We know the automakers are broke (except Ford). The question is, how broke are they? Are they so broke that they’d still be broke after we gave them $175 billion? How fucked are we?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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?
Dude from Moody testified that it could take 175 billion to really save them.
35-175 billion Thats a pretty big spread? Moody guy was against the bailout I take it.
No, for it.
Then he must believe this is as important as AIG, Citi and the mortgage brokers. Yes?
Yeah, or nearly so, anyway.
why don’t they just us the money to go buy an American made car…no SUV’s though…sound like it would be cheaper..
Heh. I made the same recommendation to CabinGirl just the other day.
we must share some form dementia, but i’m sure you wrote a coherent sentence..
I listened to the hearings, and I though he said $125 Billion…but what’s a measly 50 billion? Personally, I think this has less to do with the Big Three than with their debt and the credit default swaps that would start unwinding if they went belly-up.
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.
Why would the finance companies be wrung through a wringer? Who really runs things in this capitalistic culture of ours. And as the old saying goes, “shit walks, and money talks.” But, do not despair, as the agony grows the American public will start to wake up. But, at what cost?
Recalls Kevin Phillips observation that we have switched from a country run by industry to a country run by finance. Maybe the unequal attitude is the final proof of his thesis.
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.
Great comment brendan.
The other part of this that I haven’t seen mentioned extensively is that the automakers currently pay a lot of money in pensions and for health care for their retirees and workers. If those go away, then you are going to have a huge influx of people into social programs that are already run on the taxpayer dime.
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.
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.
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..
…except that the finance companies aren’t honest about the amount of bad debt they’re hanging onto. That’s why they won’t lend–even to each other. They’re insolvent. If they had to mark-to-market they’d all be in the toilet. They know it. The Fed knows it. Treasury knows it. The entire global economy has become a minefield of debt and no one has the damned map. What’s going to blow up next and what chain of explosions will that set off?
Boy, this is extremely well written. My thoughts precisely. I love your analogy of a mine field with no one (especially bankers) having a map and no one knowing where the next financial explosion will take place. Maybe, capitalism will destroy itself. Well done.
Did anyone inquire as to what controls they put in place to prevent a recurrence? What makes you think they won’t go back to manufacturing funny paper and passing it off as a good investment? Where’s the incentive?
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.
Those little numbers on the manikins above the customers’ heads look interesting;-)
You know, since I do not wear hijab and never have, I did not look that closely. My guess is that they are prices, although for the most part in this old fashioned suq prices are 100% negotiable and are rarely if ever displayed. Sometimes outlandishly high prices are displayed for the sake of tourists (many of whom foolishly pay them, or something close to them), but I do not recall noticing any prices displayed in this suq.
Sorry, I was referring to the skimpy wear in the first photo and used an old slang term from my father’s generation. Didn’t intend to mislead.
Oh! Silly me! But now you have me wondering what the little rectangular bits of paper or cardboard in the other picture are. I will have to check and see next time I am there – hopefully in a few months.
Obviously, I found the other “little numbers” interesting too. I took several pictures of them. I chose this one because it clearly showed the people involved.
Please keep your photos coming. I’m really enjoying your perspective and also your advocacy for those who have not nearly enough supporters in this country. I guess that’s what I really appreciate about blogs in general – the chance to see a bit of truth and honesty that have denied us for so long by those in charge.
Thanks for the encouraging words. One of the things I would really like to accomplish is the demystification of those parts of the world and the people in them. I would like people to see what is wonderful there, what might be surprising, and the ordinary things. I wish people here could stop thinking of the Middle East as some mysterious and scary-dangerous exotic place filled with strange exotic people who have a an exotic, incomprehensible mentality and a “way of life” that “we” could never understand.
The reality is that humans everywhere have the same core needs, desires, emotions, and values. Customs and points of view do differ, of course – for heaven’s sake, there are regional differences within the United States! But at their core people really are more the same than they are different. When you move between cultures and really enter each one with interest and empathy you really come to understand that. There are things in each culture I have been part of that please me enormously, things that disturb me, things that annoy me, things that I enjoy, things that are interesting, things that are boring, and things that affect me in a neutral way, but in every case what is most obvious is how very alike human beings are in the most basic things that matter.
Hurria, you are a great humanist and I deeply appreciate your views both philosophical and photographical (neologism or new word). Keep them all coming, Thank God for the internet and for the BooMan Tribune in particular.
Groom’s Family Prepares to Welcome The Bride and her Family With Rose Petals, Pakistan
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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.
Oh, shoot! I got that wrong! That’s what I get for trying to multitask. The groom DOES attend the first night, of course, because the idea of the function is for everyone to honour him and bless him. And the second night is put on by the groom’s family to honour and bless the bride, so she attends that one, but the groom does not.
I guess the first two functions are sort of the Pakistani equivalent of the – what do they call it when the groom and his male pals go out just before the wedding and get drunk and act like idiots and the bride and her female pals do the same? Except of course in Pakistan they don’t get drunk, and they generally do not act like idiots, of course, and the events are for family.
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.
Zandari, you are scaring the crap out of me. Except, I agree with you completely. Plus, the banks and other financial institutions have all these toxic assets (sic) that nobody but nobody wants to talk about because it is so frightening. It’s like this huge, malevolent albatross flying over our economy waiting patiently to drop a huge turd on our civilization.
Thanks neocons for the coming depression.