Bailed out GM and Union Workers Bring back jobs and growth to Tennessee

GM, the "Success" story the president is going to run his 2012 campaign on.

How many people could I employ if the government was willing to take a $23.77 BILLION dollar write down on my business. I'm guessing I would have hired more than 700. LMAO.

Half a billion on Solyndra, 27 billion on GM, 1.3 billion on Chrysler. Crony capitalism starts to get expensive after a while. No worries, we'll raise taxes!! (or borrow more money from China)

 

GM the success story, goodbye to Janesville, WI. plant and the Chrysler plant in Kenosha, WI.

Great Job Obama!

 

However desperate the Extremist Right Wing is to paint the worst about the US economy and Obama...the economy is coming back from the worst recession in modern history...one that wiped out about $16 trillion in household wealth

One piece of good news about the recovering economy is the growth in manufacturing jobs throughout the US.

Among all cities that gained in manufacturing jobs was Detroit with an additional 11,400 new manufacturing jobs last year: source

Lets not kid ourselves. Those are auto manufacturing jobs and they are all related to the US auto industry which is centered in Detroit.

Clearly the bailout of the critical auto industry is paying dividends in helping our nation recover from the devastating recession that wiped out such an enormous element of US wealth.

 

Geez @earl, if you are satisfied that those limp facts are signs of a recovery, then your standards must be really low.

 

To have a recovery, you're traditionally going to need to see double digit positive movement in the GDP. Anything short of that is NOT a recovery and a sign that you're headed towards more of the same, or worse; double dip. See also: the last three years.

 

The recovery is real. The devastation to the US economy and the auto industry in particular from the recession, which occurred under a GOP administration, wherein the worst of the cause when a housing bubble blew up and nothing was done occurred when a GOP administration with a majority of the GOP within the House and Senate...was unbelievable and devastating.

Reportedly US households lost between $16 trillion and $19 trillion due to the brutal recession

The auto industry saw new vehicle sales plunge from a 7 year average of about 17 million sales/year to 10 million at its lowest. That is a 40% drop in new vehicle sales. Last year new vehicle sales were slightly above 13 million. That is a 30% increase from the misery caused by the recession...but still more than 25% below the number of new cars sold in the US for about 7 straight years.

Its an improvement.

I haven't seen any members of the Right Wing Extremist world figure out how to instantly inject a missing $16 -$19 trillion into the US economy and replace the lost value in homes and stocks. If you know how to do it...lay it out there.

Recovery from such a brutal recession doesn't come quickly. The US government under first Bush and then Obama injected $$ into 2 failing US auto businesses. In doing so it kept the US auto industry afloat. It kept suppliers and the supply chain afloat. It kept people working..including those that didn't work for GM or Chrysler but worked for suppliers. With the supply chain saved it helped keep Ford afloat.

Meanwhile I see Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh whining about a TV advertisement that references the recovery in the auto industry. What is wrong with those two? Its clear they are more attached to a Right Wing fantasy illusion than in seeing Americans working. Are they for America???

The brutal impact of the recession looked like this: If you, Karl Rove, and Rush Limbaugh have a way to inject say about $10 trillion into the US economy (we have made some level of recovery) go and do it. If not quit ignoring the fact that the injection of funds into one of the largest and most significant industries within the US employing an enormous volume of people is working and is helping with recovery. How do I know if 11,000 more people working in factories in Detroit is fast enough or not? I do know if Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, and the rest of the Right Wing extremists who tell people not to buy American built cars would shut their mouths there would be more American built cars purchased and the recovery would speed up even more.

 

More important than figuring out how, the more important question is why would you want to.

What I find stunning is to see how many Democrats still think Keynesian parlor tricks can fix our economy. The president just submitted his budget proposal this morning with another UsD$350 Billion in "stimulus". First, as you point out, its like pissing on a forest fire and thinking you are going to make an impact. Second, every last penny of it would be borrowed, adding to long term structural problems in a very anti-growth way. Lastly, practically every last economist (even Krugman down deep), the CBO, and Keynes himself, agree on the fact that long term economic problems cannot be solved by borrowed money liquidity injections. It was Keynes himself that said, "In the long term, we are all dead".

