Obama has done a terrible job so far.

[Izor]

Not to necessarily defend the bailouts because the Canadian government now owns 12% of GM as well and has used billions of my tax dollars too. But the theory goes that if GM and Chrysler went completely under without anything, they would have taken down a lot of parts manufacturers with them, and with that the entire domestic car industry including Ford, and the Japanese makers who have factories here but depend on the same parts suppliers not going bankrupt.

That and the fact that they did a strict economic calculation and it would be cheaper to bail out these companies and try and get them working again, rather than having to suddenly fund unemployment and pension benefits for millions of GM and Chrysler workers.


While a lot of the decision was of course strictly political, there is more to it then meets the eye at surface.

I dont buy it. They still went under so how did wasting money in supporting their operations for a few months stop us from paying peoples pensions that we are still going to be responsible for? How did it keep us having these parts manufacturers in business when the companies still failed? All we really got out of it that I see is the piece of shit equinox and the future piece of shit volt that no one will buy.

Eph, maybe I'm a better drunk typer than I thought but I was pretty intoxicated when I posted.... The point I was making was that Obama really doesnt go against his party. Typical tax and spend in my mind. I dont know if thats relevant to what you were saying and honestly I dont care right now. No one can defend the moves our government has made so far in this presidency.

[saetep]

Hmmm... no one brought up the nice idea of bailing out GM without doing anything about one of the sources of the problem. Unions. The unions make you pay your workers too much? Oh well you fire them. Oh wait you mean they'll all go on strike if I lay off even one worker? Ok I'll open up a plant in a non-unionized state. Oh wait they're going on strike again. Hmmm so lets see, I'm paying my workers more than I can manage, I can't do anything about the workers. So what are my options a) charge more for my automobiles so that people don't want to buy them and they're no longer competitive or b) make them worse than my competitors but claim that they're the same. You know, like missing a bolt or screw here, worse engines, parts that break, who knows, we'll find something to leave out.

Now to make things worse Obama is passing a climate change bill with cap and trade and whole bunch of other goodies that will make automobile companies even less profitable. Yay Obama, good job buying GM.

I'm not bashing his decision to save GM. I'm bashing his decision to lay in bed with unions. Democrats lay in bed with unions, Republicans lay in bed with the companies that unions strangle hold. It's just the nature of two parties.

Quoting myself here. Since it went back to the topic of GM.

[Scrotal]

kthx is right

I agree with kthx. That's all I will say. As someone who holds a degree in Political Science, I have neither the time nor inclination to engage in a debate with people who have a lower level of education or understanding about the subject or life in general.

[Cops]

^
Thanks for referencing your education then proving you can't apply it.

[Galleleo]

I agree with kthx. That's all I will say. As someone who holds a degree in Political Science, I have neither the time nor inclination to engage in a debate with people who have a lower level of education or understanding about the subject or life in general.

You sir, are a retard. Good Job!

[Kontrolz]

Doesn't have time to apply his great abundance of knowledge in order to enlighten all of us idiots with his community college degree. Yet, he has the time to create a signature all about how he is the master of all things scrotal.

[Da1andonly]

What are you saying Kontrolz? I am an idiot and do not understand the basic things of life because I have not got a degree in politics.

[Ilya]

I agree with kthx. That's all I will say. As someone who holds a degree in Political Science, I have neither the time nor inclination to engage in a debate with people who have a lower level of education or understanding about the subject or life in general.

post of the year

[gran guerrero]

I just

[Jerome Scuggs]

man, so my mother's best friend just found out she will be paying 67% of her income on her new taxes. of course, that is around 14% more than she paid last year, and also 89% of the cost of treatment for her lung cancer. i hope obama can help her.

anyways

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1495/show

that's a little bill by ron paul, how he manages to increase healthcare coverage without spending a dime is beyond me. something about "the free market". that's news to me - when's the last time we had a free market in anything? after a hundred years of progressive era reforms, the square deal, the new deal, the great society, government ownership stakes, rescue packages, stimulus packages, and bailouts... it would be nice to see a little change in this country.

