13edge

Read about it here.

What gets me is why do we keep bailing out bad businesses?

And then:
Bullcrap man. All bullcrap.

CDogbert

This is just as f'ing stupid as the $700 billion bailout with few strings attached (that thankfully got shot down in Congress because they decided to grow some *****, and now Bush is doomsaying on the street corner).

Why is my money going towards companies that, of their own devices, failed miserably in their industry? I voted with my dollar and said I prefer Toyota to the shenanigans of the "Big Three", but I still have to give them money? This isn't the financial market, where if we don't prop up these companies the whole country will plunge into depression. GM, Ford, and Chrysler are failing because they have poorly managed themselves and don't make good cars anymore.

And what a f'ing brilliant idea; the companies mismanaged their finances and spent themselves bankrupt, so now we're going to fix their problems... by throwing money at them.

I wonder, though... what is this going to do to domestic auto prices? Pumping $700 billion into our financial market is going to absolutely demolish the USD; will it do the same to the automotive market?

Sciond

keep in mind if you do not bail out this situation and you are a property and my guess your not...the inherited tax burden on property may bury you

CDogbert

Wait, what? How am I going to be affected by Ford, GM, and Chrysler having to either go under entirely or restructure themselves drastically so that they're profitable again? I don't have stock in any of those companies, nor do I even own anything or depend on anything produced by them.

Also, no, I'm not a property.

theoneandonly

The bailout isn't for auto companies. it is for mortgage firms that are on the verge of failing due to allowing people with little to no income pay only the interest for their mortgages. The auto companies you mentioned are failing becuase they are not making reliable vehicles and have been poorly managed. The bailout that was proposed was shot down becuase it GAVE the money to these companies and the companies didn't have to pay it back. They are talking about changing the bailout to less money and to make the companies who recieve tax payer dallors pay it back and possibly with interest.

prescottn

So nieve... And the hundreds of thousands of workers that will become jobless, foreclose on their homes, depend on welfare, government aid, possibly move to your community homeless on the streets because they're not trained to do anything else, because they can't get loans or credit to train in something new. When all else has failed INCLUDING their society they'll be begging for your spare change outside of your local grocery store.

It's not the companies the govt. is bailing out. It's the workers.

Sciond

LOl yep^^^^ now think of the tax burden the rest of us will have to deal with

CDogbert

Oh my.

theoneandonly, this thread is about the bailout for auto companies. You probably haven't heard of it, as I hadn't either before 13edge said something about it and posted a link about it. It's not part of the $700 billion dollar bailout for the financial industry, it's a $25 billion bailout for domestic automakers only. Click "Read about it here." in 13edge's OP.

And I agree, the bailout proposed by Bush Co. was rightfully shot down because it was just giving companies money with no strings attached. The changes you talk about in the bailout proposal, if I really have to follow it and throw my tax dollars at it, is what I was hoping for. I agree that something has to be done about the economy exploding in our faces, but blindly throwing money at the problem isn't going to solve it.

prescottn, why am I the naive one, when those hundreds of thousands of workers that will become jobless have seen this coming for years? How is it my fault that they not only don't have the foresight to know their jobs are at risk and to get out while they can still support themselves and their families, but that they have no other skills to contribute to society at large? The domestic auto industry has been slowly imploding for quite some time now, and if you didn't change your job or your skill set by now, you only have yourself to blame. Unfortunately yes, that means you're going to start suckling on the government teat because you're too good to take one of those "lower" jobs like working in the service industry or the sanitation industry, but I figure it'll cost me less to support your broke ___ that way.

prescottn

Listen buddy... I said you were naive because of the statement you made. I interpretted it as, you wondered why it's any of your concern, or why it should concern you financially. You seem to at least have your head screwed on a little bit straight, but have you ever seen Detroit? We're not exactly talking about the cream of the crop here. Working people who work like machines day in day out for a company they trusted that was just rolling out the cheapest cars they could make trying to make the most profit possible to afford Union healthcare costs.

All in all it's none of our faults it's the Governments for not imposing more strict environmental laws that would have kept us on pace with foreign technologies that are more fiscally sound to invest in right now. You sound like a spoiled little brain washed republican.

