Obama Motors

I still don't see the problem with that, either. It would still be your choice, take advantage of it and buy a GM with a tax break or if you're leery, buy the same Toyota for the same deal that you can today.

I philosophically agree with what you guys are saying in this thread, that having the government taking over corporations is never a good thing.

I just took umbrage with the notion that the government is forcing products on us, that's all. Suggesting so shows an impressive lack of understanding of basic business.
In a round about way they are forcing a product on to us but I see what you saying. From what I read tax breaks will be given on about any type of hybird type car.

Nothing is being forced upon anyone. There may be an incentive to buy but you still have the power of choice. Let's not call it something it's not.

Well, the corporate bail out was a separate issue entirely. That was our government doing what any government would have done in the same situation. The taxpayers don't have an immediate voice in a representative democracy, so they are the easiest target to fleece, as you say.

The bailout, in my opinion, was neither good nor bad. It was stealing from Peter to give to Paul. Taxpayers were screwed either way. But by intervening, the bureaucrats could save their own careers, so the choice was easy.

Had they not bailed out Chrystler or GM the public would've paid nothing. They still had the option of filling bankruptcy to restructure. Delta did that and they're still flying. Our government shouldn't be acting like any other government. If everyone jumped off a bridge would you do it too?

Nothing is being forced upon anyone. There may be an incentive to buy but you still have the power of choice. Let's not call it something it's not.

What about tomorrow?

Had they not bailed out Chrystler or GM the public would've paid nothing. They still had the option of filling bankruptcy to restructure. Delta did that and they're still flying. Our government shouldn't be acting like any other government. If everyone jumped off a bridge would you do it too?Delta didn't have to worry about losing a majority of it's market share to foreign competition. In that case, a bailout would have been overkill.

If they hadn't bailed out GM, the loss of labor in the auto industries and the industries that were dependent on the auto industry in the form of unemployment taxes. Taxpayers would have been screwed anyway. Right now, there isn't sufficient economic growth in other industries to offset the exponential loss of jobs. Maybe in another place, another time, it would have been beneficial to force the auto industries to head into a more traditional bankruptcy process, but considering that demand for automobiles isn't going anywhere in the immediate future, we'd just be directly killing our GDP by not doing so. So, yeah, maybe the actual path we are going to take isn't much better, but it's certainly not worse, at least in the short term.

Where this has the potential to be worse is if the temporary economic stimulus solutions become permanent (think New Deal). But that's a different issue entirely. And even though Obama's plans seem to take that into effect, it's probably going to be up to his successor to actually see that part through. The long term effects of this bail-out are likely not in his control.

I still don't see the problem with that, either. It would still be your choice, take advantage of it and buy a GM with a tax break or if you're leery, buy the same Toyota for the same deal that you can today.
As a consumer, you're right, no problem. However, as a stockholder of Ford (I'm not, but hypothectically) I would have a HUGE problem with it.

Had they not bailed out Chrystler or GM the public would've paid nothing. They still had the option of filling bankruptcy to restructure. Delta did that and they're still flying. Our government shouldn't be acting like any other government. If everyone jumped off a bridge would you do it too?

Just for the record, the government did bail out the airlines. In the week following 9/11 some airlines lost ALOT of money and the government stepped in and hooked them up. I don't know if the airlines ever paid them back or not. With the way Bush ran things they probably didn't.

The government bailed out everyone. The only company that the left behind was the porn industry! Can you believe that? They bail out all the rich pricks, but they leave our porn stars alone to die.........................Geez, what is our country coming too!

Delta didn't have to worry about losing a majority of it's market share to foreign competition. In that case, a bailout would have been overkill.

If they hadn't bailed out GM, the loss of labor in the auto industries and the industries that were dependent on the auto industry in the form of unemployment taxes. Taxpayers would have been screwed anyway. Right now, there isn't sufficient economic growth in other industries to offset the exponential loss of jobs. Maybe in another place, another time, it would have been beneficial to force the auto industries to head into a more traditional bankruptcy process, but considering that demand for automobiles isn't going anywhere in the immediate future, we'd just be directly killing our GDP by not doing so. So, yeah, maybe the actual path we are going to take isn't much better, but it's certainly not worse, at least in the short term.

Where this has the potential to be worse is if the temporary economic stimulus solutions become permanent (think New Deal). But that's a different issue entirely. And even though Obama's plans seem to take that into effect, it's probably going to be up to his successor to actually see that part through. The long term effects of this bail-out are likely not in his control.
The problem is even with all this bail out money there is no guarantee any of this will work. We have dumped 20 billion into GM and are going to now dump another 30 billion and if that does not work they will dump even more money into GM. I'm guessing within a year we are going to dump another 20 to 30 billion more into GM over the 50 billion.

As a consumer, you're right, no problem. However, as a stockholder of Ford (I'm not, but hypothectically) I would have a HUGE problem with it.



Why? Your stock is worth shit, your company is worth shit and the other guys (government) has more shares and can therefore exercise their rights and f'ck you over legally. As a normal shareholder you should be glad they're getting bailed out, as a predatory shareholder you can go f'ck off and die.

To borrow and revise S10's sentiments, this is a case that shows an impressive lack of understanding of basic investing.

um, anybody else think that the reason *most* europeans drive those "piece of shit" cars is out of necessity. High price of fuel, over congestion and limits on space make these cars necessary. Where exactly do you think we're headed, back to 1965 and cheap gas? And for those really wanting to bitch about the perceived lack of performance in electric cars, check out the numbers and 0-60 times (http://www.autoblog.com/2009/01/11/detroit-2009-dodge-circuit-ev-now-with-cross-hairs/) compared to internal combustion.