Reading this thread has made me think of something else. So Hummers are potentially going to be legislated as being illegal to operate in the US due to emission control, gas guzzling, whatever. But someone else (I imagine a foreign entity) buys it to sell somewhere else, which allows the US to keep 3000 jobs. Going back to barfo's analogy of grandma selling heroin: if it's illegal to use in the US, is it right that we produce it here and ship it to somewhere that doesn't recognize the dangers? Should we be praising 3000 jobs being saved when all they're doing is contributing to the destruction of the earth? Or are emissions from a Hummer (insert your double-entendre here) less harmful in China or France or Australia than in the US? Seems like it shouldn't be both ways.
"WAAAAHHH I want to complain and cry about how emissions are destroying my childrens' planet and future. Meanwhile the president that I blindly worship is destroying their future by quadrupling our national deficit and running up debt that they won't be able to repay." Dude, get a grip.
For the most part. For instance, I don't generally protest abortions b/c our country has decided to make it legal, and the Supreme Court has upheld it. I wouldn't perform one myself, but it's the law of the land. If we voted on it, I wouldn't vote for it, but there are established ways of legalized protest, and supposedly a system of checks and balances to make sure things aren't overstepped. I disagree with the gov'ts stance on welfare and social security, but there's not much I can do to protest. If there are issues currently up for debate/discussion/legislation, I have no problem trying to point out facts, some opinion, and generally trying to steer away from groupthink. But I think you could go back, if so inclined, and find few outbursts from me on issues that Congress and/or the rest of the government has voted or ruled on that I disagree with. (On a tangent), it frustrates me when I hear the idiotic view that Bush "Stepped all over the Constitution". Really? Assuming that he did, there are multiple avenues for the congress or supreme court to regulate his actions should they agree with that view. But it seems that, "in these tough economic times", the actions of the President ARE overstepping his bounds, it's happening in broad daylight on national TV, and none of the checks-and-balance system really cares.
I've now come to a new conclusion about the future of the American auto industry: Amtrak. We purchased it (I believe) in 1971 with the intention of holding it just long enough to reorganize it and manage it back to profitability. After all, we HAVE to have passenger trains everywhere in this country, right? Well, it's been 38 years and we're still funding this albatross to the tune of $3B annually, but profitability is right around the corner. GM will really become Government Motors. After all, we HAVE to save union jobs, right? Instead of $3B annually, it will be a multiple of that figure, but profitability is right around the corner.
You own a Vespa. It sounds like you live in NYC. Terrific. Why you own any form of transportation in NYC is beyond me. I lived in the Lower East Side for years and never brought my car onto the island except to move in and out. It seems to me that you're being awfully unkind to the earth driving your own personal vehicle when there are so many public transportation options available to you. You let me know how that Vespa would work hauling tools and equipment necessary to do your job in the middle of winter in North Dakota.
We will have to see what kind of cars that GM now comes out with, but I doubt many Americans are going to be happy driving Opals & Prius look-alikes....the government can lecture all they want about driving small cars....but they can't force people to buy cars they don't want or like....or can\will they? Are you ready for your cadillac-prius look alike? What do we tell those parents of large families? Take two trips? I still think there will be SUV's, and they should be hybrid and get better gas mileage...but I question whether or not they can hit the new governement mandate...and people are not going to just give thier SUV's up...no matter how much liberals and misguided environmentalists want them too.....
I think you're going to see something out of Cuba, where they're still driving cars from the 1950's. You're going to see SUV's being held together with bubblegum and rubberbands to keep them on the road. A buddy of mine with three kids just bought a new Suburban because a) he got a great deal; and b) he's afraid that he won't be able to buy a car that size in a few years. He says he plans to take perfect care of the car becuase he wants it to last 20 year. It doesn't matter to him if he has to pay $10-$15/gallon, he wants to be able to have a large car that can fit his entire family and survive an impact in case of an accident. As for me, I own a Chevy pickup which I use to haul things around. I'm going to sell it and buy a new Ford pickup (I now refuse to buy GM or Chrysler) so I can ensure that I'll have the cab space and towing capacity I'll want for the future.
Further, what do we tell people that need trucks for their occupation? Carry your ladder in your SmartCar? What do we tell retirees that want to take their trailer or 5th-wheel on cross-country trips? Pull it with your Prius?
So the checks and balances somehow went away when Bush left office? How did that happen? Couldn't it be that you just disagree with what Obama is doing, and agreed with what Bush was doing? Wouldn't that be a simpler explanation? barfo
It would be simpler, it would be a great way of dismissing the question, and it would be wrong. IMHO, it went away b/c, last I checked, there was a Democratic majority in both the House and Senate (with the supermajority in the Senate)...that the most vocal/visible leaders in both are not interested in crossing the President as long as he is espousing their personal idea of where the country should be going. Pelosi and Frank, for instance, instead of talking about CIA records from years ago or business trips to Vegas, should (IMO--according the my limited knowledge of the Constitution) be saying things like--"Uh, Mr. President, where are you getting the funds to make the US taxpayer the majority stockholder of GM? Don't we have to authorize that? I didn't see it in the last budget we passed, or the last bailout bill you passed (but didn't read, apparently), or any special requisition." And if they decide to, and Congress votes on a resolution to buy GM, fine. They have the power (as demonstrated by the bailout) to not care about my feelings or agreement in passing legislation. It seems weak to just say "you don't agree with Obama and agree with Bush". I thought we were a bit past that.
Don't you get it? Those that possessed a visceral hatred for President Bush can only see a mirror image. It's not conceivable to them that you can think differently, only feel differently. The Left in this country sees the world like a cartoon.
