The entire point of the TARP program (from which this auto bailout money was taken) was not to invest it.
TARP was set up to un-fuck our banking system. Remember how our banking system was royally fucked, right around a year ago? It is now relatively un-fucked. Whether or not it makes money is moot, because without spending this $700 billion, we'd all still be royally fucked.
It was a government assistance program. Not a government investment program. The goal was not profit, but stability. Anyone who actually expected profit is a fool.
Some of that money went to a couple car companies that are a significant portion of this country's manufacturing sector. In another year or two, we'll know if it helped. In the mean time, so what?
Will people believe me now when I say, "Governments give bailouts, banks give loans." 'Cause very few of my friends in Detroit believed me when I said that last spring.
@engineerd: I don't know of anyone that actually, honestly thought that money was a loan. Everyone with any sense recognized that we'd never get it back. The jury's still out on whether it was worthwhile, though.
@elwood: Oh, I had a few friends who let emotion cloud their judgement (they work for GM) and tried to argue that these were loans and would be paid back. I told them they would never be paid back and were bailouts.
Proof is the fact that GM would need a market cap of $67 billion, $10 billion more than their peak, in order to pay these loans back.
Our government lied to us by calling them loans. If it was worthwhile, then why did they have to lie?
@engineerd: Since it was done before, it would have been fair to think that they could be paid back. Chrysler paid their last government loan back in a timely manner.
This time around, I think its different. This administration seems to think that nothing bad will happen if they just print and give money away for free.
I viewed this like I view Social Security (and pretty much every other tax funded program): I know it's going to cost me and I don't expect anything in return, ever.
Maybe someday I'll be pleasantly surprised, but at least the government never falls short of my expectations.
The forced handover of GM to the unions was a payoff by the administration to the unions for their support in the past, present and future. The suspending of requirements to pay back the "loans" is just more of the same.
If GM would have been liquidated properly, the company could have survived. It would have gotten new management, who would have been serious about running a car company, and would have shed huge unsustainable and indefensible legacy cost. But now precedent has been set, and they will stagger to their grave in a pathetic welfare state, led and fed by the welfare state like a sick dying dog on a chain, straining to defecate out politically correct crap for years to come.
The first paragraph is just a bit too conspiracy theory, but you really lost me in the second, as you seem to not understand the term "liquidate" or much of what else is going on.
Flathead Smith promoted this comment
RLJ676-LS3 Commuter Car - for the environment was starred
RLJ676-LS3 Commuter Car - for the environment was unstarred
@elwood: "Also, why do unions need to create industry? They're blue collar workers who support industry and have banded together for protection"
Right, protection from the consequences of their actions. They got billions by getting judges to break centuries long bankruptcy law, which will begin to deteriate the legal and moral framework upon which businesses rely. Interestingly enough no non-Union manufacturing plant in America has needed or even asked for a bailout...
They aren't blue collar workers, they're looting litigators who give the actual worker pennies on the dollar when a suit is won.
@RLJ676-LS3 Commuter Car - for the environment: In law, liquidation refers to the process by which a company (or part of a company) is brought to an end, and the assets of the company are redistributed to the rightful owners. In this case part of GM was given to the unions and very little thought was given to the stock and bond holders, which sets a very dangerous precedent for the future of contractual agreements in this country. If the company would have been properly liquidated, the assets would have been turned over to the bond holders and they would have attempted to sell GM and/or parts to the highest bidder(s). The highest bidder(s) would have attempted to add value to GM by product improvement, something a union and governments have no concept of.
@Flathead Smith: well said. all of the GM brands would have lived on after liquidation and we might just might have a cool car company not Government Motors.
@abgwin: Well, other companies HAVE stepped up to buy parts of GM. Penske got Saturn, that Chinese manufacturer bought Hummer, Saab is back in Sweden etc. And they all appear to be doing something with the equity of those brands.
What makes you think the same wouldn't have been done with the rest of GM. GM may have ceased to exist, but the brands and product would have lived on. I think people forget they still sell millions of cars.
The way things have ended up, I think that a free market, non government intervention solution would have definitely been best.
