Posted on 12/01/2008 4:59:53 PM PST by LowCountryJoe
[snip to the end]
By the choices we make, we define ourselves and reveal what we truly care about. Thus, consider:
We bail out the New York and D.C. governments of Abe Beame and Marion Barry. We bail out a corrupt Mexico. We bail out public schools that have failed us for 40 years.
We bail out with International Monetary Fund and World Bank loans and foreign aid worthless Third World regimes.
We bail out Wall Street plutocrats and big banks.
But the most magnificent industry, the auto industry that was the pride of America and envy of the world, we surrender to predator-traders from Asia and Europe, lest we violate the tenets of some 19th-century ideological scribblers that the old Republicans considered the apogee of British stupidity.
Nancy Pelosi is talking about tying loans to a restructuring of the industry. But Congress is not competent to do that.
What needs to be restructured is the U.S. tax-and-trade regime.
Dump globalism. Instruct Japan, Canada, Korea, Germany and China that if they wish to sell cars here, they will assemble them here and produce the parts here. And we shall have the same free access to and same share of their auto market as they have of ours.
To accomplish this, use the same import quotas and tariffs Ronald Reagan used to save the steel industry and Harley-Davidson.
Reciprocal trade. Even Democrats like FDR used to practice it.
(Excerpt) Read more at unionleader.com ...
You mean like prefering to purchase cars with foreign-sounding manufacturer's names?
We bail out the New York and D.C. governments of Abe Beame and Marion Barry. We bail out a corrupt Mexico. We bail out public schools that have failed us for 40 years.
We bail out with International Monetary Fund and World Bank loans and foreign aid worthless Third World regimes.
We bail out Wall Street plutocrats and big banks.
Yes we did and do. It's wrong. So, naturally, because two (or more) wrongs make a right, pat suggests what?
...we surrender to predator-traders from Asia and Europe...
Um, many people willingly purchase cars from these 'predators'. But, when the Big Three come to pray upon the tax-payer becuase their business models and products no longer bring value to the equation, Pat does not see this kind of rent-seeking as predatory? Pat is such a xenophobe that he'd siddle up to the American Marxist over the foreign liberty-loving capitalist each and every time.
Nancy Pelosi is talking about tying loans to a restructuring of the industry. But Congress is not competent to do that.
Oh, but I bet you'd find them competent enough if they were considering errecting trade barriers.
The rest is just mere stupidity and pie-in-the-sky naivete on how the world of exchange & trade and micro & macroeconomics really work.
That's one way to describe free-market advocates, I suppose.
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff really helped.
Those 19th century scribblers had to break through some absolutely Dark Age thinking. Let’s see, economic freedom versus government creating barriers to economic freedom. Hmm, tough decision there for a conservative, huh. Unless, of course, being a conservative today means that bigger and more intrusive government is en vogue.
The GOP needs to address Main Street family concerns instead of throwing them under the trade bus. Time to recover the lost Reagan Democrats.
We have exported our manufacturing seed corn in exchange for cheap consumer goods. We are not going to recover until we start producing again. If we don’t make it we can afford to buy it.
RECOVERY = MAKE HERE MAKE NOW.
I say NOT ONE PENNY for the auto industry until they sit down with their unions and renegotiate a union contract the companies can afford and one that will make them competitive. If they aren’t willing to do that then they SHOULD fail!
And if Main Street wants to vote itself goodies from the Treasury and protections from competition from congress, then....
Where does this crap end. When do you throw the idiots under the bus who are making more long-term problem for Americans. Do you even know the unfunded liabilities that Main Street has let get implimented through its short-sightedness. I'm beginning to wonder if this messsage board is populated by lost Reagan Democrats. It sure would explain a whole lot.
Bravo Sierra, let them fail
From Lil’ Abner
General Bullmoose:
What’s good for General Bullmoose is
what’s good for the U.S.A.
And by Dow Jones and all their little averages,
Don’t you forget it!
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS
Them city folks and friends
Are pretty much alike
Though they ain’t used to living in the sticks
We don’t like stone or cement
But we is in agreement
When we get started talking politics
The country’s in the very best of hands
The best of hands
The best of hands
The treasury says the national debt
Is climbing to the sky
And government expenditures
Have never been so high
It makes a fellow get a
Gleam of pride when they decide
To see how our economy expands
The country’s in the very best of hands
The country’s in the very best of hands
The best of hands
The best of hands
You oughtta hear the senate
When their drawing up a bill
Where asses and dimwits are
crowded in each conisil.
Such legal terminology
Would give your heart a thrill
There’s phrases there that no one understands
The country’s in the very best of hands
The building boom, they say
Is getting bigger every day
And when I asked a feller
How could everybody pay
He come up with an answer
That made everything okay
Supplies are getting greater than demands
The country’s in the very best of hands
Don’t you believe them congressmen
And senators are dumb
When they run into problems
That is tough to overcome
They just declare something
They call the moritorium
The upper and the lower house dismans
The country’s in the very best of hands
The farm bill should be
Eight-nine percent paroty
And all their fellow recommends
It should be mound at ninety three
But eighty, ninety-five percent
who cares about decree
It’s paroty that no one understands
The country’s in the very best of hands
Them GOP’s and democrats
Each hates the other one
They’s always criticizing
How the country should be run
But neither tell the public
What the others gone and done
As long as no one knows
Where no one stands
The money that they taxes us
That’s known as revenues
They compound up collaterals
Subtracts the residue
Don’t worry about the principal
And interest it encrues
They’re shipping all that stuff to foreign lands
The country’s in the very best of hands
What is seed corn? Explain that. Do you mean capital?
This country has thousands of well run companies. The three auto companies are not well run; management always caved in to the union demands and for many years, built cheaply made cars. When competition began, the car companies failed to change to meet that competition usually pleading that our government ought to apply higher import duties to their competitors.
It is too bad that so many people must suffer but that can’t be changed now. What’s done is done. Keep in mind that companies (and banks) that are too big to fail by definition, cannot become successful entities.
But the most magnificent industry, the auto industry that was the pride of America and envy of the world...
The operative word is WAS......
...we surrender to predator-traders from Asia and Europe.
Yes, it used to be better when the Big Three did not have competition and could build defective vehicles without a second thought! Sheesh!
If he's talking bankruptcy and restructuring, I'm with him on this.
Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.
http://www.fool.com/investing/international/2008/11/26/39-trillion-was-a-drop-in-the-bucket.aspx
$8 TRILLION AND COUNTING ... WHAT’S ANOTHER $25 BILLION BETWEEN FRIENDS.
“we surrender to predator-traders from Asia and Europe”
Pat Buchanan, hypocrite. When he was running for President, someone pointed out that he had bought a foriegn car. A German Mercedes. who forced him to buy it?
” Those 19th century scribblers had to break through some absolutely Dark Age thinking. “
The sad thing is that the dark age thinking persists.
There is little free trade in the world. Every nation favors either some or all of its domestic industries. If we treated our defense treaties the way we treat economic treaties, we would be a third-rate military power.
Clarification- I am NOT for more restrictive trade agrrements now, either in the Buchanan or Obama mode. Some point after we recover in a few years, we need to address some issues- unions, Federal Reserve policy, taxation, govt mandates etc. We need to make the US more welcoming to business.
Because for the next generation, they will be the party of “fat cats” and not “The working man”. On principle, I don't want either bailed out, but if you bail out one you have to bail out GM. Politically, that is the only option the GOP has right now.
Isn't that false belief already the perception? And none the proposed bailout will change the perception -- the Democrats will take credit for bailing out automakers anyway. So, why not do the principled thing from the start.
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