.The Hondas and and Toyotas will join soon enough. The reluctance of American manufacturers to change to good mileage autos was stupid.But that is not a good reason to put a couple hundred thousand workers in the street. Citi group is up for 300 billion. They pretend that banking is far too complicated for the tax payers to understand. We must now trust the thieves who ripped us off, Sorry that does not compute. This bailout is just an excuse to protect the rich.
Not if we avoid this stupid bailout, because they’ll see thier market share balloon. **They’ll be able to sell far more cars. **
Look, you’re from Michigan, we get it.
So why do you want to expand it?
I want the money to actually save jobs. That is the promise of the big 3 bailout. That in turn cuts back on new foreclosures. That too is good.
The money going to the financial institutions is just a huge giveaway to the people who created the mess ,through mismanagement and deliberate concealment of what they were doing. I think they should be in court. I think congress should drag the financial experts that looted us in front of investigating committees.
Paulson made 750 million off the swaps. He petitioned the government in backing the Gramm bill to slay Glass/Steagall. He was as responsible as anyone in creating the fiasco. He assured us that the bankers are superior types that will really self police. They are just financial thugs.
Any money being given to the auto industry is also a huge giveaway to the people who created a mess. Why are mismanagers at Chrysler somehow exempt from criticism while mismanagers at Smith Barney aren’t? The auto industry has been getting government help for decades- protective tariffs, focused tax breaks, “loans”, and so on. At least the financials have generally been profitable for the last twenty years. When was the last time Ford or GM turned a profit for two straight quarters?
It is not a huge giveaway. Paulson said today he wants another 800 bill to unfreeze the credit market. That was the point of the first 700 bill. He is saying it did not work. Lets try it again.
That is a huge giveaway. We pretend that these guys are so smart nobody in the country can understand the complexities of banking. Yet,there were a lot of economists predicting what happened. Why do we not use them to fix the mess?
The 25 bill for auto makers is dwarfed by the banking grab. The auto money would keep people working. I think just ignoring the auto companies and allowing millions to get canned would be very bad for all aspects of the economy. Deliberately making them suffer is a fools game.
Toyota’s quarterly profit drops 69 percent
Toyota has more cash. They don’t need to pay retirement and health benefits to our parents and grandparents who put a lifetime of work into a company and helped us win World war II.
Is the financial crisis the reason the domestics are less cost competitive? No.
It is the reason for the huge crash in auto sales. Thus the loan request.
The board of directors sets executive travel policy, it wasn’t the CEO’s decision whether or not to take a jet.
You’re right, they ask their own goverment for help.
No shit it’ll hurt the economy. The big question is, will this money actually change anything?. So far I have yet to hear anything–and your own posts are far from the most thought out here–that would convince me otherwise. I see no reason to consider such a bailout a good idea if all it will do is delay the inevitable.
As RickJay said, we get it, you’re from Michigan.
Stop focusing on this compared to the banking bailout. The issue is not how much money is being asked for, it’s if the returns will be worth it. Whether or not the $700B was a good idea doesn’t have any impact of whether the $25B the Big 3 are asking for is worth giving them.
But they’ll survive, won’t they? That’s what separates business that live from ones that die. Life’s like that.
Oh, for Christ’s sake. Now I’m being mean to my Grandma because I don’t want my tax money going to prop up incompetent businesses?
When someone can provide me with a reason why this $25 billion is well spent as opposed to the opportunity costs, such as giving the $25 billion to someone to buy out GM, or giving it back to the taxpayer to they can buy cars made by companies that are not going under, of giving ME $25 billion and I’ll start my own car company, then I’ll support it. But even the Big 3 didn’t bother to come up with a plan; it’s just “we’re too big to fail” and “You’re mean to Grandma.”
I find it staggering that people can’t see the problem in giving money to three businesses who, at their current rate of losing money, will simply burn through it in one or two years and will, as surely as the sun rises in the East, then ask the taxpayer for more billions. Money given to an incompetent business is money wasted. It would make far, far more sense to give the $25 billion in $10 million chunks to 2500 medium-sized businesses that can come up with business plans for how they’d spend it to create jobs. You offer me $10 million and I promise I’ll employ scores of people indefinitely. If you wouldn’t support the RickJay 2500 Business Superduper Cash Giveaway Act, you’ve got no reason to support a Big 3 bailout that would meet any long-term economic rationale.
