[ki11ercane]

I seriously cannot understand why your government did not learn from the 700 billion dollar housing bailout!

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Help may soon be on the way to the struggling U.S. auto industry after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi backed off her opposition to using funds from a fuel-efficiency research program for a bailout, two congressional officials said Friday.

I am sorry. I usually do not post whole articles from other parts of the Internut but man, this is more than a couple chromosomes short of retarded! And the worst thing is our government is going to pony up right after your government does! Does anyone not understand that this is not how capitalism functions? I cannot grasp the logic here! Please, can I have comments from the economists here? If GM is burning through 11 billion in cash a MONTH, how is giving them 16 billion going to last them 13 more months? What piece of grade 2 logic am I missing here?

And you can kiss any alt energy plans for the Big 3 bye bye. This is the first moral hazard here. The second is anyone will be able to pony up to the trough for cash.

I sure hope if my business is weeks away from a cash crunch I can ask for a bailout to save the economy.

[ReverseEngineer]

I am sorry. I usually do not post whole articles from other parts of the Internut but man, this is more than a couple chromosomes short of retarded! And the worst thing is our government is going to pony up right after your government does! Does anyone not understand that this is not how capitalism functions? I cannot grasp the logic here! Please, can I have comments from the economists here? If GM is burning through 11 billion in cash a MONTH, how is giving them 16 billion going to last them 13 more months? What piece of grade 2 logic am I missing here?

In 2nd Grade, they did not cover the logic of self-interest and the drive of PANIC.

Those at the top of the food chain here know what is coming down the pipe. The bailouts are a means of distributing rapidly a great amount of money to a very few people, and I would bet many of them are using it to set up doomsteads.

Forking over a few billion to the automakers can't save them any more than forking over trillions to the banks will save them either. You might cover this month's losses by mortaging next year'sprofits, but what happens the month after this one? Throwing a few billion at GM this month to keep paying the workers in idled plants and covering the retirements of others is NOT going to get the rest of unemployed America buying cars again, so they simply cannot make a profit. Nor can banks make a profit if more and more loans go south and their "assets" which are just really loans leveraged up at 10:1 are not performing because nobody is buying anything.

Short term however, by printing up and distribution out megabucks to their friends, as long as the economy keeps running these folks can use this money to buy themselves some security. The Logic here IS 2nd grade, no its Kindergarten logic. Look out for YOURSELF. Very straightforward logic.

Reverse Engineer

[bratticus]

It's very simple. If something does several trillion dollars worth of damage we cover that up by first lot of ballyhoo about only a few billion dollars worth of bailout and then provide even less money in reality.

[outcast]

We already had a fuel efficiency program in the 90's, and the automakers pissed it all away.

[bratticus]

We (the west) are being taken to the cleaners

Good to know things are OK in the East.

China: Factory owners protest for payment of debts By WILLIAM FOREMAN – Dec 5, 2008 Associated Press:
GUANGZHOU, China (AP) — About 100 factory owners and employees held up red protest banners outside a government building Friday in southern China, demanding that officials help them collect more than $13 million in debts from an electronics factory that recently closed.
... Last week, a riot erupted at a toy factory that laid off hundreds of workers in Dongguan. The laborers flipped over a police car and pushed their way through the gates of the factory, where they smashed computers and trashed offices. ...

[mefistofeles]

I am sorry. I usually do not post whole articles from other parts of the Internut but man, this is more than a couple chromosomes short of retarded!

Wow, you have a higher opinion of the people running the US Government that I do!

People are just afraid of change its the unknown a world without the Big 3.

[mos6507]

We already had a fuel efficiency program in the 90's, and the automakers pissed it all away.

Which is just as much the consumers' fault than the automakers. We voted for SUVs with our wallets.

[lawnchair]

Which is just as much the consumers' fault than the automakers. We voted for SUVs with our wallets.

We did vote for them, but government wasn't entirely blameless there, either.

Google sometime the "chicken tax". The US has maintained a 25% import duty on pickups and truck-based SUVs, even as most of our long tradition of protectionism has fallen away since the 1970s. Particularly when you add in health care and retirement, a SUV is not that much more expensive to make than a car. But, because of the market protection and a little collusion, Detroit was able to price trucks and SUVs at prices that were actually profitable.

Seen in this light, Detroit's push toward SUVs (including sowing fear that compact cars just aren't safe for your precious children) is eminently logical. If there were a 25% import duty on sub-2-liter diesels, Detroit would have marketed them to hell and back.

[RedStateGreen]

This is like a guy losing his job, and instead of selling the jetskis and the three cars and turning off the cable, he pays his mortgage off the credit cards. It's just prolonging the inevitable another month or two.

[bodigami]

(...)We (the west) are being taken to the cleaners, in grand style, by the banks, politicians, TPTB, elite, illuminati, etc. What can we do about it ? - Sweet F All.
Stock up on booze, presents, good food etc, invite over family and friends, and have a BLOODY GOOD CHRISTMAS. - May be your last chance to have a good time, for a very long time

You mean a general f.uck off and then "enjoy the last christmas"? I did the former, don't want to do the later (I make something in the winter solstice 'though).

[nobodypanic]

the govt understands that it's just paper--well not even that really.

the numbers really don't mean anything anymore. they've crossed that rubicon. the only thing that counts now (in their mind) is the effect, or lack of....

[bodigami]

...

[mos6507]

I'm tired of christmas, too much noise and too much useless traditions.

I wouldn't expect a buddhist to be interested in christmas anyway.