Michigan Auto Bailout: Dunderhead Mitt Romney Got it 100% Wrong!!

Which part of Bush's words can't you understand?

The part where he said he made the loans:

The part where he said he would do it again:

Or the part where he described the potential consequences if GM and Chrysler went under

 

So your argument here is that we need to re-elect Obama because he's just like George W. Bush? Now that IS an angle I haven't yet seen.

 

@O_Nation: It must drive you nuts to see that a government investment is working. Takes that fantasy Right Wing Extremism political/economic mumbo jumbo and shreds it into little pieces....doesn't it?

Other than the fact that historically governments have done this sort of thing over many decades...that China does it and it helps propel the economy

 

Its beautiful! I think every American should get behind giving their money to private enterprise by means of the tax code. I think that should be the centerpiece of Democrat policy, as if it weren't already .

And now your argument is we need to be more like China? LoL. Its this type of rhetoric that explains why Republicans have controlled the White House for most of the last century. Seriously, is this is the best the DNC can come up with? I was happy hating Romney because Maddow told me Mormons are evil, but this is even better!

 

Wow!! Not only has the govt money to the auto industry worked and Americans are getting hired...but the DOW just hit 13,000. Now that is a statement on confidence in American industry. All that good economic news.

its got to make the GOP crazzzzzy with anger.

 

You know... dolphins have a reputation as the good Samaritans of the sea... the nice critters that drag drowning men to the safety of the shoreline.

Did you ever wonder about the possibility they only do in a tiny fraction of instances... and in reality they're heartless bastards and all the other times they actually take the poor guy out to sea where the group then kills and eats him?

Not saying they do. Just raising the point that some situations are hard to prove when you factor in an automatic non-response bias. We will never know if the economy would be better than it is right now had someone besides Obama taken office.

 

So, when we're drowning, are you hinting we should probably swim toward the sharks instead?

 

You make a good point. I'm putting together a top 10 reasons not to vote for Romney blog. Near the top of the list is:

1) We cannot trust Romney's blundering and inexperience in economic matters at such a crucial time. Better to leave such matters in the hands of experts with a proven track record of success, like Barack Obama.

 

I referenced this link a few posts earlier. It reports on a speech George Bush gave earlier this February in front of Auto dealers. We have to assume he was well paid for the speech..and he was speaking to auto dealers. Nonetheless:

Article Opening:

Some article explanation and background and a quote from Bush

Regardless of his philosophy this is what Bush did toward the end of his term...

and finally...here is his own explanation for why he gave the loan

George Bush is an American and was President. His job was to take care of America. His financial experts told him immediate bankruptcy would have those impacts. There is more to it. The devastation would have crushed auto suppliers. You have to realize there are more people working and possibly creating more aggregate economic value from the auto suppliers than the auto manufacturers themselves.

Devastation among the suppliers could have taken Ford down also. Ford was also suffering losses and draining cash at the same time. Ford, unlike GM and Chrysler had done an enormous financing several years earlier and was relatively flush with cash compared to GM and Chrysler. They were all hemorrhaging money. Ford had significantly more reserves...but if the suppliers went down it might have resulted in Ford going down to.

Bush acted to save America. That is what Presidents are supposed to do. His best financial people gave him the best facts they could. He acted.

Today's Extremist Right Wing Polemicists all ignore those facts and conditions. Mitt Romney trying to weasel his way through with an "explanation" for his 2008 OP ED which is so glaringly wrong in every way...said something like...

Create bridge loans....get govt guarantees and get another private investor to handle a managed bailout....and oh yeah...he claims to be the genius behind the concept of the managed bailout. blah blah blah

Meanwhile, Steven Rattner, who headed the financial aspect of the Obama teams subsequent $60 billion investment says this of Romney's current blather....

BTW: Rattner had spent 2 decades as an investment banker on Wall Street for Lehman, Bros, Lazard Freres, and Morgan Stanley

Rattner came in and tried to find financing. There was none. Who would know more about finding private funds than a guy from Wall Street.

Romney...was totally wrong on that. 100%. Rattner had different updated data than Bush used: In an editorial he cited a range of potential job losses in the 800,000 to 2.4 million....

Basically he equated the financial disaster to something equivalent to the devastation of war...without the deaths. That large, that unimaginable.

Meanwhile...these two guys from 2 administrations taking the best data at the time, working around the clock to stave off disasters.....acted.

Meanwhile a lot of fantasy Right Wing Political Extremists are wailing away without any facts whatsoever.


And frankly think about it. $85 billion total bailouts...significant chunks of it already paid back.


The guys who stared the disaster in the face with the best data available looking at a potential tax loss of $150 billion or worse.

Sounds like a damn good deal!!!!!

 

Earlpearl tells us:

Obama..... Same as Bush. Love him!


By the way Earlpearl, Any debt repaid by GM was paid with loans from the Federal government. The way you make it sound, one could refinance their house and call themselves debt free. Yay!!!

 

Earl, are you that naive that you actually believe what politicians say? Do you? Do you take everything a politician says as fact?

