Auto industry bailout: 'No endgame here'

No bailout- Total waste of taxpayers money-
The American Auto Industry will never be competive with high union wages and work rules-

DONATE to the 'poor' UNIONS!!!

This charade of an AUTO BAIL-OUT is actually a smoke-screen to empower the UNIONS - the UAW and the AFL/CIO into financial well-being for a coupla years unti the next waste of our 'tax monies'!!! AND MORE MONIES IN 2 - 4 YEARS WILL BE NEEDED AS THE MOBSTERS/THUGS/PUNKS OF THESE UNIONS TAKE MORE AND MORE. After-all the UNION MOBSTERS need to 'do-away' with the 'secret-ballot' to ensure their gangsterism. YEAH OUR TAX MONIES USED TO KEEP UNIONS-of-MOBSTERS IN POWER. Great place this SOCIALIST STATES of AMERIKA.

The Employee-Free Choice Act will give the choice of whether to have a secret-ballot election to decide whether to give power to speak for all the employees in a shop to the union supporters if they get over half the employees to sign up. Those who would vote "no" won't get to unless the union supporters say they can (fat chance). Despite the dismal failures of organized labor - due in no small part to the willingness of auto manufacturers to simply pass higher costs to car buyers - this industry is doomed. Do you really want to continue to support this industry and its extortionate union at taxpayer expense? Treat auto-loan lenders like other financial institutions so they can continue to make loans to credit-worthy individuals, but don't bail out the union car makers.

Thanks a lot for the mess you left our country in, Repuglicans..

Trickle Down VooDoo Reganomics is DEAD!!!
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Why support a business model that has failed and has little hope or ever reviving? The Democrats are obligated to support labor no matter what. It doesn't make any sense, but labor is one of their big voting blocks. Look for the Dems to do all they can to expand labor in the coming years. Is this the change Obama has in mind in a global market?

The bailout has to be financed by tax dollars.

And those tax dollars will ELIMINATE JOBS in other industries. A bailout will NOT save jobs. Barney Frank wants to preserve the top-dollar jobs of his union friends in Detroit by destroying everybody else's job.

NO, NO, NO. Enough is enough. The country is better of without GM and Ford. There will be short term pain for a lot of people. But it is a hard lesson we have to learn. Blame GM and Ford. Honda, Toyota and other auto makers will fill the gap and the supplier will continue to sell spare part for a long time to com. Read WSJ on Sat 11/15.

The Republicans can kiss Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, good-bye. I don't think those voters will have much use for the Republicans, if they torpedo the Democrats' attempt at salvaging the ( Not so) Big 3 !! They can blindly throw $700 Billion Bailout for their Buddies in the Banking Scandal, but not the a cent for the 3 Million workers and their families !!? No wonder, the Republicans were trounced in the general election !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.

did you understand 1 in 10 jobs? That's an additional 10% out of work. No taxes paid to govt. No local tax base for schools, police, fire, etc. Think there are foreclosures now? Like it or not the govt can't afford to let the industry fail.

Brinkmanship at a critical time. I agree that GM should be let fail but, can we afford that feel good action today? Put failure off six months for 25 B? I would vote for that. Some daring leadership needed now. Spite and wrong headed delays will hurt much more than a few Billion bridge.

As the ecomony worsens I'm looking forward to seeing how all the folks that lose their jobs will react to a union member bailout. Should be interesting. ah, good old Chicago politics.

This bail out will probably happen just like the last sham that took place; this is a case of the rich stealing from the rest of the world and then laughing about it when they get double what asked for.

The unions have driven the industry into the ground, and this is why Walmart is not going failing. The party is over unions. Good riddance.

The US companies are shouldering millions of health care and retirement costs that the Toyota's and Honda's of the world are not. This is because they are "old" compaines that committed to their workforce that they would have retirement healthcare and retirement pensions. People are living longer - someone drawing a Ford pension today at 85 years old has drawn a pension almost as long as they worked at the company!!! This basically doubles the labor cost - the cost to build a car/truck today and the cost to maintain the retiree base. Could the companies do what many others have done (airlines, for example) and go into bankruptcy and kill their pension plans? Sure. Is that what we want? Millions suddenly without income?

