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ORIGINAL: DomYngBlk

Missing the point again. What would the cities in Cleveland, Michigan, Indiana, Pa, Wi, have done in those circumstances. Fucking not even mentioning the state budgets of each. The human costs? No number could be put on them. Sorry, it was a great decision. Took courage and belief in the ability of the American people. Something very lacking in todays Republican Party.

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ORIGINAL: DomYngBlk

Sheer speculation not rooted in fact. The companies were up for "sale" for over two months. No one outside of Fiat showed any interest at all. Sorry something needed to be done right then.....not wait for the Romenylike Vultures to come clean the carcass of a huge part of the country.

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ORIGINAL: mussorgsky
Ah, yes, the old argument that it's all fine because Bush did it first or made the problem to begin with. Here's the problem with that argument. I could go kill five people and say, "well, it's really okay, since Charles Manson killed more than that." Notice anything wrong there? It's the fact that murdering people still ain't right! Oh, and then there's the fact that the last two years of the Bush presidency had a Democrat majority in both House and Senate, meaning that they could have vetoed his crap just fine but didn't.

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ORIGINAL: DomYngBlk

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ORIGINAL: mussorgsky

Yes, but no one wants to acknowledge the old market recoveries since the politicians can't take credit for them. There's no, "look at what I did! Re-elect me!" that they can squeeze from sitting back and doing nothing. Furthermore, they feel that they need to be constantly passing new laws in order to justify their existence. What people don't seem to understand is that virtually every new law is a decrease in our freedom. Think about it. Even the laws we like, the ones that are in favour of whatever sick agenda we have (social, political, economic, or whatever) are restrictive in nature. People are too fat? Start banning certain foods and drinks! Let's not consider for a moment that they're the ones to get themselves into it, that they're the ones who decided to eat like slobs and continue to do so while gaining so much weight. No, they must be victims of evil fast food! So, instead of banning hamburgers, sodas, and everything else *coughBLOOMBERGcough* why not let individuals choose? People make mistakes, sure, and so do politicians. But if you want to get skinny, it's on you to do it. If you're concerned about your neighbor being fat, why not just talk to him about it or leave him the hell alone? Why try to legislate away his freedom to eat? What are you going to do, shoot him if he tries to cook some french fries?

And, yes, this is a bit off-topic but it's all the same pattern of trying to get the government to run our lives. Nothing is "too big to fail," no company is so wonderful that they can't eventually go out of business. Study economics for more than a few minutes and you'll see that most of the largest companies either aren't around, got bought out, or have radically changed over time. Why? Because markets change. The most common example is the buggy whip industry. Aside from kinksters and the few buggy drivers left, no one buys these things but they used to be a common item. Look at the Dot-Com bubble: the companies that failed had poor business models, poor sales, poor service, poor advertising, were competing in an overly-crowded market, or had some combination of those faults. The ones that survived (such as Amazon and eBay) tended to thrive because they learned the mistakes of the others. Why was GM doing so poorly as a company and bleeding red ink? They paid their workers more than the market rate (thanks to union demands), had few good selling models, and generally had poor product. Meanwhile, the other car manufacturers were providing their customers with better products and/or products at lower costs. We've seen car companies die in our lifetimes for various reasons just like any other company. If the company cannot satisfy customers and compete in the market, investors will turn their backs because they know the company is doomed. That is, unless they change their ways. GM hasn't changed anything other than giving the gov't and unions a big share in the company. So, yes, they'll satisfy the government's and unions' agendas but are still losing money from the same bad practices. Sure, you can say that they "paid back" their bailout money... but that was only after getting a 0% loan from the Fed. So, what's going to happen the next time they're on the verge of bankruptcy? We all can see it clearly: more cries of "too big to fail" and pressure for yet another gov't bailout.

Here, stick with me on this. The country had an open wound that was bleeding(banks). Then it got another wound that was bleeding as much(auto).  Can either sit around and muse philosophic about the "market" stanching the bleeding or you can actually LEAD and stop the bleeding yourself. I will take the latter each time.

I know you don't want to talk about it but it is fact. The areas of the country that would have been affected would have been affected in devastating ways. Hurtful to people. Hurtful to cities, hurtful to counties, hurtful to states and ultimately hurtful to the federal gov't.

The market, at the time, was not in a position to help this situation out. Re-writing history won't help. The results of this great decision can be seen all across the midwest. It took leadership and courage to believe in the American people and bet on them. Far too often Republicans look down on the American people. As much as Romney should be chastised for his 47% comment the real shame is that no one in that room even made a comment. Agreement was all around. Republicans have come to hate America. I just don't know why

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ORIGINAL: Yachtie

fr

Watching progressives attempting comprehension and argue such is like watching a dog chase its tail. A waste of time but most amusing nonetheless.

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Yes,they do