If that is the case, you must believe that there are 58 states - because Obama said so?
[video=youtube;EpGH02DtIws]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpGH02DtIws[/video]

Earl, you are pushing very very hard to put together a case that holds no water.

The bailout came from Congress. Here, let me show you how government works:

H.R.7321 - Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act
To authorize financial assistance to eligible automobile manufacturers, and for other purposes.
SPONSOR: Representative Barney Frank D-MA

Understand now?

 

I truly feel sorry for you Corwin: Like so many desperate elements of the GOP you will push forward any twisted demented rewrite of history to try and prove the point of miserable failed economic programs and shift the blame elsewhere.

Congress NEVER approved money in 2008 for a bailout of the auto manufacturers. The House Voted for it. The Senate Voted against it.

Somehow in the twisted philosophical leanings of your brain and in a desperate attempt to blame others you continue to pursue a singular line of reasoning that only the largest liars and craziest radical fundamentalists would believe.

Here is what occurred:

Congress did nothing. Bush made the loans. He didn't have authorization from Congress. In real life, time after time, regardless of what is written in the Constitution it occurs. Presidents act without Congressional authorization. You can rant, rave, create fantasies, become a loudmouthed political agitator, grab at people's emotions with crazed political rantings...but it occurs.

Despite your desperate attempts to rewrite history...nothing occurred in the way you write about it.

Your case is sad.

Subsequent and recently here are some comments about the Bush initial bailout of the auto industry:

here is what Rick Santorum said in a speech a little more than one week ago.

and here is what Bush did:

In a recent speech earlier this month, Bush, referring to the auto bailout said...

In that same speech he also said:

I suppose its justified to use the analysis of a Republican President, using the judgements of his hand picked GOP leaning economic advisors to keep reminding every GOP RIGHT WING EXTREMIST who screams about unemployment and rails against bailouts...

That the Right Wing Extremists Must want 21 % unemployment.

I'd suggest, Corwin, you take off, take a break, rethink things. maybe you should return to school and lean something or take in the teachings of a religious leader and quit broadcasting such obvious lies.

 

Obama... Just like Bush


Is this really the best platform the Democrats have available to them this year?

 

There are a lot of different strong points out there.

One is that the GOP has a new anti-Romney candidate every month. None of them stick. Its obviously a weak slate of candidates with huge flaws. The funny thing is that all the flaws are being exposed by Republicans.

A second strong point is that Romney is simply the candidate of the incredibly super wealthy. The only way his campaign manages to stay alive is that billionaires and millionaires are buying the election for him through vicious attack ads. He has nothing else. When he doesn't run vicious attack ads he gets killed by the GOP anti-Romney flavor of the month.

When he needs them the billionaire club buys him a lot of attack ads and he beats the opposition with what is clearly the ugliest campaign in the history of American politics...bought and paid for by the Romney billionaires club.

All people have to do is look at Romney's tax returns, see that he is parking money overseas, doing nothing for the American economy, see how little in taxes he pays compared to actual Americans who work and see who is funding his campaign with millions of dollars. Just connect the dots.

Then there are lots more points.

One of the most obvious is that when it came to business Romney opened his mouth with this incredibly visible OP ED and he was only merely 100% wrong. And he is the best among the GOP when it comes to business. Recently every time he opens his mouth and says something even slightly off what his highly paid trainers give him he simply offends people.

Not a very good group are they?

 

Um, I was a Hillary Clinton supporter.

You know those people that don't mindlessly support one political party? The Independents that decide elections? That's me.

Earl, somehow in the twisted philosophical leanings of your brain, and in a desperate attempt to blame others, you continue to pursue a singular line of reasoning that only the largest liars and craziest radical fundamentalists would believe.

(I couldn't resist).

Seriously, Earl, I don't understand why you keep quoting the things politicians say as if these statements have any meaning at all.

I don't give a flying fuck what a politician SAYS, I care about what they DO.

 

Am I the only guy that think the US'es real problem is it's huge trade deficit and uncontrolled outsourcing ?

 

February, 2012 was a tremendous month for US auto sales: http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/03/01/auto-sales-soar-in-february/ (hm our friends at Fox are reporting this--even Fox can't ignore real news versus Right Wing Fantasy)

What a great month for auto sales in the US. Everyone's sales went up. Small vehicle sales drove the industry. US built small cars were great.

(I seem to recall part of NitWit Mitt's stupid prediction that US auto makers wouldn't be able to innovate). Chrysler just BOOMED!!!! Ford did excellent. GM had very minor increases...but analysts had been predicting a drop in Feb for GM...so it did great against expectations.

Real News. Real Facts.

versus...from the Right Wing extremists...twisted words and fantasy to try and explain away this progress. go for it fellas.

 

The Wall Street Journal wrote about excellent auto sales during Feb: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203753704577255111983285798.html The Journal article also described Feb as a great month for foreign auto makers. Feb was a terrific month for auto sales in the US.

The Journal article has a terrific month by month sales chart going back to 2005. The cumulative activity shows how the heart of the recession just killed new vehicle auto sales in 2009. Ripped its heart out.