This thread is going to get my blood pressure up.... peace

CDogbert

How is it republican of me to NOT want my tax dollars to go to non-government businesses? That's actually pretty much the opposite of republican.

It's easy to blame the government, isn't it? Hell, we as citizens do it all the time. I do it for a lot of stuff... but I don't do it for this. The financial crisis, and the auto industry crisis... the businesses involved have nobody to blame but themselves. You can say if we had tighter regulation from the government that we wouldn't be in this mess, but if the businesses had just regulated themselves in the first place, they wouldn't be in the mess they're in right now. We as citizens and they as businesses just relied on the government to keep everyone on the straight and narrow and fix things when they broke. Guess what? Whoops, didn't happen!

You would especially think that domestic automakers would have just kept up with foreign automakers' policies on their own in order to be competitive. I mean, that's just plain smart business, isn't it? Instead, they chose to just keep giving us inefficient cars that break a lot, and now look what's happened. They're finally going under, after we've all watched this happen for years now, and now you're telling me that it's my responsibility to fix these companies? My money is going to be schilled out so that these companies can stay afloat? Why? So they can just spend it and go under again? What makes you think that these companies are going to do anything any different when they get this $25 billion bailout? This isn't like 9/11 where we bailed out the airline industry because of forces outside their control; the only fault with these companies lies with themselves, and now there are consequences to be had.

And you know what? All these hundreds of thousands of jobs that you say are going to be displaced? Guess what happens to the intelligent ones of that bunch? They're going to work for the American plants of the foreign automakers. Foreign automotive production is going to skyrocket, and they're going to build plants here to keep up with demand in America. Tell me you saw that coming and took that into account when you lambasted me and accused me of being naive, right? Only the lazy ones who didn't see this crisis coming and don't have any other useful skills will end up unemployed and suckling on the government teat... and again, that's only because they don't want to take any job that's "beneath" them. And again, I say that's great, because I'm pretty sure it's cheaper for me to pay for your unemployment than to pay your employer to keep you employed.

Sciond

tough to argue with someone who doesn't get it and has no life experience

CDogbert

And who the hell are you to make that claim? You say that like you have any idea at all who I am or what I do. All you've done for the past day or so is follow me around and tell me that I don't "get it" and that I'm retarded and have no idea what I'm talking about, despite never actually proving otherwise. The only thing you've proven you're capable of is baseless accusations and unfounded arguments, so come heckle me when you've acquired the mental capacity to rectify either of those.

tCheesy

Anything we do at the point is going to be the wrong action.
As far as Im concerned.. I thought this was a "free market" let the companies fall.

Im under the notion that ANY type of bailout is just going to put us FURTHER into our federal defecit.

These "bailouts" just give big-time companys the "OK" to do as little as possible, knowing that someone will come along and always bail you out.

just my .02 I know im probably not 100% accurate.

ChelsDS

I like how people throw out "You sound like a Republican" or a "Democrat". Who cares?

I can't making any opinion on this whole debacle since I haven't been paying attention to it (not on purpose, too consumed with other things). All I know is that I don't care for the idea that we the taxpayers get to have our money spent on a bailout plan for companies who were doing shady business practices in the beginning. Yet thats all I can say about this whole thing.

As far as the bailout for the automakers, I too never heard of it until now. It's just disturbing to learn about new problems that aren't put on the news yet that will still affect us. :?

eight08customs

all this come about becuase of 6 years of bush admin..

trying to break unions.. and letting US companies send millons of jobs to thrid world contries..

All these peoplethat had good paying jobs now prob work al walmart in which pays crap.. yet make millons in profits. now all these diplace workers dont have the funds to pay for there homes and just leaving it..

Sorry but US made cars SUCK! I love them but there quality suck.. the US auto makers put them selfs in this trying to cut corners.. using cheaper products to make more profits..

ChelsDS

You have to realize that most of the effects on the economy won't be seen until the current President is out of office. So understanding that could very well mean that all this crap going on is because of what Clinton did in office. It could also mean that Bush was given a crap hand when he came in and couldn't do much either. However, he has been in office for 8 years so he very well could have made this situation himself or at least made it worse.

