You would think Mitch consulted me before writing this article: If I had the floor at the auto rescue talks BY MITCH ALBOM * FREE PRESS COLUMNIST * November 23, 2008 "OK. It's a fantasy. But if I had five minutes in front of Congress last week, here's what I would've said. Good morning. First of all, before you ask, I flew commercial. Northwest Airlines. Had a bag of peanuts for breakfast. Of course, that's Northwest, which just merged with Delta, a merger you, our government, approved -- and one which, inevitably, will lead to big bonuses for their executives and higher costs for us. You seem to be OK with that kind of business. Which makes me wonder why you're so against our kind of business? The kind we do in Detroit. The kind that gets your fingernails dirty. The kind where people use hammers and drills, not keystrokes. The kind where you get paid for making something, not moving money around a board and skimming a percentage. You've already given hundreds of billions to banking and finance companies -- and hardly demanded anything. Yet you balk at the very idea of giving $25 billion to the Detroit Three. Heck, you shoveled that exact amount to Citigroup -- $25 billion -- just weeks ago, and that place is about to crumble anyhow. Does the word "hypocrisy" ring a bell? Protecting the home turf? Sen. Shelby. Yes. You. From Alabama. You've been awfully vocal. You called the Detroit Three's leaders "failures." You said loans to them would be "wasted money." You said they should go bankrupt and "let the market work." Why weren't you equally vocal when your state handed out hundreds of millions in tax breaks to Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Honda and others to open plants there? Why not "let the market work"? Or is it better for Alabama if the Detroit Three fold so that the foreign companies -- in your state -- can produce more? Way to think of the nation first, senator. And you, Sen. Kyl of Arizona. You told reporters: "There's no reason to throw money at a problem that's not going to get solved." That's funny, coming from such an avid supporter of the Iraq war. You've been gung ho on that for years. So how could you just sit there when, according to the New York Times, an Iraqi former chief investigator told Congress that $13 billion in U.S. reconstruction funds "had been lost to fraud, embezzlement, theft and waste" by the Iraqi government? That's 13 billion, senator. More than half of what the auto industry is asking for. Thirteen billion? Gone? Wasted? Where was your "throwing money at a problem that's not going to get solved" speech then? Watching over the bankers? And the rest of you lawmakers. The ones who insist the auto companies show you a plan before you help them. You've already handed over $150 billion of our tax money to AIG. How come you never demanded a plan from it? How come when AIG blew through its first $85 billion, you quickly gave it more? The car companies may be losing money, but they can explain it: They're paying workers too much and selling cars for too little. AIG lost hundred of billions in credit default swaps -- which no one can explain and which make nothing, produce nothing, employ no one and are essentially bets on failure. And you don't demand a paragraph from it? Look. Nobody is saying the auto business is healthy. Its unions need to adjust more. Its models and dealerships need to shrink. Its top executives have to downsize their own importance. But this is a business that has been around for more than a century. And some of its problems are because of that, because people get used to certain wages, manufacturers get used to certain business models. It's easy to point to foreign carmakers with tax breaks, no union costs and a cleaner slate -- not to mention help from their home countries -- and say "be more like them." But if you let us die, you let our national spine collapse. America can't be a country of lawyers and financial analysts. We have to manufacture. We need that infrastructure. We need those jobs. We need that security. Have you forgotten who built equipment during the world wars? Besides, let's be honest. When it comes to blowing budgets, being grossly inefficient and wallowing in debt, who's better than Congress? So who are you to lecture anyone on how to run a business? Ask fair questions. Demand accountability. But knock it off with the holier than thou crap, OK? You got us into this mess with greed, a bad Fed policy and too little regulation. Don't kick our tires to make yourselves look better."
I lifted this from the article: "AIG lost hundred of billions in credit default swaps -- which no one can explain and which make nothing, produce nothing, employ no one and are essentially bets on failure. And you don't demand a paragraph from it?" This is the kind of crap that really pisses off real Americans. Somehow we have a nation of politicians and Wall Street greed mongers who think it's OK to employ no one while shuffling money accounts that benefit almost no one except for the shufflers and then at the same time we eschew our own home bred manufacturers who employ millions while welcoming with open arms and tax breaks those swooping in from foreign soils who already have the advantage because they never had to deal with U.S. labor laws and negotiations and have a clean slate. Not fair to the homeboys. Looks like the state of Alabama whored itself out to get these foreign companies in there. Nice going.... :roll: Another viewpoint: http://www.autoobserver.com/2008/11/sen-shelby-how-sweet-is-the-auto-business-in-alabama-not-very.html Looks like the SUV collapse hits Alabama pretty hard also....
......no doubt Albom is one of the great economic policy thinkers of our time.....fair to say he has a material bias and is no authority on the subject. I wouldn't have any problem at all if your state bailed out the Detroit-based auto makers.....I wouldn't think it necessarily wise unless there were meaningful concessions extracted from your labor partners, but it's your money.....just like it was Alabama's money.....
Yeah....and don't you think for a minute this jerkwad Shelby has a conflict of interest when he bashes the Big Three and wants to sh*tcan their request for a bridge loan?