Why bail out an industry that has not led the way to energy conservation? The technology has BEEN available yet because of greed and being in bed with the oil industry the automobile manufacturers of America have left us, the American consumer high and dry. They have had ample opportunity to do what is right but have refused to have the foresight to go forward with technologies that could have kept themselves out of the pit they are in now. Let them sink. They got themselves where they are now. The leaders in the auto industry are the Japanese. Detroit should have taken the lead long ago! Sounds to me like Toyota and Nissan might be the next place I have to take my Fords for maintenance!

Your Guide to the Coming Republican Civil War

Many of you have heard reports about the coming Republican Civil War, which I will henceforth be referred to as THE WAR TO END ALL REPUBLICANS ("WEAR," for short)

But most of this has been discussed merely as a split between the camps of John Sidney McCain and Sarah Louise Heath Palin, specifically focusing on matters of the approach to the campaign.

But, in reality, there are several factions competing for the "soul" of the Republican Party, or at least the closest thing to a soul the party could dig out of a deep, dark, recess that's best not described in polite company.

Here's a little handy little guide to help us all better understand who the various factions in the Republican party are, and what sides we can expect them to be taking in the upcoming WEAR.

Your Guide to the Coming Republican Civil War

First, let's start with the obvious broad categories:

BIG BUSINESS THIEVES:
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Their likes are deregulation, tax breaks for the wealthy, making a lot of money no matter who or what it hurts, complete lack of accountability and offshore accounts to hide certain kinds of profits from the IRS.
Their dislikes are corporate responsibility, people who write them letters and anyone who attempts to regulate any aspect of their business.

They favor Republicans because Republicans are eager and willing to take large donations and, in turn, just sort of look the other way when they, I dunno, don't bother paying taxes on public property for forty years.

RELIGIOUS/"FAMILY VALUES" NUTCASES
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Their likes are smug superiority, people like them, amendments banning same-sex marriage, the death penalty, gays who attack other gays and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Their dislikes are gays, Muslims, people who look like Muslims, people who aren't like them, people who dare to criticize them, elitists, vegetarians, Wiccans, abortion, people who are sane Christians, people who act too Jewish, gay or catholic.

They favor Republicans because they think Republicans will eventually overturn Roe v Wade and because Republicans pretend to like them in exchange for their support.

WARMONGERS/NEOCONS
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Their likes are war, violence, and anything which makes them think America is superior.
Their dislikes are France, Europe, France, any country that's not the United States, France, Canada, and peacenicks.

Their likes are anyone who likes war as much as they do, especially if they're dark-skinned enough and crazy-sounding enough to justify us going to war with them. This means you, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

They like Republicans because Republicans are consistently thrilled to talk up war and violence, even when it's not in their best interest to do so.

LIBERTARIANS/ANTI-TAX NUTCASES
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Libertarians like very small government and freedom. They hate excessive spending, big government and waste.
It is often unclear as to why they like Republicans.

RACISTS
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Their likes are people who look like them and anyone who helps them justify their bigotry. Their dislikes are everyone else.
They like republicans because Republicans make them think they're not really racist.

USEFUL IDIOTS:
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Their likes are people who say the right kind of thing, regardless of their actions. Their dislikes are anyone who tries to correct their understanding of the world.
They like Republicans because they use catchy buzzwords and because they are idiots.

There are, of course, other categories we could discuss, but these will serve as basic categories for the discussion. There are plenty of people who overlap in this group. John McCain, for example, would fall into the Warmonger category, but he'd also fit directly in with Big Business. Many of his supporters fall into those categories as well as the Useful Idiot category because he can talk a good game about veterans issues, but actually does very poorly with them.

Sarah Palin, on the other hand, fits in easily with Religious Nutcases, Racists and Useful Idiots. In fact, assume that everyone I mention here includes that last group in some capacity from this point on. I'll focus instead on the other two: she's loved by religious nutcases because she is one and she's loved by racists because she gave them so much great rhetoric during the campaign so as to make them think that their racism and xenophobia was, on some level, acceptable.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is all Big Business and Family Values. My suspicion about Romney is that he is less someone with convictions then someone who was so sure that he needed to say certain things to get elected that he's actually convinced himself that he believes them. But he's got a strong base of support, just not strong enough that he didn't need to fund his own campaign with a whole lot of his own money.