If anything that is a picture of the impact of the recession. 2009 US new vehicle sales were 40% lower than they had been compared to a 9 year average going back to 1999. The recession just murdered the industry.

That cost a lot of jobs. Its part of the underlying reason why first Bush then Obama decided to bail out the auto industries. References above put numbers to the estimates and potential damage Bush and Obama faced. Bush's economists warned him of a potential further devastation to the economy and potential resultant loss of $150 billion in Fed tax revenues. That moved him to action.

Obama's "car czar" a guy from Wall Street who was in part charged for looking for investors referenced data that suggested a range of an additional 880-2.4 million extra jobs lost without a bailout. The loss of potential jobs could have devastated the midwest...sort of like the economic equivalent of the tsunami in Japan without the visual physical destruction.

The big month in sales and previous big months suggest a level of recovery. One aspect of it is that credit is opening for auto purchases. Credit was shut down during and for a period of time following the worst of the recession. More credit opens the door for more auto purchases.

Meanwhile the info inside the WSJ article speaks of growth in sales across the board for smaller vehicles. GM, Ford, and Chrysler were weak in those areas. Now they are stronger and more competitive. The smaller cars are a function of the govt bailout and the technology changes that were made in conjunction with the bailout.

Romney's politically inspired OP ED was totally off base. The real world impact of demand and supply once again shows exactly how the world of business and the economy works...not the mumbo jumbo of politically inspired blather.

Good for the auto industry....good for American workers. Looks like Clint Eastwood's ad during the Super Bowl was right on target even if it offended the carefully calibrated political mumbo jumbo from Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh and O_Nation here.

 

Taxpayers pay $30 Billion to bail out GM's union workers, Obama gives away countless more billions in bribes (subsidies) for consumers to buy the volt, and GM still cant sell enough cars to avoid layoffs.

Maybe if they had built a version that didn't spontaneously combust, though I'm sure Obama could have sold that as a "feature". He would say people just don't like the cars because they are not communicating the value of such features well enough.

 

Hey O_Nation be honest for once. Let us know if you had one of those Rush Limbaugh kind of orgasm's when he just spewed vicious hatred on the radio about a college student calling her:

1. a slut
2 a prostitute
and 3 wanting her to distribute sex videos so he could watch them.

That is the way of the extremist right wing.

It brought on negative reactions from of all people Rick Santorum, and Daryl Issa the deeply conservative member of congress--whose team wouldn't even allow this woman to testify....let alone many GOP members.

Screaming at the extreme and making crazy accusations is turning people off; O_Nation if you hadn't noticed recently

But to the news about Volt.

Here are some common sense realities about business. I know in your mad effort to tie Obama to every uncomfortable thing that occurs to everyone and use it to twist reality you are going to have a hard time swallowing this:

1. Not everything a business does works:

A) for every effort google has made to create new products...the majority of the new efforts seem to fail.

A 1. It doesn't stop google from investing and trying new things
A 2. Google is making tons of money in profits and increasing those profits. A business hurdle doesn't kill a business...and GM despite the challenges and difficulties with Volt is growing sales, making profits and overall hiring more people, delivering more vehicles...getting more suppliers more work so more Americans get jobs.

A 3. Reviews of Romney's efforts running Bain Capital had him investing in a lot of businesses. We have all seen THAT A LOT OF THEM FAILED. I suppose your reasoning should transfer over to Romney.

Are you going to call him a miserable failure???? Looks to me like you should. Afterall you are viscerating Obama for one problem. Romney's investment company had MANY FAILURES I invite you to join me in agreement in this thread and acknowledge that Romney is a business dunderhead.

Not unlike the Google example above...GM is growing, showing profits, it did retake the position of #1 auto manufacturer in the WORLD last year. Most of its profits came from the US.

Looks to me like GM is like endless other businesses that are succeeding. The successful moves outweigh the
moves that aren't currently working. Overall things are good.

Overall the Volt has had issues. Overall electric cars, or semi electric cars, industry and world wide is growing and growing.

Growth in electric car sales around the world is dramatic. Its astoundingly dramatic relative to hydrogen fueled cars.

You recall hydrogen fueled cars don't you? You like to pull out all stops in accessing info when you go on the attack...don't you Lets see....Bush through $1.2-1.5 BILLION in hydrogen cars.

Where in G-d's name are the hydrogen cars? Big Big Big Waste.

I will tell you Jamie Lee Curtis the actress and her husband are test driving a Honda hydrogen car vehicle. While they are paying a market price for leasing the car....HONDA subsidizes the car to the tune of $300,000

Talk About BONE HEADED.

Meanwhile GM is having issues with Volt. Unlike the GOP right wing extremists here...when a reality issue comes up with a problem I'll acknowledge it rather than point blank lie deny it.

Its GM's challenge. They'll have to fix it. Meanwhile...their overall growth from last year enabled them to retake the position as #1 auto seller in the world, they were very profitable and most of their profits came out of the US.

Looks to me, like virtually all real businesses in the real world they are doing fine.