......you're barking up the wrong tree with me. From where I sit, it was Pelosi/Reid that did the sh!tcanning. Shelby doesn't have the authority to cancel a vote on the floor....Pelosi/Reid do and, in fact, did. They are your villains. They did the dirty deed.....
That's B/S and I posted a link before about that. From the New York Times: "The prospects of a government rescue for the foundering American automakers dwindled Thursday as Democratic Congressional leaders conceded that they would face potentially insurmountable Republican opposition during a lame-duck session next week."
Yes, we've been here before....let's revisit Civics 101. MCG, in our system of government, when you have majorities in both houses and the vote follows party lines and the President has announced his intention to sign the bill, the legislation will pass and become the law of the land......unless, and only unless, some of your majority does not support the bill, in which case it would seem to be a problem in the majority party. They did not line up behind the bill period.....your issue is not with Shelby or the minority party but with the majority and their leadership. I'm sorry if that fact is troubling for you but it remains a fact nonetheless.......
I don't know why this is so hard to understand. BT covered the legislative angle. The auto industry is looking for a loan. Their business plan, as far as I know, is more of the same. I think the lender is looking for something other than the same old strategy that brought them to this point. The core problem is the labor hour, including benefits, that exceeds any other I know of. The industry concedes that they make little or no profit based on that labor cost and foreign competition. I don't think anyone wants to see the Big Three go under but can they at least come up with a plan not doomed to failure?
They have been working non-stop all weekend down at the Ren Cen... Hundreds are working on the presentation.... I expect it to be top notch and very effective this go round. So....Mitch Albom had quite a lot say.... Not many rebuttals to that.....why not? Except this little doozy....... ...and BT is talking about Albom....not Shelby... :lol: :lol:
Obviously you missed the point......I've wasted enough time. You reject reality and substitute your own. Unfortunately, in the real word, life doesn't work that way. Carry on.....
No...no I don't. But he is no doubt one of the great economic and financial minds of our time....... :roll:
MCG- Do I have to drop the history lesson on you again? You keep bringing up Alabama as if to suggest that the Senators in Alabama voted for the bailout of the banks, but not the auto-industry. That is a flat out lie. Once again you ignored the umpteen replies I sent to you in the other topic. Instead, you created another topic to dodge the fact that your goose (and whatever point you might have had) were cooked. BOTH SHELBY AND SESSIONS FROM ALABAMA VOTED AGAINST THE BAILOUT From the United States Senate's own website. You can see that both sessions and Shelby voted against the bailout. http://www.senate.gov/legislative/L...ote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00213
Haven't mentioned the financial bailout as it relates to Shelby in this topic. I talk about Shelby however with regard to his hidden agenda or at least bias vs. the auto bailout as does Mitch Albom.
There's no question in my mind but that there will be some financial relief for the autos. First of course the labor lackeys in Congress will pass something. First of course they have to sodomize the executives of these motor companies who in the future will have to be talented enough to keep the labor drones working. I can't help but gag watching this circus. No industry has be dictated to more by government than the auto industry. MPG, crash worthiness, air quality, etc. etc. etc. All these regs increase the cost of autos and make it more difficult for the industry to make popular, affordable cars. I think that the most effective change that the auto makers could do would be to ignore the incessant meddling that government insists upon in their industry. As a rule the American public has wanted to by larger comfortable cars. The government want to cram, small, piss-ant vehicles down the consumers throats. These publicly traded companies own a duty to their stockholders to sell as many cars as they can. Forcing them to manufacture cars that are less desirable to the consuming public seems a little socialistic to me.
Hey Corey What did the Alabama senators do the last 13 years while Alabama was getting over 2.1 billion in farm subsidies? Did they fight them. And when the gulf coast was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina did they oppose the over 60 billion that was poured into the Gulf states to bailout the Katrina victims? And Katrina was only one of what seems like a yearly "disaster" that hits the gulf states and taxpayers from other states have to pay for. Folks who build homes on the Great Lakes and have to get mortgages from Federally insured banks have to buy Federal flood insurance. This "insurance" doesn't cover the types of damage that occurs to people in this region (ice is the big problem) but these folks subsidize the folks in Alabama and other Gulf states how see their oceanside homes washed away ever decade or so. If these guys oppose federal bailouts, let's see them start with hurricane relief. Bet the pricks won't dare show how conservative they are. What hypocratic ********.
So Gip, You are comparing decades of economically unsound practices and piss-poor business management to acts of God/nature? I see where you are going with this, but I do not see how they are truly equitable. You can slight the 'disasters' that strike this area, but you are also welcomed to come on down for the relief effort to see exactly what happens to this places that are affected by them. We can't not have people live in that region. If you'd like to move all of the business (shipping, fishing, oil, marine construction etc. ) to another part of the United States than by all means, let's hear what you have as an alternative. As for farm subsidies, although I am not a fan, there is a reason for it: http://www.alpeanuts.com/legislation/leg_article.phtml?newsID=1
Interesting article on flood insurance here: http://ezinearticles.com/?A-Flood-Insurance-Primer-Why-Are-So-Few-Homeowners-Insured?&id=623971