But how about Mike Huckabee? He's clearly loved by the Religious Nutcases but seems to be anti-racism, at least in his rhetoric. He's hated by big business but somewhat in the libertarian category, except he believes in universal education. In other words, one of the popular Republican candidates has some campaign issues more in favor with Democrats than Republicans.

Which brings us to Ron Paul, who represents an entirely different aspect of the Republican party, with the vast majority of his support coming from Libertarians and Racists, and definitely not the religious nutcases nor the warmongers.

With the exception of John McCain, there is a good possibility that all these individuals will be running for President in 2012 and this is where the WEAR comes in.

There are lots of rumors spreading about what happened behind the scenes in the McCain/Palin campaign, which helps set the stage for the upcoming battle. I.e., Romney camp spreading Palin stories?, Palin aide strikes back at McCain camp, etc. Most of you have seen much of this, so I won't bother reiterating.

But this is the basic dynamic: people from the Romney, McCain and Palin factions seem to really have it in for one another. Romney's appeal to the Family Values nutcases is damaged by the fact that he's a Mormon and most Family Values nutcases don't like anyone who's not a Christian (or, at the very least, an acceptably conservative Jew) and most assuredly do not think of Mormonism as "Christian." McCain's people pretty much hate Romney and now they seem to really hate Palin. They blame her for having hurt McCain's chances and being an all around crappy candidate and for "going rogue" from time to time. And then there's the whole Palin/underwear thing (which has nothing to do with Romney).

But the real gold here is that this scatters those categories I listed above. Libertarians are already finding problems with the Republican party, which has largely increased spending during their tenure and made government a lot bigger (and a lot more anti-freedom). Big Business will support anyone who helps them out, and turning the economy into a great big sinkhole really doesn't help big business all that much.

The religious nutcases are now split, with some going to Obama and most still preferring Republicans but willing to sit the election out if someone who's not sufficiently evangelical gets nominated. Granted, there are still plenty of racists, and they probably (if possible) like the Republicans a little more than they used to, but probably think of them as weak little sissies if they cooperate on Obama with anything.

So most of what's left for Republicans are useful idiots. And the great thing about useful idiots is that they're stupid enough to start chasing each other around with baseball bats rather than us. So when big business starts blaming religious nutcases and religious nutcases start blaming warmongers and warmongers start blaming libertarians who, in turn, blame everybody, well, hijinx ensue.

This is going to be sort of like "Glengarry Glen Ross" crossed with a Keystone Cops movie.

Get your popcorn ready, folks. This is going to be fun!
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Sorry Icky, looks like your lovely Republicans haven't learned a thing from the election! Sure bail out the richest sectors but not the middle class. I would also like to add that your Republican adminsitration for the past eight years gave no push for the auto industry to have incesntive to comeup with new and better ideas. Not to mention that the auto industries best performing cars are not even introduced into the American market! You guys only care about the rich companies that dont give a damn about the average American!
Lets hope and pray the Democrats get those needed senators to block you and your losing party of un-American policies!

Petition Congress at:

http://www.rallycongress.com/no-bailout-for-the-auto-industry/1409/

NO BAILOUT FOR THE AUTO INDUSTRY

Nancy Pelosi, with the help of Barney Frank, wants to bail out yet another failed sector of the economy. It is not government’s role to reward incompetent, overpaid executives pursuing a failed and anachronistic business model. The American auto industry is in trouble because it produces a shoddy, polluting, gas guzzling product at noncompetitive prices driven by trade union benefit packages. It is a waste of taxpayer money to try to shore up an industry that needs to be radically restructured. The Big Three should be allowed to fail and file for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. They will not cease to exist, but will be restructured under the supervision of the bankruptcy courts. Congress cannot do a better job than the courts. The courts will supervise the reorganization of the industry without being tempted to reward lobbyists, campaign contributors and unions for their political and financial support.

Congress must allow the economy, existing laws and judicial bodies to resolve the Big Three’s financial problems and not throw more taxpayer money away under a hasty and ill conceived bailout.

After being made to look really stupid by the banks, Congress and the Senate are now getting all balled up about whatever they can imagine and missing a chance to stimulate the economy and keep millions of Americans working. You really have to wonder what evil forces are at work in our government and who these people are working for.

