Government Motors

these men disagree.....  they say socialism is good.

damnit

skiminnesota, how do you feel about the AIG bailout? Because, to me, it is pretty hypocritical of you to be angry about the GM bailouts while not mentioning the AIG bailouts. If anything, I support the GM bailouts more than the AIG ones because it is helping to save thousands of working-class jobs.

In both cases, we are simply reprimanding those who fucked up.

It sucks, but IMO there was no way around this. I haven't read up too much on the situation, but if it is saving this many jobs during a time like this, then I believe that it is worth it.

kepler - I usually tend to agree with your posts, but there was one statement that made me chuckle. You said that Obama doesn't care what people think about marijuana laws. I'm not arguing that it shouldn't be legal, but don't you think he has more important things to deal with right now?

Should've just let the mother fucker burn

Sure but when it's the number one question of his little "town hall" thing and he laughs it off like the people who posed the question are loser stoners really, really pissed me off. He made it seem like he thought everyone who wants marijuana legalized are just 4chan spammers who hang around the internet all day. He doesn't realize the majority of America wants it legalized for damn good reasons. I thought he was an open minded dude but he can't see past the bullshit. Even fuckin' Arnold is at least smart enough to say that he's open to the debate.

And if all this money saves jobs that's cool I guess. I've just always had the thinking of a free market economy void of government intervention. I feel if the government would just let some companies go under, stronger better ideas would fill the void. Rather than saving the companies that dug their own graves.

GM is going to sink no matter what. The bailouts are going nowhere. 3 years ago, the Volt was slated to come out this year. Not happening. In the meantime, Mercedes-Benz has patented Blutec, which can be fueled with biodiesel, which is a completely renewable fuel source. Mitsubishi has just released the iMiev (electric van) in Japan and New Zealand, and are in the process of converting it for North America and Europe. We've had the Tesla Roadster, now the Fisker Karma. University students are buildings and racing electric cars across the continent. Et cetera, et cetera.
GM hasn't done shit, they aren't going to do shit, and people aren't going to buy shit. The goddamn Swedes now have a better automobile company than us, and everybody who knows anything about cars knows that Swedes were one of the worst automobile manufacturing countries in the world just 6 years ago. Now they're laughing at us, while they sell some of the fastest cars on the planet. Next thing you know, China is going to be making better cars than us.
You turn on your T.V. and you see a Ford commercial. It has a country star in a cowboy hat (that's appealing to a HUGE audience, not). He tells you that Ford has been independently rated equal to Honda and Toyota. That's kinda cool (except Toyota is a joke), until he tells you that for equal quality, you're going to pay twice as much if you pick Ford. Wow. I think maybe his hat is a little too tight. I wouldn't be surprised if Ford needed a bailout within the year.
You go on NS, you open up any 'car' thread, and what's the most prominent name you see? Probably Subaru. Then Mitsubishi, Audi, Honda, etc.
I'm looking 2-3 years ahead, at the Mitsubishi electric cars. GM is looking 5-6 years behind, at hybrids and hydrogen. The Chevy Volt is a 6 year old design that's been outdated before it's even been released. Pimp My Ride has built more eco-friendly cars than GM ever will. And it's hard not to notice that the U.S.A. just spent 8 years and 674 billion dollars trying to steal an unsustainable resource.

The rest of the world almost feels sorry for us.

whats wrong with toyota? lol


and id disagree on ford. they seem to be making slightly smarter decisions than GM, and they saved their asses when they mortgaged a lot of stuff when banks were still loaning money.

it has less to do with the cars and more to do with the economic infrastructure a company like GM provides

they stopped making the Supra, for one. that was the only Toyota that Japanese people ever liked.
second, they've been independently rated equal to Ford. this confirms the old saying that Toyota is the Ford of Japan, and that was never a compliment.
third, hybrids. Japanese people never bought into that (they aren't stupid).

good thing Toyota exports to Americans, otherwise they'd look like GM right now.

oh ok. cuz i have a camry and i love it. its 14 years old and nothing is wrong with it. the only maintanence weve done is the standard stuff, or stuff thats my fault.

again, it's a good thing Toyota exports to America.

for all you fucking with politics, take a macroeconomics course

(i am in a basic one, but i give you some points)

1. inflation + = unemployment rate -

2. inflation - = unemployment rate +

3. no technological development (which means basically that workers are replaced by capital (machines)) = no growth of GDP = no improvement of living standards

4. so the dumb labour unions that worked out great contracts in the past with dumb companies have fucked their own workers

the thing is, you cant do anything right to anyone, if you help GM, the next company needs money too, if you dont help them, you have tons of additional unemployed people that also fuck up your system.

if you raise taxes, everyone cries. if you dont raise them, the government can spend less money and has to cut social spendings and cant invest (which helps domestic companies), so everyone cries.

BOTTOM LINE: whatever you say about politics. please remind that there is almost no way to help all people with a certain measurement.

hypocritical?????? i dont think ive EVER said i support the bailouts... ever.

so you dont like the bailouts? what about the working class jobs? (devils advocate) as far as the econ stuff goes... comparative advantage people... look it up.

i think we might disagree on one thing.. in that the government SHOULD NOT be investing in domestic companies.. they should GTFO and let the market dictate who survives and who dies... not to mention the government sucks at allocating capital....

but there is a huge problem in America...

if your prices are to low, theyre preditory.

if your prices are to high, youre gouging..

if you turn a profit, well its probably obsene and a bad thing...

It's a horrible idea. If they can't get tha post office right they can't do shit with a car company.

Comparative advantage is a rudimentary philosophy that only takes one factor of production (labor) into consideration. Comparative advantage says nothing about this situation other than we should trade with countries based on what we produce, which is labor skilled intensive goods. However we are a capital intensive country and should be producing capital intensive goods ie cars. However this is not how it works and technology is outsourced by our companies and thus hurts our production and is the reason why we have such a high trade deficit. This is called the leontief paradox and I will spare everyone on NS 30 mins of reading and just leave it at that.

Secondly, you have to understand that lack of government interference hurt our economy even worse during the great depression. This is where Keynes made his famous debut of theories. While I do not agree the bailout money was used correctly or allocated with an even gesture, it had a decent philosophy behind it.

I can hear where you are coming from on business restrictions with prices too high or low but we are now working in such a complex global economy that it is damn near impossible to have a feasible solution anymore. People will get hurt and people will lose jobs. NOW with that said, some food for thought: Japan and Sweden have both gone through a similar economic crisis that we are currently in. It took Japan nearly 10 years to recover and now look where they are. You know what they did? Nationalized banks then sold them back to the private market. In my opinion and many of the PHD's I have discussed this with, it is an ingenious solution if left in the hands of the right people. Sure people won't like it and it is a form of that nasty word "socialism", but  why not take a look at other countries models of recovery and implement factors from them?  Forgot, we are a bit too proud for that. Well sometimes pride has to take a back seat to solutions.

Turning a profit is not a bad thing either, it's just that most democratic liberals have to find something wrong with every major company that does. Whether most are valid reasons is up to debate but there is a lot of fishy business in corporate America, or should I say corporate America global division.