As you also pointed out, Bush and Obama have already shot their load with borrowed Keynesian cash injections. It has had all the impact it is going to have. Now it is time to pay the piper and deal with the newly created long term problems created by these policies. Obama said he would cut the deficit in half in his first term in office. He has now completely abandoned that promise and offers to cut the deficit as a percentage of budget to 3% over 10 years. WOW! I mean WOW!!!!

Normally, I would be pissed off at the "do-nothing" Senate run by Harry Reid and the Democrats for refusing to even bring any budget to the table this year, even when that budget comes from the President, but considering the recklessness of Obama's budget, perhaps I should be thanking him.

Until we bring our Debt to GDP ratio under 90%, we will not see any real healthy growth in this country. Period. Obama's one shot is retroactively going with Simpson/Bowles. Other than that, he is toast.

 

What is interesting is we are seeing growth, we are seeing increases in private employment. What is further interesting is that we are seeing relatively larger increases in private employment even as the very large state and municipal employment levels which grew like crazy during the Bush years are shrinking.

Interesting under Obama private employment within the US is growing and public employment is shrinking. That is the reverse of what occurred during the Bush administration.

We are seeing growth. Is it enough? Not for the unemployed that is for sure.

meanwhile the fastest way to get the budget closer to balance is simply to take tax rates back to where they were before Bush. Last time that was the case we had budget surpluses.

The right wing tea party extreme was offered $10 of budget cuts to $1 of tax increases. They turned it down. Unbelievably extreme.

Maybe its because of this extremism that the GOP primaries are seeing less involvement and less voters than 4 years ago. people must be disgusted with the GOP. Basically they believe more in Clint Eastwood than Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh.

 

Understatement of the year. We aren't seeing enough growth to keep up with inflation, employment, or our entitlement programs.

LoL. Yah. Reinstate the pre-bush tax rates and those surpluses will be right back! Earlpearl, why make it easy for me? Do you honestly believe ANYONE in this nation believes restoring pre-Bush tax rates will even come close to solving our economic woes? Anyone, even you? Its like listening to the President this morning, emphasising the need to "Double down" on our [government] investment in education to restore employment in this country. LOLOLOLOL.

Tax reform (not simple hikes, but substantive tax reform), Medicare reform, Social Security reform will get us there, but that would require real leadership that actually had those items on items on his/her agenda. Right now, we have neither, which is why Harry Reid can get away with saying he will not even consider the President's budget.

That is certainly an explanation a leftist partisan would offer. I think I even saw those exact words uttered on Maddow several times in the last week . Other, more realistic explanations might include the idea that Romney has become the inevitable choice for the GOP. Another might be that the Tea Party people who, like most americans, feel that real economic reform is required of Washington, have their doubts about how much change Romney will really bring. Those people, when confronted with a Romney/Obama match up, will at a minimum see the obvious lesser of two evils and show up enthusiastically in droves.

Or more accurately, all of the above. Like Clint says, after four years of Obama beating us down, it is halftime in America. Time to kick some ass.

 

Except that Clint didn't say that...which is why Rove and Limbaugh got all huffy and puffy and were whining. They had a hard time acknowledging that recovery is occurring, that Detroit is bouncing back and that their extremist agenda has more holes than swiss cheese. What are you smoking???

 

Of course he did. Watch the commercial, and watch the interview he gave about the commercial. Referring to Obama "I'm certainly not with those people". .

Yah, Ford is hiring, in spite of Obama. We get Obama out of office, Detroit should do very well.

 

You must be overdosing on fantasy pills:

Here is the commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFAiqxm1FDA

and here is Clint Eastwood's reaction to the political commentators such as Karl Rove, Michelle Malkin, and Rush Limbaugh, all of whom had a near heart attack at the ad:

Poor ObamaNation: Clint Eastwood is questioning your intelligence.

 

It would be one thing to say, "Here is a wrong interpretation of the Commercial that Clint disagrees with" but you didn't even go that far. With the information you just provided, you could make the argument (wrongly) that Clint was saying that anyone who failed to interpret the comercial as pro-obama bailout was unintelligent.

Remember, the only reason Clint gave an interview was to push back on the idea that his commercial was IN ANY WAY supportive of the Obama admin. In his words,

"I'm certainly not with those people".

Damn right Clint. You are with us.

 

Ultimately he's a paid actor.