@lilwillie hides autos in the attic: I want ala cart government, "let's see will pay for roads, infrastructure, police and firemen, all other federal programs F off."
"We are not trying to be Warren Buffett here. We are not trying to squeeze every last dollar out," Steve Rattner, who led the administration's auto task force, said before his departure in July. "We do want to do well for the taxpayers but the most important thing is to get the government out of the car business."
Why are those two things mutually exclusive? Couldn't the government transition out of the car business AND get at least some of the money back?
This is for all of you people that voted for Obama. All of you want change, well change costs money and when you've just entered an economic decline that's not the time for change.
09/09/09
I know that if I flooded the market with a commodity that i GAVE away, it'd become worthless rather quick.
09/09/09
TARP was set up to un-fuck our banking system. Remember how our banking system was royally fucked, right around a year ago? It is now relatively un-fucked. Whether or not it makes money is moot, because without spending this $700 billion, we'd all still be royally fucked.
It was a government assistance program. Not a government investment program. The goal was not profit, but stability. Anyone who actually expected profit is a fool.
Some of that money went to a couple car companies that are a significant portion of this country's manufacturing sector. In another year or two, we'll know if it helped. In the mean time, so what?
09/09/09
09/09/09
09/09/09
09/09/09
Proof is the fact that GM would need a market cap of $67 billion, $10 billion more than their peak, in order to pay these loans back.
Our government lied to us by calling them loans. If it was worthwhile, then why did they have to lie?
09/09/09
This time around, I think its different. This administration seems to think that nothing bad will happen if they just print and give money away for free.
09/09/09
Maybe someday I'll be pleasantly surprised, but at least the government never falls short of my expectations.
09/09/09
Flush!
09/09/09
@Formerlythegreatestdriver: OMG! For real??
09/09/09
If GM would have been liquidated properly, the company could have survived. It would have gotten new management, who would have been serious about running a car company, and would have shed huge unsustainable and indefensible legacy cost. But now precedent has been set, and they will stagger to their grave in a pathetic welfare state, led and fed by the welfare state like a sick dying dog on a chain, straining to defecate out politically correct crap for years to come.
09/09/09
09/09/09
What?
The first paragraph is just a bit too conspiracy theory, but you really lost me in the second, as you seem to not understand the term "liquidate" or much of what else is going on.
09/09/09
Also, name a single industry that a Union has created, besides that of any litigious nature.
09/09/09
Also, why do unions need to create industry? They're blue collar workers who support industry and have banded together for protection.
09/09/09
Right, protection from the consequences of their actions. They got billions by getting judges to break centuries long bankruptcy law, which will begin to deteriate the legal and moral framework upon which businesses rely. Interestingly enough no non-Union manufacturing plant in America has needed or even asked for a bailout...
They aren't blue collar workers, they're looting litigators who give the actual worker pennies on the dollar when a suit is won.
09/09/09
09/09/09
Someone like Cerberus....
09/09/09
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09/09/09
What makes you think the same wouldn't have been done with the rest of GM. GM may have ceased to exist, but the brands and product would have lived on. I think people forget they still sell millions of cars.
The way things have ended up, I think that a free market, non government intervention solution would have definitely been best.
09/09/09
09/09/09
09/09/09
I'm trying to do that. First order of business was to give myself a massive pay cut.
09/09/09
09/09/09
"We are not trying to be Warren Buffett here. We are not trying to squeeze every last dollar out," Steve Rattner, who led the administration's auto task force, said before his departure in July. "We do want to do well for the taxpayers but the most important thing is to get the government out of the car business."
Why are those two things mutually exclusive? Couldn't the government transition out of the car business AND get at least some of the money back?
09/09/09
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09/09/09
Um, Mr. PowerTryp? All politicians hose taxpayers. President McCain would have hosed us as well, just in a different manner.
It never ceases to amaze me when people suggest that thievery and deception are unique to one particular party.
09/09/09
09/09/09
Fritz Henderson holding a big bag of money and listening to an R. Kelly CD
09/09/09
LOL.
09/09/09
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09/09/09
Players wanna play
Ballers wanna ball
Fritz don't really want
None of that at all
09/09/09
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12/10/08
12/10/08