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| 12/25 |
| 2008/12/12-17 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:52237 Activity:high |
12/12 Turns out it was the Dems in the senate who stopped the bailout
http://tinyurl.com/6yvf6k
\_ Right. And the Democrats are the ones who got us into the War
in Iraq. Uh huh.
\_ Uh, the vote for cloture was 52, with 4 D's voting nay and 4 not
voting. You think that's up for debate?
\_ The vote was as follows:
Democrats: 42 Y 4 N 4 A
Republicans: 10 Y 40 N(and A)
And your conclusion is that the Democrats "stopped the
bailout" right?
\_ Keep on pretending.
\_ Good for them. I'm disappointed that more aren't against it. -tom
\_ Woah, tom & I agree on something? -emarkp
\_ tom, you, and I agree on this. But we're bound to agree
on tautologies, like oxygen is necessary for living,
drinking water is good for you, literacy is good etc. -pollux
\_ Yes, I figured this was implicit in my comment--an issue on
which there are legitimate opinions on either side. -emarkp
\_ socialising failure and communism for the rich is
not a legitimate reason. Historically this is chrysler
bailout #2 so, so philosophically, morally, and
historically this bailout shouldn't happen. -pollux
\_ who cares if we bailed out Chrysler before. We bailed out
the world of finance in the 80s, why did we bail them out
again?
\_ you had your socialist empire, it failed, leave us
alone. No bailouts.
\_ so we give 800 billion to the banks, and we cant give 15 bill
to the industrial base? great.
\_ If you want the government to invest in the country's industrial
base, then is handing 15-34 billion to these three companies
really the best way to go about it? Consider that this is more
than these three companies put together are worth.
\_ No, I think the idea is more that we can't afford another
1M unemployed right now.
\_ It's time for poetic justice; we should have the auto
makers declare bankruptcy, and give their assets to
Amtrak, who will use them to develop trolley systems in
cities nationwide. -tom
\_ There are about, what, eight cities in the nation that
would benefit by this? Fewer? And how many of those don't
already have a trolley or similar?
\_ I was joking, but every city would benefit by having
a trolley system. Every city *did* benefit by having
a trolley system; they were widespread in the early
20th century. They only were killed because of a
typically unfortunate marriage of politics and greed.
-tom
\_ Only in the sense that every city would also benefit
by having free public helicopter service.
\_ The ROI on commuter rail in most American cities
is better than ROI on roads. -tom
\_ Why was the plan blocked? An e-mail message circulated among Senate
Republicans declared ... an opportunity ... to "take their first
shot against organized labor."
\_ i can fake email headers too
\_ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/15/opinion/15kristol.html |
| 12/25 |
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| tinyurl.com/6yvf6k -> www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/12/senate_democrats_had_enough_re_1.asp Senate Republicans' refusal to support the bipartisan legislation passed by the House and negotiated in good faith with the White House, the Senate and the automakers is irresponsible, especially at a time of economic hardship. The consequences of the Senate Republicans' failure to act could be devastating to our economy, detrimental to workers, and destructive to the American automobile industry The problem with Pelosi's statement is that 10 Republican Senators voted with the Democrats last night, which means the Democrats could have reached 60 votes if the entire Democratic caucus voted for the bill. But eight Democrats bailed on the bailout (Reid, it should be noted, voted against it for procedural reasons, in order to bring it up for a vote again). Four Democrats voted 'nay': Baucus, Tester, Lincoln, and Reid. Four Democrats did not vote: Biden, Kennedy, Kerry, and Wyden. |
| www.nytimes.com/2008/12/15/opinion/15kristol.html WILLIAM KRISTOL Published: December 15, 2008 In 1953, the president of General Motors, Charles Wilson, was nominated by President Eisenhower to be secretary of defense. During his confirmation hearings, Wilson was asked if he'd be able, as defense secretary, to make decisions contrary to the interests of GM He answered yes, but added that he couldn't imagine such a situation, because "for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa." It was widely shared -- by big-business-loving Republicans and big-union-embracing Democrats, by big-car-driving suburbanites and big-tank-occupying soldiers. Detroit has many sins to answer for, and it's been doing plenty of answering. But -- and I say this as someone who grew up in non-car-driving family in New York and who is the furthest thing from an auto aficionado -- there is a kind of undeserved disdain, even casual contempt, that seems to characterize the attitude of the political and media elites toward the American auto industry. As Warren Brown, who writes about cars for The Washington Post, recently put it, "There is a feeling in this country -- apparent in the often condescending, dismissive way Detroit's automobile companies have been treated on Capitol Hill -- that people who work with their hands and the companies that employ them are inferior to those who work with their minds and plow profit from information. How else to explain the clearly disparate treatment given to companies such as Citigroup and General Motors?" Now there are other ways to explain the disparate treatment of GM and Citigroup. Finance is different from manufacturing, and banks from auto companies. It may be that the case for a huge bank bailout was strong, and that the case for a more modest auto package is not. Still, it seems to me true that the financial big shots haven't been treated nearly as roughly in Congress or in the media as the auto executives, who have done nothing remotely as irresponsible as their Wall Street counterparts. What's more, in their disdain for the American auto companies, the left and right wings of the establishment agree. Of course, the particular foci of criticism are different -- the left berates the auto companies' management, the right the United Automobile Workers. But even on the left, while Democratic politicians still try to look out for the interests of the UAW, there's not really that much sympathy for the workers. The ascendant environmentalists disdain (to say the least) the internal combustion engine and everyone associated with it. Most of today's limousine liberals are embarrassed by their political alliance with the workers who built those limousines. Meanwhile, on the right, free-market analysts have explained that our regulatory scheme of fuel-efficiency standards is counterproductive. But despite the fact that the government is partly responsible for the Big Three's problems, the right hasn't really been stirred to enthusiastically promote a deregulatory agenda to help the auto companies. What excites it is mobilizing to oppose bailouts for unionized workers. Last week, Senate Republicans picked a fight with the UAW on union pay scales -- despite the fact that it's the legacy benefits for retirees, not pay for current workers, that's really hurting Detroit, and despite the additional fact that, in any case, labor amounts to only about 10 percent of the cost of a car. Some of the same conservatives who (correctly, in my view) made the case for $700 billion for Wall Street pitched a fit over $14 billion in loans for the automakers. So Senate Republicans chose to threaten to filibuster the House-passed legislation embodying the George Bush-Nancy Pelosi deal. The bill would have allowed President Bush to name a car czar, who could have begun to force concessions from all sides. It also would have averted for now a collapse of the auto industry, and shifted difficult decisions to the Obama administration. Instead, Bush will now probably have to use the financial rescue funds to save GM -- instead of being able to draw from sums previously authorized for the green transformation of the auto industry, a fight he had won in the negotiations with Pelosi. And Senate Republicans now run the risk of being portrayed as Marie Antoinettes with Southern accents. Whichever party can liberate itself from its well-worn rut to propose policies that help both American businesses and workers has a great opportunity. That party's leaders could begin by offering management and labor at the Big Three a little more sympathy, and heaping upon them a little less calumny. |