2012 GOP, who's it going to be?

[Jason_Townsend]

I guess my sense was that “Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive” is a great slogan except for the arbitrary and annoying success of GMs Are For Commies meme. “Bin Laden is dead and the auto industry is alive” is slightly less pithy.

[JeffL]

Yeah, you will find quite a few people who will point out that Ford refused government/taxpayer bailouts and managed to survive just fine, therefore GM is to be condemned for using taxpayer money to support itself during the recession.

[Papageno]

Yeah, you will find quite a few people who will point out that Ford refused government/taxpayer bailouts and managed to survive just fine, therefore GM is to be condemned for using taxpayer money to support itself during the recession.

…which is great for Ford and all, good for them. GM probably wouldn’t have survived without the help, by all accounts, and a bazillion more people would have been out of work as a result.

EDIT: I guess I don’t see how we fail to bail out a “too big to fail” industrial firm like GM if we’ve decided that banks and AIG get bailed out.

[Brad_Wardell]

I just wanted to respond to the original topic.

I am now willing to out on a limb here and predict that Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee. I know I know. It’s a gamble but there are times you just have to roll up your sleeves and make a bold prediction.

[Brad_Wardell]

Yeah, you will find quite a few people who will point out that Ford refused government/taxpayer bailouts and managed to survive just fine, therefore GM is to be condemned for using taxpayer money to support itself during the recession.

Funny story, my next door neighbor is the former CFO of Ford. He’s the reason why Ford didn’t need a bail out. They managed their money very differently from the other two.

[Houngan]

Funny story, my next door neighbor is the former CFO of Ford. He’s the reason why Ford didn’t need a bail out. They managed their money very differently from the other two.

It’s not John B., is it? My cousin was CFO Europe for a while, I’m not sure if he ever caught the big seat or not.

H.

[Jason_McCullough]

I thought the bailout was for some reason GM financial wall street exposure related, but it was actually because they were already in deep shit pre-crisis.

General Motors was financially vulnerable before the automotive industry crisis of 2008-2009. In 2005 the company posted a loss of US$10.6 billion.[16] In 2006, its attempts to obtain U.S. government financing to support its pension liabilities and also to form commercial alliances with Nissan and Renault failed. For fiscal year 2007, GM’s losses for the year were US$38.7 billion,[17] and sales for the following year dropped by 45%.[18]

[HumanTon]

I’m not sure how Mitt can manage to avoid talking about the auto industry for the entire campaign, given that both Ohio and (he hopes) Michigan are battleground states. It’s like thinking you’d win the Iowa caucuses without having to answer questions about farm subsidies.

[Dejin]

I’m not sure how Mitt can manage to avoid talking about the auto industry for the entire campaign, given that both Ohio and (he hopes) Michigan are battleground states. It’s like thinking you’d win the Iowa caucuses without having to answer questions about farm subsidies.

Is Ohio an auto industry state? I mostly just think of Michigan when I think of US auto manufacturing, and IIRC there’s also some non-US manufacturers in the South (maybe VW and Toyota plants?).

[Woolen_Horde]

Is Ohio an auto industry state? I mostly just think of Michigan when I think of US auto manufacturing, and IIRC there’s also some non-US manufacturers in the South (maybe VW and Toyota plants?).

Believe it or not, there are car factories in Ohio. And a ton of factories that supply car factories in Ohio and Michigan.

[jeffd]

I thought the bailout was for some reason GM financial wall street exposure related, but it was actually because they were already in deep shit pre-crisis.

iirc the issue was they’d have been able to get financing in normal times that would have gotten them through a bankruptcy, but the financial crisis fucked financing and thus there was no way to get through without the government. IOW insofar as you view the financial crisis as market failure (as opposed to hay maybe we should just detonate the entire financial sector occasionally for no good reason), the gov’t saving GM is a classic example of government intervention to smooth over market failure.

[Houngan]

Is Ohio an auto industry state? I mostly just think of Michigan when I think of US auto manufacturing, and IIRC there’s also some non-US manufacturers in the South (maybe VW and Toyota plants?).

. . . and Kentucky, and Georgia, and most of the South. I’m not sure what gets made in MI these days, but in Kentucky alone we make the Ford SUVs, commercial trucks, Camry, Avalon, and Corvette. The plants go where there’s cheap labor and good transportation, and we is that.

[Tin_Wisdom]

A pretty good interactive graphic (from 2008) that illustrates how big the automotive manufacturing and retail footprint is.

[Dejin]

A pretty good interactive graphic (from 2008) that illustrates how big the automotive manufacturing and retail footprint is.

Nice! That’s a great chart.

Thanks for all the info everyone.

[Scuzz]

. . . and Kentucky, and Georgia, and most of the South. I’m not sure what gets made in MI these days, but in Kentucky alone we make the Ford SUVs, commercial trucks, Camry, Avalon, and Corvette. The plants go where there’s cheap labor and good transportation, and we is that.

And labor that hasn’t been spoiled by unions.

[Papageno]

Unions are the organizations that we can thank for things like the 8-hour workday and the 2-day weekend. In the 1890s it was not uncommon for workers in urban settings to put in 10-hour days Monday through Saturday.

[Miramon]

Unions are the organizations that we can thank for things like the 8-hour workday and the 2-day weekend. In the 1890s it was not uncommon for workers in urban settings to put in 10-hour days Monday through Saturday.

And miners and farm laborers had absurdly high death rates, lower-class children worked instead of going to school and even the bourgeoisie could afford servants because regular wages were so low.

Whatever damage has been done to the US and European economies over the last few decades due to undue labor influence and labor corruption is as nothing compared to the enormous damage to humanity in general caused by laissez-faire.

[IainC]

And labor that hasn’t been spoiled by unions.

You’d expect that right-wingers who are generally fairly loud in their insistence on protecting rights would be on board with organisations that help individuals to protect their rights. The war on unions is yet another example of right-wing hypocrisy.

[Flowers]

People should be free to enter into any contract with any large corporation so long as it is a contract of adhesion. Corporations may act in concert to win maximal gains from workers and consumers, but workers and consumers may not work in concert to protect themselves.

[Murbella]

You’d expect that right-wingers who are generally fairly loud in their insistence on protecting rights would be on board with organisations that help individuals to protect their rights. The war on unions is yet another example of right-wing hypocrisy.

What hypocrisy? The Republican party has never (well, not in our generation at least) cared at all about protecting individual rights except when it comes to being anti any sort of gun regulation.

And as shown by certain recent comments, they have always blamed all economic problems on the evil unions that are bullying poor big business.