This amount of arrogance, the sheer impardonable pretension, is bound to be popular.
On November 11, 2008, I said:
Since the Big Three lose money making smaller, more efficient cars, making more of them in itself won't help profitability. Since a big problem with the automakers has been poor management, limits on executive compensation will only cause the best managers to leave for more pastures which are perhaps less green, but more golden.
President Obama, after spending a mere trillion dollars on government growth in an effort to "stimulate" the economy, and pushing dramatic leaps in Federal spending in his budget, has laid out a bold plan to cut as much as $100 million.
| Budget: | $3,000,000,000,000 |
| Stimulus: | $900,000,000,000 |
| Cuts: | $100,000,000 |
As if more proof were required to verify his status as world-class moron, Robert Reich provides it:
We're in a deepening recession, in case you hadn't noticed. The biggest challenge is to ramp up aggregate demand. Yes, we have to borrow lots from the Chinese and Japanese to do this, and, yes, it's costly in terms of additional interest payments to them. But there's no choice. In fact, if the slump gets worse -- and I have every reason to fear it will because that's the direction we're heading in as fast as you can imagine -- we'll probably have to have a second stimulus. And if the second isn't enough, a third. And so on. FDR's biggest mistake was doing too little until World War II. (No one should interpret this as a recommendation for more military spending -- I'm just saying Obama will probably have to think and do much bigger than the $787 billion stimulus so far.)
During this year's presidential campaign, Barack Obama posited that the economy should grow not from the top down, but "from the bottom up".
After the election he is showing his true big-government beliefs in action. Only government can solve our problems, he says.
Clearly, he's a top-down kind of guy.
of dollars, use it to build a train no one will ride, justify it with a problem that doesn't exist and that it won't address, and wait for an earthquake.
President Bush has decided to give some number of billions of dollars of TARP money, which was supposed to be used for financial firms, to two failing car companies.
In doing so, he said ... well, let us fisk, shall we?
Bush said in normal economic circumstances
he would not intervene to save the automakers
but "in the midst of a financial crisis
"and a recession,
"allowing the U.S. auto industry to collapse
"is not a responsible course of action."
Dave Burge has a way with satire:
"After the 1982 strike SantaCorp offered the UET a generous pension plan promising free lifetime candy canes and unicorns," explained Kessler. "It seemed like a good idea at the time, but the company accountants forgot to factor in elf immortality."
Josh Marshall, for whom I've a bit of a troll crush lately, writes at TPM about a Senate Republican memo concerning the UAW giveaway. Ever the conspiracy-seeking projectionist, Marshal asserts that it is "very revealing -- though hardly surprising."
I think it's hardly revealing or surprising, excepting the headline which Marshall takes out of context from the memo (via MSLSDBC):
From: [redacted]
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 9:12 AM
To: [redacted]
Subject: Action Alert -- Auto Bailout
Today at noon, Senators Ensign, Shelby, Coburn and DeMint will hold a press conference in the Senate Radio/TV Gallery. They would appreciate our support through messaging and attending the press conference, if possible. The message they want us to deliver is:
1. This is the democrats first opportunity to payoff organized labor after the election. This is a precursor to card check and other items. Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it.
2. This rush to judgment is the same thing that happened with the TARP. Members did not have an opportunity to read or digest the legislation and therefore could not understand the consequences of it. We should not rush to pass this because Detroit says the sky is falling.
The sooner you can have press releases and documents like this in the hands of members and the press, the better. Please contact me if you need additional information. Again, the hardest thing for the democrats to do is get 60 votes. If we can hold the Republicans, we can beat this.
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo writes that Democrats may use their majority to do away with the filibuster in the Senate. I agree with Marshall that they should not do that, that having a minority with some power to act is good for the republic.
But then, there is this:
I don't think Josh understands Republicans at all, or perhaps prefers his narratives to be untarnished with the stain of reality. There is no "payback" involved, either against a labor union or especially against the voters of any State. That's just stupid. Payback?Finally, this issue now goes well beyond the fate of the American automakers. Senate Republicans are following this course for three key reasons -- first is payback against a major industrial union; second is payback against states like Michigan and Ohio who have been moving away from the GOP; third is the desire to advantage Japanese auto manufacturers who disproportionately do business in their southern states.
What even the White House can see at this point is that having one or more of these companies go under right now will rapidly accelerate the economic crisis, and in unpredictable ways.
Despite strong support among Democrats in Congress and the media, Republicans led by Senators Corker and Shelby won a key vote Thursday evening, with support for capitalism showing renewed strength in the against the socialist forces led by lame duck President George Bush, former Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Harry Reid (D-NV) in the Senate.
Both the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union and the Detroit auto makers supported a plan by Mr. Bush and the Democrats to loan approximately $15 billion to the failing Detroit auto industry. The plan would have called for bankruptcy-like changes for the troubled companies, as well as the appointment of a government ombudsman or "car tzar" to approve all major decisions for the companies accepting the money.
Negotiations failed when the labor union, whose workers receive over $70 per hour in benefits, refused to take a pay cut to allow the plan to go forward.
The public was overall against the plan, despite intense support from the news media. Media reports portrayed the total collapse of the American automotive industry as the alternative to this plan.