MJ was a huge spokesmen for Pepsi, and never drank the stuff.

 

The Democrats are responsible for the Great Recession. ALL OF IT.

Lest ye forget, the Democrats controlled the economy for four years, including the previous two that brought this Great Recession.

And also, the U.S auto industry did not suffer. GENERAL MOTORS suffered. mostly because of the draconian unions. Ford was just fine, thank you.

The best that can be said about the present economy is that instead of being able to say the economy really really sucks, we can say the economy really sucks.

Honestly, @Earl, after reading many months of your politically bigoted rants, I believe I can say that you don't give a flying fuck for the people that are hurt by this economy, do you? You are only interested in assigning blame. To you, the poor are just tools, cannon-fodder. What a cold-hearted bastard you are.

 

Corwin: Your information is so bad its pathetic

according to whom, Corwin. Read further to see how absurd the comments are

lets see...2001-2009 Bush bush and more bush. lets see the economy started shrinking in 2007 and bottomed out in the first quarter 2009. If you want to assign all economic considerations to politicians that can only mean one thing. Plummeting economy = Bush/GOP Bush/GOP Bush/GOP go up to the graph here. Which part of a downward spiraling graph don't you get???

All righty. Here are Ford's domestic new vehicle sales year after year. The source??? Ford motor company:

Calendar Year American sales
1999 4,163,369
2000 4,202,820
2001 3,971,364
2002 3,623,709
2003 3,483,719
2004 3,331,676
2005 3,153,875
2006 2,901,090
2007 2,507,366
2008 1,988,376
2009 1,620,888
2010 1,935,462
2011 2,143,101

Ford is telling us that this has been a rough decade. Those are Ford's figures...not Corwins opinions. Actually it was a rough decade. But during this beastly recession Ford, like all auto manufacturers took a beating.

Ford has been benefiting from the recovery. Ford's sales are up now after GM and Chrysler were rescued. Pretty interesting. Ford management, incidentally was 100% in favor of the GM/Chrysler bailout when it occurred. Ford's chief exec had wisely heavily refinanced in 2005 and so the company had sufficient liquidity even as its domestic sales were shrinking.

. You can say whatever you wish. Frankly domestic auto sales are up. More autos and trucks are being purchased than in 2009 and 2010 when the sh!t hit the fan. There is a recovery. The Right Wing extremists desperately don't want people to realize that the bailout which kept to additional US domestic auto companies working, kept suppliers working, and kept a lot of jobs working is having very positive results.

The essence of the Right Wing Extremist fear is that it rips a gigantic hole in their fantasy political philosophy. There are times when government investment works. Its that simple.

Not everything works every time. In this case it is working and Americans should be grateful. Clint Eastwood is. He specifically doesn't buy into the political gibberish.

Corwin: Give us some facts rather than absurdities. Facts.

 

Democrats never give credit where its due. They only take credit for what goes right.

This case is no exception.

Corwin, you hit the nail on the head. Look at who was in charge when and what was going on and its fairly simple to see where all the credit lies.

 

I knew you would walk right into that!!!
I knew you would because you do not understand our system of government.

Let's see... Congress controls the economy, right? The Democrats took control of both houses of Congress in the 2006 election, so starting in 2007 the Democrats controlled House Ways and Means, the Budget committees, Barny Frank was put in charge of the Banking committee, and etc. etc. etc...

Right?

So, starting in 2007, the Democrats completely controlled the economy. Now, what did you say happened in 2007?

Oh. Yeah. When the Democrats took over managing the economy, the economy started shrinking, Right?

2007 is when the Dems went on a spending spree. Let's not forget that in 2007 Pelosi raised the minimum wage, which has been historically proven to increase unemployment. Always.

Do you want to blame the Democrats for sabotaging the economy so that Obama would win in 2008? (hint: they've done it before)

Bush signed every single piece of legislation Pelosi sent him. He didn't veto anything. Go ahead, look it up, I'll wait... Are you back yet? O.K., so you argee that the Democrats completely ran the economy. If you want to blame Bush for not vetoing the bills the Democrats put together to sabotage the economy, go right ahead!

To paraphrase what you wrote:
The essence of the Left Wing Extremist fear is that it rips a gigantic hole in their fantasy political philosophy.