Then again you shouldn't even blame the figure head of the country because its the people behind the scenes setting everything up while the President takes the blame for everything.

Sciond

discussion is one thing but putting people down as you did above here shows weakness.. and it never mentioned anything about your opinion in this thread..you just assumed I was talking about you

you must have a complex...ok I am done here

13edge

People, ASSUMING that it's a bailout for the workers, and the government is doing something for the people, and not their own pockets, let's not overlook one thing...

Chrysler is a privately owned, non-traded company. Meaning that your money is going to GM and FORD, but you can still have the option of investing in these companies and owning a small piece of them.

That is still not an option with Chrysler. All you can do with Chrysler is give them your money because they are a failing business, and then buy vehicles from them. How is that right?

How many of you own, or know someone who owns, or is related to someone who owns their own business? Ever had tough times? Did Uncle Sam bail you out? What about your workers?

CDogbert

Clever entrapment! Or you just sorta made that up on the spot. Either way, you once again (surprise!) didn't back up anything you claim with any substance; if you weren't actually talking about me (even though you were responding right after my post, repeating the "doesn't get it" mantra you throw around to anything I say), then why didn't you say who you were talking about in the first (or even second) place? Also, I never "put you down", I told you to either stop heckling me and refuting everything I say with "you don't get it" or start backing your inane arguments with substance worth the wear you put on your keyboard. But "you're done here", so whatever.

-

Anyway, here are a couple discussion points:

- If the US Gov't were to grant the $25 billion bailout to all parties involved, do you think it would be enough to turn things around to where we would ever see a return on that money?

I say no. GM would get $5 billion of that to restructure their entire company. Any conceivable way you look at their accounting, they lose more than that every year. Even then, don't you think if the world's largest automaker could have restructured themselves to avoid going under, they would have done it by now? I hardly think $5 billion to an almost twelve-dight company is going to be the kick in the pants they need to magically fix themselves. And GM is the optimistic one of those three...

- If the Big 3 blow through this $25 billion and can't restructure themselves, what then?

Do we keep funneling money into them in the name of people keeping jobs? No, I think if this is the best course of action to take, it's only going to take one infusion. After a couple of these bailouts, I might as well just hire the people whose salaries I'm paying for.

- What will happen if/when the Big 3 go under?

Personally, I think that foreign automakers from both sides of us will come in and fill in the gaps, though the tanking dollar might have something to say about that. There's still going to be that huge demand for cheap, fuel-efficient vehicles... and they're already made all over the world. They're going to set up factories here to keep from having to import things (albeit they're going to be consolidated), and that's going to create the jobs that everyone's worried about, even though there's still going to be a lot of job loss.

- But the jobs!

Look, if you think saving these companies is going to preserve a bunch of jobs, you're wrong. Chrysler is already planning to, quite literally, cut their company in half. By my estimation, that's 50,000 jobs laid off, and they're the smallest company of the three. These hundreds of thousands of jobs that you guys are yelling at me that I'm killing by not supporting this are already lost. Expect layoffs in the six-digits between these three companies even if this bailout goes through, because they're all getting smaller regardless of if they stay afloat or not.
(EDIT: Using labor figures and press releases, assuming Chrysler's dramatic restructuring is going to halve it's labor force parallel to the halving of it's total size, this means that we were going to see 116,000 jobs laid off by next year before the bailout, anyway.)

13edge

Politically, I think CDogbert and me are about as opposite as you can get, but his last point there in that last paragraph makes a ton of sense. US companies are taking advantage of all these free trade agreements to move manufacturing jobs out of the US. Some might say I am being overly worrisome, but how many call centers operate in the US anymore? Compared to 15 years ago?

So many factors are built into the auto industry, and none of them are looking good right now. We pump this money into them, and then what? It does not change any of the factors. Either we don't bail out, and the American Auto Workers suffer, or we do bail out, and every American worker suffers.

Bailing out the auto industry, or any production related industry, is just a patch. A patch that will fail because of other factors. Look at DR-CAFTA. Why do we have free trade with these countries? Added up, their economies probably aren't half what Texas's economy is. What the heck are they going to buy from us? I bet they'd love to build a Cobalt for $2 an hour.