The American auto industry has stood behind the country for a hundred years through two world wars and these people are hesitating to get behind them and doing their very best to make the economy much worse. They are wondering if they should put millions more out of work and incur costs in the hundreds of billions of dollars in the meantime. Now is not the right time to make things harder.

They can't get the banks to loan money so when they give the automakers their loans, they should also fund Ford Credit, GM Credit, and Chrysler Financial and mandate that these automaker credit companies give out very low cost loans to anyone who can afford to make the payments.

http://ewebsmith.com/Finance/hiddendemon.html

They can't sell their products anyway because there aren't a lot of people lending money for car purchases. That is what is hurting the manufacturers and dealerships across the country. The local auto row is beginning to look more and more like a ghost town every day. So giving money to auto manufacturers isn't going to rescue the industry. The credit problem that has been preventing new car sales has to be sorted out first.

"Among the opponents: Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.: "I think this is the wrong road to go down right now,'' he said in a debate with Frank on the Sunday morning show. "There is no endgame here,'' Shelby said. "We've got failing automobile manufacturers... got a bad model, got bad management, no innovation... Now we're talking about putting another 25 (billion) into a system, a model that's not going to work".
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So this is what the right wing knuckledraggers have been reduced to?
Everything that isn't their idea is Marxist or Communist. I hope they keep it up. A whole generation has grown up without the Cold War, and these young people are listening to the Repubs and asking themselves and each other: WTF?

Why do I get the feeling that if the auto industry is not bailed out, we are going to see a parade of senior, auto industry executives taken to task and crucified for their financial "excesses": and on those crosses of crucifixion we will not see one Jesus figure... but only the figure of the thief and his ilk. I do hope I'm wrong: I'd like to have my faith restored... and a Jesus figure or two might do it for me: alas I have no hope in regards to those executives not being crucified. It seems we always have to find someone to "blame": it seems to satisfy symbolically some form of blood lust we have in our humankind's nature... and if we cannot find guilt in someone... we sure as heck have no problem finding a scapegoat. Weird, eh? Anyway lets hope that if we do crucify the auto industry's executives, that we do so not in gross error. Yours sincerely, Daryl Atamanyk

Why would anyone put $25 billion into a company such as Ford and GM (Chrysler is private) whose combined market capitalization is just over $6 billion? It doesn't make sense. Maybe BO and the dems should ask their financial guru Warren Buffet if he would put $25 billion of his own money into this investment if he had it. If he says no, then why should we as taxpayers put our hard earned money into these companies. Warren could pay cash for both of these companies - so if this investment isn't good enough for Buffet, why should it be good enough for us?

I think we best be getting on with the promise of making America energy independent.Iran just asked OPEC to reduce production by yet another 1.5 million barrels per day.This past year and the record gas prices played a huge part in our economic meltdown and seriously damaged our society.We keep planning to spend BILLIONS on bailouts and stimulus plans.Bail us out of our dependence on foreign oil. Make electric plug in car technology more affordable. It cost the equivalent of 60 cents a gallon to drive an electric plug in car. The electric could be generated from wind or solar. Get with it! Utilize free sources such as wind and solar. Stop throwing away money on things that don't work. Invest in America and it's energy independence. Create cheap clean energy, create millions of badly needed green collar jobs. Put America back to work. It is a win-win situation. We have to become more poractive citizens, educate ourselves and demand our elected officials move this country forward into the era of energy independence. Jeff Wilson's new book The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence NOW outlines a plan for America to wean itself off oil. We need a plan and we need it now!

I see the Bush-McCain Republicans haven't been hit hard enough !! They still haven't figured out that the election, for them, was a whack across their chops. for being so stupid and Unamerican !! Now, they want to send America into a depression and do you know why ? The unions dare to demand a fair share of the profits, that their labor provides the so called shareholders and managers ! They would rather put the entire nation in the toilet, rather than help an industry, whose leadership, reminds me of, that which we were supposed to have in our White House, for the last 8 years. The remaining Bush-McCain Republicans want to continue those failed and suspicious policies. They haven't learned yet, that the election was a solid rebuke, a rejection of the incompetency of the last 8 years !! I guess, the remaining dinosours need a good wallop. Get those 2 by 4s ready again, America !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.