[Jerome Scuggs]

oh and btw, the stimulus package has not worked. i would qualify this, but i feel that i don't have to, seeing as nobel laureate paul krugman's defense is "well it would be much worse". i feel as if i should argue this one on their level.

i mean yes, it has created some (temporary) jobs and it has given some (newly printed from thin air) money to certain individuals and businesses, but the economy is still goin' down, down, down

[Kontrolz]

oh and btw, the stimulus package has not worked. i would qualify this, but i feel that i don't have to, seeing as nobel laureate paul krugman's defense is "well it would be much worse". i feel as if i should argue this one on their level.

i mean yes, it has created some (temporary) jobs and it has given some (newly printed from thin air) money to certain individuals and businesses, but the economy is still goin' down, down, down

What should we do? What will stop the economy from goin' down, down down?

[kthx]

I said this in another thread but I will say it again.

Round up everyone that is receiving money from the government that can actually work (not including crippled people) and put them all on a huge farm and force them to farm every day for the money they receive on welfare, have cheap apartments for them, and cheap food.

Some of them will be farming the crops, the other ones will be building cheap arts and crafts. We stop buying useless crap from China and sell all American made stuff again. And eating American grown fruits and vegetables. This will drop unemployment down to nothing, and keep money in America.

Then we start drilling and open up oil refineries off of the east/west coasts and that will produce more skilled jobs.

So now that unemployment is done for, there will be no hunger in America because we will drastically increase our food producing capabilities, and we won't have to buy cheap trinkets from China anymore so our money will stay in our country, that will mean the economy is fixed and unemployment is fixed.

Eventually the people living on the farm will hate their jobs so much they can go to one of the schools built in the area and get a degree in engineering and become an oil pipeline builders or oilwell driller, or even help create oil and become productive members of society. And since they will be automatically enrolled in a 10% 401k plan and have government provided healthcare and dental care that will mean far less Americans who don't have health problems.

Ok now that that is solved we look into other ways of saving money, we keep a list of all non US citizens that go to hospitals without insurance and send their medical bills to their country, and if they refuse to pay us back for treating their citizens then we stop buying their products and selling food to them since we will be the worlds largest provider of food that will actually be a real threat.

After a while when we have stopped being friendly with all of the other terrible nations on the earth and adopting their ideals, we close our borders down a bit more and stop letting illegal aliens come into our nation and work our jobs for us, not that there will be any because people on welfare will be doing all the jobs the illegals used to do, and there will be less American dollars leaving the country to other countries, of course besides tourist locations and attractions.

Ok then we let all the terrible businesses just shut down and suffer the consequences of it, Im sorry if GM is fucking stupid but we don't give them any more money to be stupid with, we just let them fail and deal with the repercussions of a few more years of a bad stock market, and then after we ship off all the people who lost their jobs to the fields to work so they don't just sit on their asses and whine about it, they will realize it sucks and create ideas to build a better business from the ashes of the business that collapsed.

After that happens for a decade or so, all of the terrible businesses have failed and smarter, better businesses are around that everyone is happy with, that won't give out loans to poor people who can't afford houses, and won't go bankrupt and expect to be bailed out so they can go on nice vacations.

Then we get rid of our entire senate and congress, most of them are useless fucks who have been sitting there too long and have been corrupted by special interest groups or bought into the lies of Al Gore, because honestly anyone who can listen to that annoying cunt Pelosi speak for more than 5 minutes doesn't have a soul anyways. So we execute Al Gore and burn his remains then white in the history book about how Al Gore preached about global warming while having five houses that each use more electricity each month than most middle class suburbs use in a year, and point out that now isn't the time to be dealing with stupid fucking environmentally friendly shit when the economy is collapsing around us.

That should fix it sorta.

[Kontrolz]

Didn't read that.

Trolls aside, what should we do? Jerome???

[kthx]

You act like it wouldn't work, America's work ethic is gone, I am sure you can tell the difference between our generation and our parents generation.

My parents worked their asses off because they had to, this generation is the generation of leisure and abundance, we had no great depression, no great wars, no great struggles, the last of the parents who went through these things are nearly dead and gone so we are a carefree happy go lucky generation that is bound to failure. We need a war or a depression, something to wake us up and snap us back into reality so we can make America the greatest nation on the earth again. Promising us government money for free doesn't make people want to work, it makes them feel like it is ok to be lazy.