Stop the Stinkin' Bailouts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

""" Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp. rose in New York trading after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Congress to pass an auto-industry bailout, embracing the premise that GM is too big to be allowed to fail.

In calling for an emergency aid plan, Pelosi rejected calls to let GM collapse and sided with the largest U.S. automaker and its allies in trying to prevent a ``devastating'' domino effect that would cost millions of jobs. """

When will our elected officials learn that this is a bad policy???? And both sides of the aisle are equally guilty of this. If three US car makers are too many for the country to support, then let them morph into two or one. Or, what a concept, they think ahead and evolve into a company that develops products that people want to buy. If this was the attitude in the early 1900's the horse industry would have been bailed out to save it from that new horseless carriage thing.

yea i agree it is a bunch of crap.....i wrote to my senators and my congressman a while back to vote no to the bailout.......the congressman voted no to the bailout, so i voted for him.......the senators both voted yes.....when their re election is up, i am not going to vote for them that's for damm sure

This is a tough one. 5 million jobs is a lot to lose.

I agree. They act like every job would disappear. Another auto company would step in, buy up their assets, and life would go on. Nothing like privatizing profits and socializing losses. The best thing the government can do is solve the health care issue. With GM in particular they spend more for health care than they do for sheet metal.

All of these bailouts should come with a heavy price to the upper management of these companies. Nothing like getting a big bonus for screwing up your job. I'm all for confiscating every nickel they own and putting it back in the hands of the company or investors. They want to make the big bucks, there ought to be consequences for poor decisions. If a small business person screws up losing everything is exactly what happens, it's time for the people running the large companies to feel the same pain.

That is real tuff subject. I guess Ford has enough cash for 2009 and Gm for the first 1/4. Theres alot of jobs other then the ones just making cars here. It's like all the car jobs times 5 involved. Losing all those jobs could be really bad for american workers. I saw a figure on what GM is paying retires on pensions and health insurance. It was alot of cash. Sure they earned it for their years of sevice. You would think somehow their on medicare and Gm and Ford should just be paying the 20% and part B , along with D. Sure that would save them alot of cash. Strong union that UAW.

I believe medicare is mandatory at age 65. My father in law was a union sheet metal worker. The union's insurance became the secondary when he turned 65.

yea i'm all for taking away the assests of these managers that ran these companies into the ground......make em live like the lower middle class

I still say if we're all about nationalizing the private sector now...let's nationalize the oil industry!

Devil505 wrote:I still say if we're all about nationalizing the private sector now...let's nationalize the oil industry!

Hey wait a minute..... I thought you mentioned in another thread that we should all sell our oil company stocks now before it was too late and they tanked. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, or it was a sarcastic statement or something.....I can't be responsible for my mental capabilities right now since my head is exploding from these bailouts!

titleist1 wrote:Hey wait a minute..... I thought you mentioned in another thread that we should all sell our oil company stocks now before it was too late and they tanked. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, or it was a sarcastic statement or something.....I can't be responsible for my mental capabilities right now since my head is exploding from these bailouts!

You're quite right.....I don't see where my "sell your oil company stock" advice & desire to nationalize Exxon-Mobil are mutually exclusive though??? (oil company nationalization would be a strictly PUNITIVE measure, to punish them for Price Fixing!)

(& the chance of them "Tanking" was never mentioned & would never happen.....They are the ONE industry SOARING right now!! )

Hey, Dev and I agree on something!!!!!!!

The problem with a bailout is that if it's not structured properly these comapnis will just take longer to die out. The big three need to consolidate and become lean and mean. Whose going to buy these cars anyway. Low cost leases are going away and poor credit consumers will have to buy a lesse car with cash.

traderfjp wrote:This is a tough one. 5 million jobs is a lot to lose.

Either way, the economy/markets decide how many jobs are out there, not GM, not pelosi. Chapter 11 is not "going out of business", it is an avenue of protection. Detroit needs it to survive, bailout just prolongs the pain.

I thought that all of these companies that are getting bail out money only hired the best and brightest employees. Are they only the best at running a company into the ground, what are they teaching in collage anymore. I'll be glad when it's farmers and other hard working people that take control of things again. I would of never said the word bailout in the first place I would of told all of them to call a lawyer and file chapter 11. I'm glad the real snow will be flying soon because I'm getting tired of the government snow jobs.

lincolnmania wrote:yea i'm all for taking away the assests of these managers that ran these companies into the ground......make em live like the lower middle class

Who should "take" the assets and where should they go?

Sounds like the buzzword of the day, "redistribution of wealth"?

The big 3 went for the low hanging high-profit fruit of gas guzzing SUV's and then got caught with their pants down when fuel prices went up. Early 1970's all over again.

While I do put a large amount of the blame on econazi's, whose push for higher CAFE standards resulted in cars that no one wanted to buy/drive, there is also blame to be had by the big 3 for lack of technological innovation. Their solution instead was to exploit the SUV/light truck emissions loophole to build cars people wanted to drive. If they had their way we would still have open crankcases, mechanical ignition, carborators, non-overdrive transmissions and bias-ply tires.