Republicans are willing to put hundreds of billions into bailing out the financial sector but they say no to helping the auto industry that will put tens of millions out of work and push us into a depression. It's that the GOP hates the auto unions with a vengeance and they are willing to send the economy into a tailspin to accomplish their goal. Republicans say OK to billions to AIG without any oversight and then give them billions more when they ask for it. But labor must be punished in the GOP play book the way Reagan destroyed the air traffic controllers. They want to put the government in the bathtub and drown it and leave the banks to rip us off. They conveniently forget it's the government that's bailing out the banks and that's sacred. But labor is evil and expendable.

forced into another impossible position by poor leadership, corporate greed, auto and energy lobbyists and the republican apologist enablers.

look for the repub re-write of this mess in four years.

The only way I would back such a move to bailout the auto industry is if they cleared out all of the investment people running the companies and hired back the engineers and idea people.They don't sell cars anymore for the love of the product, they sell you a pile of plastic so they can earn a dollar to invest in the stock market. It's all about the money, not the product.

Looks like the Unions have the Democratic congress under thier control like a puppet-

Some facts that have to be rationalized against any argument for a big three bailout with our money.

Labor Costs; big 3- $73/hour vs. Foreign carmaker- $48/hour.

Big 3 Business model that only works when people are buying trucks and SUVs.

UAW has already declared that it will NOT renegotiate the current labor agreement.

Stock values at almost zero.( because of the above).

So we have companies that have been run horribly, have negotiated horribly with labor, and whose success depends on low oil prices. Oil prices, that will surely spike again given this congress and presidents aversion to common sense energy policy.

Will a bailout change any of this?

If this were money coming directly out of your wallet- not through a tax -would you invest in these companies? (see stock price- these companies have been performing horribly well before the recent financial meltdown)

Both the financial bailouts and the proposeed auto co bailout are bad ideas... the only thing that makes the financial bailout arguably rational is that bailing out large banks in order to get the financial system moving , in theory, effects us all... a big three bailout impacts a small percentage of taxpayers.

There is a great way to bail out these companies. It's called, bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy is what happens when you have companies that are non-viable. That allows the capital that is still around to be purchased by people who will - hopefully - put it to better use.
In fairness, management didn't TOTALLY suck. They had NLRB rules and political pressure to deal with. These guys job was supposed to be selling automobiles - not serving as a host for the UAW to parasitize, and like any body plagued with parasites, they became more and more inefficient as more and more resources went to the parasite and less and less to the body. Eventually in nature the body that is too parasitized dies - and that's what's happening to the Big Three.

Why don’t we use the bail out money to help the automakers make the public transportation we need instead of promoting adding more automobiles to the congested roads we have? By the way this also would help to balance the huge trade deficit, improve the air we breathe and give us more time to be with our families instead of being stuck in traffic.

It's so sad, Americans bashing other Americans and wanting our country to fail. Pissed off because someone makes more per hour than them. Or has better benefits. Pissed off at middle class people who pay taxes, who shop and spend money, who vacation in other part of our own country. I don't know why Al Queda even bothers plotting against us, we seem resigned to let our country go to hell on our own.

There are more than just evil UAW factory workers that stand to lose their jobs and suffer if the big 3 fail. There are salary engineers and IT people, contract workers, food service people, advertisers, dealerships, suppliers and all kinds of businesses that rely on the big 3. All of the areas where there are big 3 facilities will wither and die and it's not just Detroit. It's all over. Think there is a lending crisis now? Add a couple million more foreclosures to the banks list. See how banks deal with people not paying their car note or credit card bill.

Other countries protect their industry. Hey GM, want to sell cars in Japan? Good luck. Doing business there will cost you. Want to sell cars in China? Sure, as long as you build plants in there and hire and train their workforce. You just can't export American made cars there. But all you other countries, we'll take your products. Bring them on, we'll make it cheap for you to import them. Heck, want to build a plant here, no prob. Put one in Alabama. We'll give you tons of tax breaks, pay your workers half of what American car companies pay, you don't need to take care of your retirees..the American government can do that. We'll set you up for success. Make it so you can afford more research and development, so you can sell your cars cheaper and spend more on quality. The American companies, they made some crappy cars 20 years ago and even though their quality has caught back up and in many cases surpassed their foreign competitors, let's keep bashing them because they take care of their workers.

Well I'm not giving up. Fix the credit crisis. Loan the big 3 some money so they can make it through the crisis. Americans, support each other, buy American.