” in the first place.

It doesn’t take much to claim that “I could run this better”. It unfortunately takes a lot more wisdom to realize that no matter how right and proper your ideas seem, you could be wrong, and thus you need to design a system that is resilient and adaptive to wrong ideas and bad decisions. Given that Congress is rather ethically challenged, I don’t hold out any hope if they go through with the bailout the big three’s fortunes would actually improve.

At some point one would hope that government would realize that everything they touch rots away and dies, and that the best thing they could do is to stop making laws and spend more time with their mistresses. Hmmm … does that make me an optimist?

Then maybe companies like Ford could help themselves out here with cars like this one that they can’t sell in the U.S.

Why not? Because idiots in D.C. want to tax the rich truck drivers who’s vehicles run on the same fuel (diesel).

Seems like a no-brainer, right? Incredibly fuel efficient (as good or better than a hybrid), cleaner than gasoline-powered cars, and reasonably priced. But the hybrid gets a tax break, the diesel doesn’t.

“British Leyland”

• JP

…were incapable of uttering puerilities about wishing Obama to succeed– but experience has taught me otherwise.

No, we should not wish that Obama succeed in stealing our money and killing unborn babies. The proper reaction is to forgive him and pray for his conversion, much as Catholics of an earlier generation used to pray each day for the conversion of Russia.

If you get into an argument with anyone claiming the Unions are not to blame for the Big 3′s problems, Professor Mark Perry presents the argument very well on his blog (make sure to look at the data link that supports the graph).

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/11/cancer-on-big-three-29hr-pay-gap.html

The government running the car industry? I can’t believe we are even contemplating it on this side of the Atlantic. The answer has to be no. No no no. Let all of them go bankrupt. Hell let all of them be liquidated. I don’t care if it costs a million jobs and crashes our economy for years. It would be infinitely worse in the long run were we to go that far down the socialist path. When government gets its grubby little hands on something it will not let go. And it’s all just a political favor to the unions anyway, who won’t be asked to sacrifice anything at all. Of course. Grr this makes me MAD.

The only change libs want is more control.

They don’t want to change auto, just control it.

They know we can’t influence global temperatures, but they’re trying to convince us we can and it’s quite the power grab in the name of saving us from ourselves. (Their religion, not mine)

All species on the planet must stay in exact numbers and none can become extinct, but they’ll preach about Darwinism and put their faith in that and prohibit (control) any kind of argument to this over-reaching origin of the species in schools.

They’re fine with secret ballots and push it until the unions fall by the wayside and they lose campaign contributions and then it’s “bring back open ballots”.

They’re for murdering unborn (which kind of makes sense because that group can’t vote and their about the power) but you can’t die (or kill) protecting freedom or seek justice for a loved one who was murdered.

And now I’m bored. I know, I know those darn right wing hypocrites.

(Rich) Americans are buying Hybrids. They are buying hybrid SUVS and trucks.

You can look at the data. Americans arent buying little cars. Pelosi and Reid are blaming the ecomonic woes the companies are experiencing on not producing cars that Americans arent buying. And these people went to good schools!

Cleary if GM et al want to survive they got to produce cars that move off the lot. Lets not hamper them buy forcing them to sell(and by extension, trying to force the consumers to buy) cars that dont sell.

If they want the loan (which im against) then make them deunionize, and cut liabilities.

nothing new.

The only kind of auto-maker bailout I would support would be to provide DIP (Debtor-in-possession) financing to facilitate a Chapter 11 reorganization plan. Liquidating the big 3 because of a lack of DIP financing is potentially wealth-destroying, because clearly the big 3 have value as going concerns (i.e., greater than the liquidation value of their assets).

Right now, DIP financing is not available to a lot of companies because of the general tightness in the credit markets. As a result, a lot of companies could be forced to liquidate rather than reorganize, because they can’t find financing to provide them with enough cash to get them through a Chapter 11 reorganization process.

So I would support government-provided or government-led DIP financings for the big 3, on the condition that they provide the government a plan to rationalize their cost structure (including union contracts). Else any money you throw at them will as effective as using a band-aid to try to treat a subdural hematoma.

I think he’s pretty close to completely getting it right on this..

As GM goes, so goes the GOP

Pat raises a lot of valid points that we should consider before throwing GM out with the bathwater.

The US has for quite a while kindof acted like the Republican Party; i.e. no backbone and afraid to take a stand.

We’ve slowly and surely given away our manufacturing base to the rest of the world all in the name of free trade. I’m not suggesting we go entirely protectionist like some of Pat’s diatribes have been; but there’s merit to protecting our own.

I believe a “consuming” nation that loses the ability to actually make things is doomed to failure; and we’re well on our way down that path. We don’t make much in the US anymore.

I believe the discussions here fail to realize the true overall impact of the “auto industry” on the American Economy.

One thing that would be interesting is finding out what kind of cars Peolosi, Reid, Gore, Obama, Rahmbo, etc. etc. drive or own.

How about if all future subsidies for the restaurant system had to come out of the budget for the Senate payroll, rather than the general fund? There’s no reason WE should be paying for it, and it might be an object lesson for some senators who very clearly don’t understand what happens in the real world when you set employee pay and benefits based on your vision of “justice” rather than on productivity, revenue, and costs.