Let GM go Bankrupt

The goal of the bailout was to AVOID bankruptcy, you don't know what you're talking about.

It wasn't a threat....I just don't like seeing you make an ass of yourself. You clearly don't understand this issue.

bankruptcy was never avoidable. but controlling it was worth a shot. and that is what happened.

to me, that is a good thing.

This isn't true at all. The goal of the bailout was to avoid the complete and uncontrolled collapse of GM. Nobody thought they were going to avoid any sort of bankruptcy at all.

Cycloptichorn

Go back to any November 2008 news article and show me that the goal of giving GM and Chrysler over 100 billion dollars was to help them through their bankruptcy.

We gave them 100 billion to try to keep them FROM bankruptcy, either that or the incoming and the outgoing administrations were LYING to all of us.

I never believed BK was avoidable, go back to the beginning of the thread.

The bailouts WERE avoidable, and should have NEVER happened.

Please, prove me wrong with any source from November 2008 that indicates that this is the case (the piece about avoiding bankruptcy at all).

no, the goal was to keep these firms from a "disorganized" bankruptcy, as in one where the outcome would be fought out in bankruptcy court.

that's all i have been trying to get across. as crappy as it is to have to bail any businesses out, allowing them to utterly fail would be devastating to the country and to the population at large.

and to maporsche; dude, the only real beef i have with you is that you, and you are not alone in this, want to have an omelette without breaking any of your eggs. i wish that things were that way, too.

but, sometimes we just have to do stuff that sucks to stop things that suck even more. that's life.

I don't understand your meaning.

I wanted GM to fail, on their own, w/o being bailed out.

I know what the consequences would have been (and they would not have been as severe as people with an agenda want you to believe). So did a lot of people. Read the first 5 pages of this thread. A LOT (the majority) of people here (and in the nation, as communicated by polls) wanted GM to fail and go through BK.

I don't know how that equates to wanting an omlette w/o breaking any of my eggs.

I for one argued that we had no choice but to acknowledge that GM was a failed company, and to do with GM what capitalism demands be done with failures. There is no desire to see GM in Bankruptcy.

That's what I meant.

I have no reason to wish GM failure...but they DID fail, and should have been allowed to die.

I will point out that maporsche, myself, and others were quite willing to break those eggs to make the omelette, as you say. GM was challenged to convince congress that it had a workable survival plan to get further money. They didn't meet the deadline, but finally came up with something that gave congress an excuse to fork it over, anyway.

Maybe letting them fail at that time would have been the wrong way to go, considering the environment of failing financial business and crashing stock market. I believe otherwise, but they really did their best to put together a story to convince us they could stay out of bankruptcy. And they failed to do it, which is no surprise. The whole plan seemed to survive by further borrowing, stiffing the secured bondholders, and gaining concessions from suppliers and unions. That's really how it was.

or allowed to reorganize if the market (capitalism) supported that. Letting the government pick winners and losers is always a big problem, which is compounded when the political process is compromised (corrupt) as ours currently is.

Agreed.

the GM bailout was a simple jobs program.

I love this American Businessman!
Buy truck, get an AK-47

the argument was not that....the argument was that had the bankruptcy process been allowed to function as normal, or had the company been allowed to further slide into the zombie state, that the entire economy was in danger. Transparency, and truth in advertising, apparently do not apply to the federal government when the federal government decides that dishonest manipulation gets to its goals faster. See the history of the run-up to the Iraq war for further illustration.

Tell us again why D's are better than R's.......

exactly. if all else was going along strong and growing, then the country would most likely be able to moderate, or at least withstand the ensuing domino effect. but with banking, real estate and other industries taking gas simultaneously?

that would have been fugly.

i've seen smaller upsets than gm going into the dirt cause a lot of people their livelyhood, homes etc.

as big as the record business was for 4 or 5 decades, in the last few years it has fallen apart, right ? maybe due to any and all downloading. or maybe because, as bill maher said, michael jackson made the moon walk more important than the guitar solo. whatever.

fewer records sold meant the elimination of not only label people, but also the support, recording studios, gear manufacturing, equipment rental, transportation services, messengers, advertising & promotion, accountants, lawyers, disc manufacturers, mastering facilities and engineers, and even gas stations. because all of this stuff has to get from point a to point b.

there are some who would say, "well it's just music. who cares?"

here is why we should;

each one of those people who have lost their job can no longer afford to grab a 5$ latte from starbuck's. go to the smokehouse for lunch. they will probably loose the beemer, the leasing company looses money, there too. the expensive gym keeping those abs cut is out of the budget. what about food? whole foods is way to expensive now, vons isn't much cheaper. eventually it's back to top ramen again. joy.

can't pay the rent. the landlord looses money. too many empty units and he can't make his nut. the bank get's pissed, calls in the loan, gets nothing, forecloses and is now sitting on a commercial property that no body can get a loan to buy.

clothes from nordstrom are a memory now. so a down turn in business means that the newest sales associates are going to get laid off. now they can't buy anything.

see where i'm coming from ? this is why i said that if enough people get hosed in even a single, but ginormous industry, the ripple from it is going to take out others in related and completely unrelated industries too.

so to me, if doing something that is a little distasteful provides a possibility of avoiding greater conflagration and works towards the good of all in general, i'm willing to give it a try.

If all car dealers had adopted the "buy a vehicle, get a gun" plan the bailout would have been totally unnecessary.

that's what government safety nets are for, so that capitalism can regenerate as it needs to in order to stay healthy, so that old worn out companies and business models don't live longer than they should and thus drain the rest of the economy...just as you should always prune a bush of diseased and weak stems so that the plant will be able to stay healthy.

Oh wait, America does not believe in safety nets. We can't let capitalism function because too many citizens will get hurt so badly that they will take revenge out on the politicians.