Weren't there republican majorities in both the house and senate for part of Bush's reign? What checks and balances existed then? Isn't the supreme court still conservative majority today, just as it was during Bush's term? If anything it appears there are more checks and balances now. Well, duh. Why would they cross him if they agree with him? That makes no sense. Do you have any evidence that the president is spending money that he isn't legally authorized to spend? Or is this just an assumption? It seems even weaker to claim there were constitutional checks and balances on Bush but not on Obama. As far as I know the constitution hasn't changed. barfo
Obama is spending money he has authority to spend. He just has a rubber stamp congress that isn't willing to be the least bit fiscally responsible. He's authorized to spend what congress passed last year as a budget, plus the TARP funds, plus the so-called emergency so-called stimulus package, plus anything else congress has voted to allow him to spend. Given that they're not the least bit fiscally responsible, they'll rubber stamp his massive deficit and blueprint for increasing the overall debt for the foreseable future (years). I do wonder what authority he has to fire CEOs and cap executive pay.
On the latter, I believe Congress passed, as part of the stimulus bill, executive pay caps on bailout firms. Congress passed it, Obama signed it, therefore it is law. I'm not sure who specifically has the authority to enforce it, but the authority is clearly legally there. As for firing CEOs, I don't believe he has fired any. In particular, Wagoner resigned. What's the difference? Obama had the leverage to force Wagoner to resign, but he didn't have the authority to fire him. I have no authority to fire you (from your day job, I mean), but if I was going to give your company billions of dollars that it desperately needed, and my condition for doing so was that you leave the company... It's a weird thing on this board, people believe that government spending is bad (and that is a reasonable point of view), and they believe that government oversight is bad (also a reasonable point of view), but then they put those two together and suggest that government oversight of government spending is bad. And that's not reasonable at all. Unless you actually want government to waste money. Since we spent the money on GM, it is the government's duty to do its best to make sure the money is used wisely. If that means removing the CEO, so be it. Of course it is reasonable to ask whether removing that particular CEO is a good idea, but it isn't, in my opinion, reasonable to claim we shouldn't ever exercise that leverage. We paid for that leverage. barfo
I can't speak for others, but what you described isn't true, IMO (the point about the lack of government oversight of government spending being bad). The government gave away a lot of money. But as bad as GM was run, I don't believe that Obama and / or a government could run a car company any better, especially given where GM stands now. They shouldn't have given the money away, but since they did, let the private industry do what it does better than the government, and have the government stay out of it. Unless, of course, you believe that Obama can run this country and GM at the same time.
I don't think he intends to run GM in a day-to-day sense. I think giving government money to GM's existing management and telling them to do whatever they want with it, no strings attached, would have been very very stupid. But, like I said, I know a lot of you folks disagree with that. barfo
No, it didn't. It limited bonuses only. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/13/AR2009021303288.html Critics of excessive executive pay assert that companies have always found ways around compensation rules. Yesterday, they noted that more stringent measures -- such as a $400,000 cap on all forms of compensation -- did not survive last-minute wrangling by House and Senate leaders on the final compromise stimulus bill. To offset the new rules, inserted by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), compensation boards could just significantly raise the base salary of executives, the critics said. "Congress missed a huge opportunity to set a strict and measurable limit on executive pay," said Sarah Anderson, a director at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. "I'm afraid companies will find ways to shift compensation to other pots and continue to make massive payouts that have so outraged the American people." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/31/unions-demanding-obama-fi_n_181187.html Your request is being processed... Unions Demanding Obama Fire BofA CEO In Wake Of Wagoner Ouster oust·er Pronunciation: \ˈau̇s-tər\ Function:noun Etymology:Anglo-French, from oster, ouster to oust Date:1531 1 a: a wrongful dispossession b: a judgment removing an officer or depriving a corporation of a franchise 2: expulsion Govt. spending isn't all bad, it's just inefficient and excessive borrowing kills the private sector's ability to borrow. There's only so much money to lend. Excessive debts mean excessive amounts of the tax dollars collected are being given out to the rich as interest (they're the ones who can afford to loan the govt. money) instead of being able to be spent on your favorite pet programs. What really matters is what the money is spent on in the govt. budgets. Some things literally produce shit (giving people food vs teaching them to earn their own food or finding a job for them). Some things are actual investments that pay dividends for decades (Marshall Plan, VHA, GI Bill, taking out Saddam). We're spending on things that produce shit. I don't know if you're old enough to remember Reagan - I am. The guy came into office and inherited a terrible economy: inflation was double digits, interest rates (mortgages) near 20%, unemployment as high as it is now. He articulated a plan, explained the Laffer Curve, and told us things would be worse for a year and then they'd get better. Things were pretty tense in that year and people doubted it would work out, but like clockwork it did. People may not have agreed with the plan, but it was well articulated and it was well Reasoned and made sense. Obama is renowned as a communicator, yet there is no articulation of any plan that makes any sense. One week, it seems that there's an emergency and we have to spend money to keep Democrats in office with hundreds of $billions in pork barrel spending, and the next week "we're out of money." One can only deduce what the plan is, if there really is one, by watching what they do, and the plan seems to be "borrow our way out of debt" which makes zero sense and flies in the face of Reason. Nobody's writing anything that makes sense on his teleprompters. Get it? Blindly defend the guy no matter what, people do that. We're all going to look back on this and curse the 80% tax bracket that everyone will be paying, and this administration will be the sole source of decades of pain and the death of social security and medicare. Carry on.
