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Romney's convention speech- worst since Dole

RJKarl said:
He couldn't close GITMO due to the war crimes systemically committed there. No one outside the W Administration could possibly have known the depth of law-breaking until he took office and had access to the intel.
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Please elaborate. Are you saying that, despite the facts that (1) Obama campaigned on a promise to close GITMO and (2) he signed an executive order on January 22, 2009, the second day of his presidency, to do so, he has now learned that W was, in fact, correct to house these prisoners there? It sounds like you are supporting W's decision to use GITMO, but that's so out of character for you I want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly. I thought the standard liberal (moderate?) talking point was that Obama wanted to close GITMO but Congress prevented him from doing so?
 
RJKarl said:
If we lose $25B, that will be less than it would have cost to pat one year of unemployment and Cobra participation for those workers. The government would have also been soaked for all the pensions due to the law.

They have been employed for two years. 1m people paying $5000 in taxes each is $10B that offset some of the losses in what we invested.

You are being simplistic and inaccurate.
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Treasury's already written off $8b; when an investor writes off losses that quickly, there's usually more to come. You're assuming that every worker paid identical taxes, no write offs, nothing like that and that every job was saved. It wasn't a zero sum game for workers: work in Detroit or don't work. Your figures are inflated. Again, neither of us can say for certain the efficacy of the auto bailout and we don't have the same political perspective but I think that at this stage touting the auto bailout as a success is at best premature and at worst disingenuous.
 
Caturday said:
Treasury's already written off $8b; when an investor writes off losses that quickly, there's usually more to come. You're assuming that every worker paid identical taxes, no write offs, nothing like that and that every job was saved. It wasn't a zero sum game for workers: work in Detroit or don't work. Your figures are inflated. Again, neither of us can say for certain the efficacy of the auto bailout and we don't have the same political perspective but I think that at this stage touting the auto bailout as a success is at best premature and at worst disingenuous.
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When it is just about all you've got, you take it and run with it. Of course, I'm hard-pressed to think of a business that couldn't be "saved" with an infusion of $85 billion from Uncle Sugar...
 
Caturday said:
Treasury's already written off $8b; when an investor writes off losses that quickly, there's usually more to come. You're assuming that every worker paid identical taxes, no write offs, nothing like that and that every job was saved. It wasn't a zero sum game for workers: work in Detroit or don't work. Your figures are inflated. Again, neither of us can say for certain the efficacy of the auto bailout and we don't have the same political perspective but I think that at this stage touting the auto bailout as a success is at best premature and at worst disingenuous.
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That's an average.

We'd be in a worldwide depression had GM gone BK. Our economy could not have stood such an event.

If you aren't being political and being in arena that you are, you know there was no private money to save GM. You know how devastating allowing that BK to happen at that time would have been.
 
RJKarl said:
That's an average.

We'd be in a worldwide depression had GM gone BK. Our economy could not have stood such an event.

If you aren't being political and being in arena that you are, you know there was no private money to save GM. You know how devastating allowing that BK to happen at that time would have been.
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No chance we'd be in a worldwide depression if GM went BK. Not even close. The reason that Lehman, BSC, etc. caused such mayhem was the contagion their crashes created. Everyone from insurers, to banks, to retail investors, to funds, etc. took a hit even if they didn't own the company because of the derivatives and enormous corporate bond spreads created. GM wouldn't have been a death blow by any means. There would have been tons of private money if lenders thought it was a good investment.
 
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I guess some people are better off but, I'm not one of them.

Left job I liked due to downsizing
House worth 40% of what it was 4 years ago
Paid 3.87 for a gallon of gas today

Oh well, at least FSU is better. (-:
 
Caturday said:
No chance we'd be in a worldwide depression if GM went BK. Not even close. The reason that Lehman, BSC, etc. caused such mayhem was the contagion their crashes created. Everyone from insurers, to banks, to retail investors, to funds, etc. took a hit even if they didn't own the company because of the derivatives and enormous corporate bond spreads created. GM wouldn't have been a death blow by any means. There would have been tons of private money if lenders thought it was a good investment.
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Good posts on this. While I don't necessarily think private money always knows best and sometimes government needs to step in, this was not one of those times. They needed to go bankrupt and restructure. Interestingly, at the time I posted that Obama should appoint Romney to be in charge of putting together a bankruptcy plan for GM.
 
