Wonder what would happen if, Toyota made a hostile takeover bid for GM? Seeing the market value for GM was 3 billion someone wants to see car manufacturing go the way of the American made Television.

   The unions are being crucified on this bailout. We better be very careful who is manipulating the public anger and why. The conservatives are salivating at this opportunity to smash the autoworkers. When it was AIG we threw money and asked questions later.
   Tariffs on motorcycles under Reagan (the butcher) revived Harley Davidson. They were temporary. We need to give these companies room to breath. Unfortunately we are held hostage by those who hold our debt. The Republicans win again and the last strong union dies.

BTW I thought they wanted 35 billion?

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; now we know that it is bad economics;" - Franklin Delano Roosevelt

I think it's an outrage that they've been run through the wringer. The financial companies that have received so much haven't been subjected to nearly the same scrutiny.


Recommended by Hideo Kojima

it's only $38-$175 billion, with strings clearly attached (so far).

We gave twice that much to wall street, no strings attached, to no effect at all because the banks KEPT the money. Back then it was like that scene in "Blazing Saddles" where sherriff bart holds himself hostage. "Give us the money or the economy gets it!" "He'p me he'p me, do what he saaaaaay."

Now it's the part of the economy that, you know, actually MAKES STUFF instead of cutting up mortgages into a million billion little bits and selling the bits in some Ponzi scheme, coming with hat in hand and everyone's all "I dunno..."

So I'm not going to get all upset over a puny $175 or whatever billion dollars to save literally millions of jobs in industries that are entirely intertwined with the carmaking enterprise.  Spend the fuckin' money already, at least you might have something to show for it.

John Mccain Called his wife WHAT??

It's clear that the guys that shower before work are valued by the Senate, but the guys who have to shower after work are not!

But more to the point, while those three stooges are begging for our money, they have not eliminated the portion of their budget that pays for lobbyists to work to prevent regulation of their industry.

I heard the Ph.D. from Moody's today say he didn't believe they had the psychology to succeed. For the sake of the guys (like my grandmother, uncles, husband and in-laws) who work the line in Detroit, I hope they get canned and a trio of federal czars take over the auto industry/ Frankly, I think Edwards, Bonior and Kucinich might be able to do it.

Michaela

Steven wrote a nice summing up of Bush's legacy earlier. Now Wired has an online poll on the same topic where you might want to further show your appreciation for all the fool's amazing acts of deciding.

FDR's response to progressive demands: "I agree. Now go out and make me do it."

The big difference between the finance companies and the auto companies is that the finanace companies were holding bunches of debt that was going bad.  The auto companies have a huge cash flow problem that is caused by the weakening economy.

A one-time infusion of cash stabilizes the finance companies as long as they have been honest about how much bad debt they are holding onto.

The auto companies are different.  Financially they have a sucking chest wound - every month they are even worse off than the month before.  Yes, we could give them some money, but that just delays the problem.  They need to figure out what to do to fix things so that the cash flow covers their expenses..

Lingerie Shop, Suq Al Hamidia, Damascus

Frederick's of Damascus, anyone? I have closeups of the more - ummmmmmm, immodest models (spoken with a rising inflection).

And Directly Across from the Shop Shown Above...

A hijab shop, what else?! I will leave you to wonder whether the two garments are worn at the same time.

Groom's Family Prepares to Welcome The Bride and her Family With Rose Petals, Pakistan

"

In a traditional Panjabi wedding there are four functions on four nights (necessitating, of course, four different sets of fabulous clothing for all attendees!). The first function is put on by the bride's family for the family of the groom. The groom does not attend. The second function is the reverse of the first one, with the bride not in attendance. The third is the marriage itself, and the fourth is a post-marriage celebration. These photos are from the second function. Most though not all of the earlier ones were from the first function.

Are they so broke that they'd still be broke after we gave them $175 billion? How fucked are we?

Tremendously.  Housing, finance, now auto.  All virtually nationalized, or will be soon.  This is a consumer driven economy.  It is a consumer driven recession.  Consumers are tapped out.  We are spending far less.

It doesn't matter what the sector of the economy is.  In the end, if people aren't buying that sector's good or services, that sector will be forced to cut prices, cut jobs, cut production, cut capacity, cut cut cut.

You saw some of that today.  AT&T and DuPont announced major layoffs.  Everyone is getting spanked across the board.

The Republicans systematically destroyed the middle class in America.  The transfer of wealth in this country is almost complete.  The only thing that has kept our economy going is people buying crap they could barely afford.

Now they can't afford it.  

And we sail into the death spiral.  For years they told us the Republican economy was fine, the Bush Boom was the greatest economic story never told by the horrible Librul Media.

Now these same folks are telling us there's no way we'll end up in a depression and the economic recovery is just a Friedman unit away.

Do you believe them?  I don't.  The pain is only beginning.

If everybody cuts prices at once, it's called deflation.

More at Zandar vs. The Stupid.