finknottle Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 Harley Davidson also. The banks, too. Big Government is basically saving the whole lot of these companies. Good. What's government for? To provide for the General Welfare. Good job Big Government! The Libertarians would have us living in a world of crap and say its good for us. A hundred years ago most middle class families had a piano in their living room. The piano industry in this country had a niche something approaching the auto industry today. Was government wrong to let the industry die? Were all those lost jobs bad for America in the long run? Or what about the commercial shipbuilding industry? It was once a significant part of our industrial base, but disappeared 1960-80. Should we have been keeping those companies afloat these past decades? There used to be alot of people employed as elevator operators, switchboard operators, and in typing pools. People depended on those jobs. Question: should the government do something to bring them back? There is a reason companies fail and sectors disappear: they no longer fill an economic need. If they did, they could charge enough to stay healthy.
DC Tom Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 A hundred years ago most middle class families had a piano in their living room. The piano industry in this country had a niche something approaching the auto industry today. Was government wrong to let the industry die? Were all those lost jobs bad for America in the long run? Or what about the commercial shipbuilding industry? It was once a significant part of our industrial base, but disappeared 1960-80. Should we have been keeping those companies afloat these past decades? There used to be alot of people employed as elevator operators, switchboard operators, and in typing pools. People depended on those jobs. Question: should the government do something to bring them back? There is a reason companies fail and sectors disappear: they no longer fill an economic need. If they did, they could charge enough to stay healthy. More accurately: they do not fill an economic need as well as they should or as well as their competitors do. The need for shipbuilding didn't disappear, the manufacturing merely moved to more competetive shipbuilders than the ones in the US. It's also why GM should have been let dissolve into non-existence: they didn't satisfy the economic need for cars nearly as well as their competitors. Bailing them out was actually counter-productive to a competitive market (thus, arguably an anti-business practice), as a market should be Darwinian. Of course, everyone on the planet except Dave and conner know that the GM bailout was nothing more than a thinly veiled UAW bailout anyway...
ExiledInIllinois Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 A hundred years ago most middle class families had a piano in their living room. The piano industry in this country had a niche something approaching the auto industry today. Was government wrong to let the industry die? Were all those lost jobs bad for America in the long run? Thanks to Steger coming along and building them dirt cheap. I live in Steger, Illinois... Home to the Steger Piano... John Valentine Steger... He built "pianos for the masses." He modeled the town similar to what Pullman did up in Chicago... Just a bit different socially structured though. "Socialism in 1896!" My God... Tell me it wasn't so!
ExiledInIllinois Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 More accurately: they do not fill an economic need as well as they should or as well as their competitors do. The need for shipbuilding didn't disappear, the manufacturing merely moved to more competetive shipbuilders than the ones in the US. It's also why GM should have been let dissolve into non-existence: they didn't satisfy the economic need for cars nearly as well as their competitors. Bailing them out was actually counter-productive to a competitive market (thus, arguably an anti-business practice), as a market should be Darwinian. Of course, everyone on the planet except Dave and conner know that the GM bailout was nothing more than a thinly veiled UAW bailout anyway... Yet... But most well off parents will "bailout" their children and not blink an eye? Why? I am not disagreeing with you Tom... Ford didn't take any money...
erynthered Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 Yet... But most well off parents will "bailout" their children and not blink an eye? Why? I am not disagreeing with you Tom... Ford didn't take any money... Yes but they leveraged assets to the tune of about 27 billion dollars. One more blip and thery could be gone.
DC Tom Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 Yet... But most well off parents will "bailout" their children and not blink an eye? Why? I am not disagreeing with you Tom... Ford didn't take any money... Because parents take care of their children. GM is not the government's child. Interesting point made in this week's Barrons; the cover story was about Africa as an emerging market (and a business-friendly one, in what I'm assuming is a very broad sense). The US and UK have nationalized more companies in the past year than the entire continent of Africa has in the past decade.
ExiledInIllinois Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 Yes but they leveraged assets to the tune of about 27 billion dollars. One more blip and thery could be gone. To change gears a bit... Would things have been better off watching them collapse? I am torn just like my analogy about a parent letting their child fail by not bailing their butt out.
DC Tom Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 To change gears a bit... Would things have been better off watching them collapse? I am torn just like my analogy about a parent letting their child fail by not bailing their butt out. In GM's case that's debatable - the tradeoff was letting a poorly managed company rightfully fail vs. keeping several hundred thousand people (minimum - not just in GM but in their suppliers, too) employed. Government chose the latter - and given the economic situation at the time, I'm not sure they were wrong (not sure they were right, either). But right or wrong...thinly veiled jobs program.
erynthered Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 To change gears a bit... Would things have been better off watching them collapse? I am torn just like my analogy about a parent letting their child fail by not bailing their butt out. In the short term, it would have been pretty ugly. But In the long run? I believe we would have been much better off watching them collapse in their own pile of shiit, that they created.......
ExiledInIllinois Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 In GM's case that's debatable - the tradeoff was letting a poorly managed company rightfully fail vs. keeping several hundred thousand people (minimum - not just in GM but in their suppliers, too) employed. Government chose the latter - and given the economic situation at the time, I'm not sure they were wrong (not sure they were right, either). But right or wrong...thinly veiled jobs program. That is how I feel... I can't argue with what you said.