PhDeac said:
Good posts on this. While I don't necessarily think private money always knows best and sometimes government needs to step in, this was not one of those times. They needed to go bankrupt and restructure. Interestingly, at the time I posted that Obama should appoint Romney to be in charge of putting together a bankruptcy plan for GM.
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O man that would be a pretty cunning maneuver. "Hey Mitt, you're smart and I respect you. I want you in my administration in an important role but no, you can't have the presidency."

We can prop GM up for a while but it's just not a feasible long term model unless unions wants $5/hour and no pensions. Although in Detroit, $5/hour probably gets you pretty far.

I agree that private money doesn't equate to optimization but it does a better job at it than the government. GM just isn't able to compete with foreign manufacturers in the long term.
 
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Caturday said:
O man that would be a pretty cunning maneuver. "Hey Mitt, you're smart and I respect you. I want you in my administration in an important role but no, you can't have the presidency."

We can prop GM up for a while but it's just not a feasible long term model unless unions wants $5/hour and no pensions. Although in Detroit, $5/hour probably gets you pretty far.

I agree that private money doesn't equate to optimization but it does a better job at it than the government. GM just isn't able to compete with foreign manufacturers in the long term.
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Mitt's background would have been perfect for it. If he had accepted, he would have been responsible for an Obama victory, boosted Obama's bi-partisan cred, and stuck Romney with the same label as Huntsman (who?). If Mitt had declined, Obama could run on Mitt letting Detroit down and failing to help save Detroit both privately and publicly.

Agree that it's not a feasible long-term model to trot out cars that don't fit the needs of the market even though they may fit politcally and/or environmentally. I was listening to Marketplace this evening and there was a story about a documentary about the Detroit decline. I need to relisten to it, but part of it was a guy talking about the Chevy Volt and it's $40K price tag compared to a similar Chinese vehicle selling at $20K.

Also, I don't know how GM is doing in international markets, but it's something they'll need to do effectively and that's going to mean overseas jobs.

Regardless, saving jobs is a weak rationale for bailing out a private company and private investors. It just creates a jobs bubble that is unsustainable.
 
PhDeac said:
Mitt's background would have been perfect for it. If he had accepted, he would have been responsible for an Obama victory, boosted Obama's bi-partisan cred, and stuck Romney with the same label as Huntsman (who?). If Mitt had declined, Obama could run on Mitt letting Detroit down and failing to help save Detroit both privately and publicly.

Agree that it's not a feasible long-term model to trot out cars that don't fit the needs of the market even though they may fit politcally and/or environmentally. I was listening to Marketplace this evening and there was a story about a documentary about the Detroit decline. I need to relisten to it, but part of it was a guy talking about the Chevy Volt and it's $40K price tag compared to a similar Chinese vehicle selling at $20K.

Also, I don't know how GM is doing in international markets, but it's something they'll need to do effectively and that's going to mean overseas jobs.

Regardless, saving jobs is a weak rationale for bailing out a private company and private investors. It just creates a jobs bubble that is unsustainable.
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What is maddening about the auto bailout debate is the issue of outsourcing jobs overseas. I think I learned in Ecn 150 that outsourcing isn't a bad thing, in fact, it's a good thing. Protecting certain industries makes no sense for the company or the consumer or the government (except politically). Yes, it would suck for those people that lost their jobs if GM went under. It would suck a lot but with decreased costs GM may find a market abroad or it may not. If it finds a market abroad, guess who gets to train and manage the new workers? The old workers. Share value increases, costs go down and the company is stronger. The thing is we aren't even saving jobs, we're saving the jobs here and now. Not 10 years from now, not even 5 years from now. GM's managed to make inroads abroad. In fact, there are a number of countries where GM's market share is greater than that of the US. However, as you mentioned, even with a growing middle class in these countries, GM doesn't have the cache to charge double the price.
 
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