The argument about Rickjay biz is jejune. It is irrelevant.
The big 3 employ hundreds of thousands and peripherally many,many more. The economy is reeling and I think sinking the big 3 will make things much worse. You may get some pleasure at sinking companies you do not like. I get none. I am thinking of whats good for the coutry and the economy. The fact is that part of their problem is due to very bad banking and financial policies of the last few years. Banks are still not lending. The auto companies are vulnerable and the financial crisis has hurt them. Timing is everything. The government is now the lender of last resort. The banks are taking billions of tax money in and keeping it. How is that helping the economy?
I get none whatsoever.
It’s not. Which is why the massive bailouts must stop.
Only they are not. They are increasing. We are in panic mode. The bankers are in charge and they are trying to salvage what they caused. They do not want the death of America on their hands. It is too late.
he AW has hundreds of billions of $ invested. Why don’t they BUY GM and FORD? Then they could run these companies the way they see fit-and fire the managers they don’t like.
Seems like a win-win to me. They might even hire Michael Myers as well.
You are totally immune to reason and you ignore all the arguments which have been presented against this idea. The big three have a serious problem: they are making cars which are not selling. It makes no sense whatsoever to just give them money so they can continue to make cars which will continue to not sell. And when YUou have covered several states with unsold cars then what do you do? Recycle them as junk? This is just make work like they did in Russia and China.
Why not give the money to consumers so they can buy the cars they like? Why does it have to go to the Big Three Disasters? Why, rather than take money in as taxes and then dole it out to the incompetent and the well-connected, why not just lower taxes and let people spend it as they see fit?
You are totally ignoring everything put forward here. Not to mention that history shopws that such schemes are always a bad deal.
The big three sell about half of the vehicles sold in the US. People buy them. The reason for the huge sales drop off (for all manufacturers) is the credit crisis and loss of consumer confidence.
Chrysler paid back it’s 1980 loan seven years early with interest. Chrysler turned a profit in 1982 and the government made $311 million in the sale of stock warrants and another $25 million in loan guarantee fees.
What history are you talking about?
Well, that’s the way it is in hard times. Did GM, Ford and Chrysler actually believe that there would never again be a recession? No government agency’s running to bail out my company, or my wife’s company.
Companies that were smart enough to plan to weather hard times will live. Those that aren’t so smart should not be subsidized by the smart ones. It’s essentially a tax on prudence and a subsidization of incompetence.
I notice nobody is addressing the key question; why will $25 billion help three businesses who at their current rate will blow through every penny in one or two years, and who don’t have a plan for how they’d use the $25 billion to prevent that?
Well, someone’s definitely in panic mode. Do you work in Dearborn or something, gonzo?
Chrysler paid its loan off with interest because it was required to by the terms of the original loan. I can guarantee Ford and GM and Chrysler are not asking for money with strings attached, and Congress isn’t going to attach them.
The money men on CNBC are seriously scared. They are supposed to be financial experts and they pretty well agree that the efforts taken have not worked. The money is disappearing fast and the economy is not changing. More banks line up at the pay window every day. I am not using Detroit as a harbinger . I am using the lack of lending as a litmus. I am using the increase in foreclosures as a indication. I am looking at a much bigger picture than Detroit.
If the root cause is foreclosures,why did we not address it. The money went to the financial institutions which kept it for their own use.Paulson decided not to deal with the assets.
There are now programs to deal with the mortgages. They are just starting. I hope it is not too late.
But, But, they need their own personal jet for safety reasons!
:rolleyes:
IIRC, GM’s pension fund is seriously underfunded, and if GM goes tits up, the Feds will step in and “make good” on the pension. I wouldn’t be surprised if the other car makers were in the same situation. I wonder how the costs of taking over the pension funds will compare to the $25 billion.
Not an important point at all. The airplanes are a small amount to zero in on. I understand it looks bad ,but it is not a real problem.The whole discussion is just a diversion.
I want the financial companies to show a plan next time they come in. I want to see them treated the same way. These guys filtered billions out of the system. I want them to give some back.