ExiledInIllinois Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 Oh... I know this is gonna sound silly... But from the US gov't point... It has to be a "pride" or "honor" thing. It is an industry that we invented... Like I said about the child... It has to be hard to see them fail... Maybe not some of you slugs... Maybe it is my bleeding heart.
KD in CA Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 Oh... I know this is gonna sound silly... But from the US gov't point... It has to be a "pride" or "honor" thing. It is an industry that we invented... Like I said about the child... It has to be hard to see them fail... Maybe not some of you slugs... Maybe it is my bleeding heart. Yeah, that's it...pride, honor and massive campaign contributions.
Alaska Darin Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 Oh... I know this is gonna sound silly... But from the US gov't point... It has to be a "pride" or "honor" thing. It is an industry that we invented... Like I said about the child... It has to be hard to see them fail... Maybe not some of you slugs... Maybe it is my bleeding heart. I don't think they had much choice, nor do I think pride or honor had a thing to do with it. I completely understand the need to not create a total dead zone in the middle of the country, even if it would have been for a very short term. That said, it's not so much that they bailed them out - it's how it was done and the whole "payola" scheme it ended with. It's a disgusting display of everything that's wrong with how the "leaders" in this country regard themselves versus the populous they supposedly serve.
IDBillzFan Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 That said, it's not so much that they bailed them out - it's how it was done and the whole "payola" scheme it ended with. It's a disgusting display of everything that's wrong with how the "leaders" in this country regard themselves versus the populous they supposedly serve. Hammer meet nail. One reason I have confidence in the left losing sole control of everything come November (the value of which we can debate later) is because this simple fact is completely lost on the left. When you read or listen to their gibberish, they're actually perplexed that the current president/administration has accomplished SO much in such a short period of time (health care, stimulus, auto bailout, financial regulations, etc), and yet approval ratings across the board are plummeting on every variable except, maybe, "Has a nice smile." It's so incredibly bewildering to these dolts that they have actually convinced themselves that the ONLY reason for this is because everyone is too stupid to really grasp the message. In reality, it's not what they've done, but how they've done it. We're all not as stupid as they think or hope. They're killing themselves with their own denial. To steal another Dennis Miller line, I haven't seen the bar set this low since I attended a dwarf's wedding reception.
Rob's House Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 There was clearly a choice, and had GM gone through bankruptcy they might have been able to get out from under the union and pension funds which is the real cause of their financial woes. Sure a lot of people would miss out on their cushie retirement deals and a lot of people would no longer make $70k/yr to do a $30k/yr job, but it wouldn't be the national catastrophe we're made to believe.
pBills Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 The auto industry has been saved? I didn't get the memo. Did the fat union pensions and free healthcare get saved too? HAHAHA. Great job Obama on saving the Auto Industry!!! I guess some people would still be happy if nothing was done and everything went under and even more people were unemployed and losing their homes.
pBills Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 There was clearly a choice, and had GM gone through bankruptcy they might have been able to get out from under the union and pension funds which is the real cause of their financial woes. Sure a lot of people would miss out on their cushie retirement deals and a lot of people would no longer make $70k/yr to do a $30k/yr job, but it wouldn't be the national catastrophe we're made to believe. yeah you know what people should make right? My father did fairly well when he worked at GM, he also picked up as much OT as he could to help his family. I didn't know one line person that made $70k right off the bat without busting their butt with OT.
DC Tom Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 HAHAHA. Great job Obama on saving the Auto Industry!!! I guess some people would still be happy if nothing was done and everything went under and even more people were unemployed and losing their homes. ......hmmm..... Yeah.
Alaska Darin Posted August 3, 2010 Posted August 3, 2010 There was clearly a choice, and had GM gone through bankruptcy they might have been able to get out from under the union and pension funds which is the real cause of their financial woes. Sure a lot of people would miss out on their cushie retirement deals and a lot of people would no longer make $70k/yr to do a $30k/yr job, but it wouldn't be the national catastrophe we're made to believe. It's not so much the wages, it's the benefits (which you alluded to a bit). It's the same thing that's leading us down the road to ruin in the public sector. It's going to hit REALLY hard when the majority of boomers start retiring with their "High 3 or 4" pensions that are 75% of their max wages with indexed guarantees. The problems with the cycle are probably not any more obvious now than they were, but politicians do a better job of protecting their own asses than the taxpayer. 'Tis always been that way. You can hide bad decisions with fuzzy math, speculation, and projections for awhile but eventually the market will bite you in the ass. The UAW negotiated some terrific deals for their members and coupled with some horrible mismanagement by the "suits", brought the industry to its knees over term. That's what greed/lack of understanding of sustainability brings. No one is immune to criticism in this instance but the American taxpayer is holding the !@#$ing bag and that sucks.
WisconsinBillzFan Posted August 4, 2010 Posted August 4, 2010 I completely understand the need to not create a total dead zone in the middle of the country Detroit is dead and is never coming back.
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