Former Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D-Chicago), who resigned last month amid the corruption scandal which has so far resulted in an indictment against his close allies Antoin "Tony" Rezko and Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D-Chicago) was not directly involved in the negotiations.
He should have hid in Springfield. No one would ever have found him.
I was formulating a post on his idiotic insistence that the State of Illinois would not do business with Bank of America unless the Bank of America paid off one of his unions, but it appears I don't have to worry about posting that.
The corruption in Illinois is systemic and pervasive. Will it ever be cleaned up? Only when the citizens of this State decide that they're tired of it.
Which implies that they first become tired of it, which may be a long time coming.
I do not care about the ripple effect of automobile maker failure, bankruptcy, or other harm.
I do not care about my 401k, Midwest tax revenues, or any other alleged effect that even the total loss of GM would engender.
What I care about is our economic system, which is being destroyed by socialism, to the crocodile tears of the supposed capitalists on Wall Street and in Detroit. They are selling their souls for the sake of a temporary respite, and we will all suffer for it.
From where is this $34 Billion going to come? We’re going to borrow it, at interest. How is that interest going to be paid? By borrowing at interest. And so it would continue, ad infinitum, until the money supply is so inflated that it will take an illegal dump truck to carry enough money to the illegal gas station to illegally fill it up.
We’re worrying about ripples from spitballs while dropping boulders into the pond.
These guys should not be in Washington, asking for money. They should be in Detroit, making it.
Actually, they should be standing in front of a judge, asking for Chapter 11 protection from the unions bankrupting them. They plan to do some of that, according to this unreliable source, but not enough.
General Motors Corp., Ford and Chrysler LLC said they would refinance their companies’ debt, cut executive pay, seek concessions from workers and find other ways of reviving their staggering companies.The only thing they need to be asking Congress to do is to drop the stupid CAFE standards and let the naturally rising gas prices influence which kind of cars people buy.
From Beyond Bailouts:
...Over the Thanksgiving break, [Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX)] noted Congress had given the Treasury Secretary the authority to spend $1.7 trillion of your tax dollars (although the bailout has cost far more than that). That number is greater than the $1.21 trillion the federal government will receive in income tax this year. So what's Gohmert's plan? He wants to revoke the Treasury Secretary's authority to buy assets and instead suspend the income tax for a year.
The Paulson Bailout fiasco is unconstitutional not merely because there is nowhere listed in the Constitutional a Federal authority to bail out commercial enterprises.
The Bailout is an ex post facto bill of attainder, both of which are of course forbidden by the Constitution.
An Ex Post Facto law is one which is written after the fact to address some problem.
A Bill of Attainder is trial by legislation.
And that is what we have in the Paulson Bailout.
-------- Update --------
I ran this past a lawyer friend, who said that actually, Congress can and does single out individuals for special benefit all the time. It can even name them, but the reason it doesn't usually do so is political, rather than legal.
It seems illogical, to me, because how does one draw the line between a punishment and a benefit? If Congress singles out Acme, Inc. for special benefits coupled with special labor rules, for instance, that may be on balance a positive or a negative thing for Acme. It seems to me that there is a spectrum or range from outlawing a company's existence to giving them too-big-to-fail money.
In all likelihood, when the Electoral College of the United States meets in December, Barack Hussein Obama will be elected President. Despite his unproven eligibility, Obama is very good at behind-the-scenes political arm-twisting and race-baiting, and will probably garner enough votes push aside his closest competitors.
But leaving aside how we got to this point, Obama will live in the White House.
So what is he going to do? He's going to respond to the economic "crisis" as FDR responded to the depression of 1929: spend like mad, in an effort to get reelected. But as Yid With Lid puts it, that won't help us recover:
As late as 1938, nine years into the depression, almost one out of five workers remained unemployed. What the government gave with one hand, through increased spending, it took away with the other, through increased taxation, and the increased power of labor. But that was not an even trade-off. As the root cause of a great deal of mismanagement and inefficiency, government was responsible for a lost decade of economic growth.And this is not the depression of 1929, or even 1932. It's a crisis in credit confidence brought on by years of systemic government over-regulation and intervention.
Prediction: even though the stock market lost over 20% of its value, from 9600 to 7600, in the 16 days following Barack Obama's election, what will be reported is the big run up it will make getting back to 9600. It will be the Obama Bull Market.
You watch.
But when anything bad happens, it will be blamed on President Bush.
After the idiocy of the bailout mania under Bush and Paulson, I'm not sure I'll even disagree.
"Why can't the government do something about the American auto industry?"
They can do something about it.
"Why don't they fix it, then?"
They can't do that.
"But you said they could!"
No, I said they could do something about it. They can outlaw it, they can subsidize it some more, and they and even take it over. But none of those things would fix it.
"'Take it over'?"
Yes, they could easily buy a controlling interest in the car companies.
"Why don't they do that?"
There is nothing in our Constitution about that.
"Exactly my point! Why don't they just buy the auto makers?"
Our government doesn't do that kind of thing. And it wouldn't fix the problem. It would only make the government more interested in funding them further.
"But you said they could."
Republicans would never stand for it.
"But they were voted out of power."
Ah. Just so.
