Obama '08?

@realjohnboy,

kumbaya...kumbaya...

http://s0.ilike.com/play#Peter%2C+Paul+%26+Mary:Kumbaya:81398:m123633

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@realjohnboy,

will there be s'mores...?

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@realjohnboy,

realjohnboy wrote:

(gasp! Johnboy, Cicerone and H2O agree on something? ****, next thing you know we'll be sitting around a campfire singing Kumbaya).

I don't think we can sing heartily until parados agrees. Now that would be a miracle!!!!

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@okie,

You agree that the government should sell shares of GM or you agree that people shouldn't buy them at all? H2O has proposed both.

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@realjohnboy,

You're welcome. I will post it for you.

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@talk72000,

We should send him to the Middle East where water is precious.

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@realjohnboy,

The real problem with the bailout is that we can not rewind the tape to discover what might have happened without it.

It puzzles me that the captains of industry were given a pass by the US Government and that the people that hate government but love the captains of industry are up in arms.

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@realjohnboy,

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@parados,

parados wrote:

You agree that the government should sell shares of GM or you agree that people shouldn't buy them at all? H2O has proposed both.

I frankly do not keep up with Government Motors anymore, so I am not very familiar with the particulars. In general, quick assessment recommendation, is the government should back out of the business pronto, and then stay out. I personally would not buy any of the stock. It strikes me that H2OMan could be right on both counts, I think they should sell the stock, but I wouldn't recommend anyone buy them either. I am sure somebody would, however, if the price is low enough.

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@realjohnboy,

realjohnboy wrote:

plainoldme wrote:

On the GM stock offer:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45194.html

There are numerous articles besides the one from Politico. The BBC and the AP trot out similar numbers about this IPO.
I was in favor of President Bush's bailout of the banks and the auto industries. I wished that it had not come to that, of course. But it did and I remain convinced that we came dangerously close to a world wide economic meltdown and the actions taken were prudent.
So now the U.S. govt owns 60% of GM and there is this IPO on Thursday that may go swimmingly. Some at Treasury seem to be saying that the govt should continue to hold onto the investment as GM recovers. The govt might even make a profit.
No. The govt has no place investing directly in private enterprise. I say that we should move on. Government employees advocating this should go work on Wall St.

I disagree. The government is only acting as your and my agent in this matter. WE are the ones who own GM stock. Why should we not instruct our agents to act in a fashion that ensures we get as much money back as possible from this company we had to bail out?

I'm not looking to turn a profit, but to limit losses here. I don't want our government to be a permanent investor in GM. But they did invest, and since they did, they have a responsibility to protect that investment.

I was actually really surprised to see these opinions coming from the same guys who talk about saving 10 billion dollars as a 'good start' and 'not just a drop in the bucket.' That's what we are talking about here - so why is it okay to save billions by cutting spending, but not okay to do so by smart investing?

Cycloptichorn

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@okie,

Quote:

I frankly do not keep up with Government Motors anymore, so I am not very familiar with the particulars.

They are doing well and had a more profitable quarter than Toyota. The price of their IPO has risen quite a bit on their recent good performances.

Quote:

I personally would not buy any of the stock.

You are letting sentiment get in the way of a good investment, then. Professional investors disagree with you on this one.

You guys ought to suck it up and face the fact that Obama - and Bush before him - did a good thing by helping GM out, and that in the long run it's a great thing for our society. But you're so invested in arguing that Obama is a failure, you can't bring yourself to admit the truth...

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

You have my motivations tabbed somewhat wrong, cyclops. I am not high on GM, regardless of whether it was Obama or not that helped promote it. I admit that the government bailout did not increase my view of GM as a company. I did invest in Ford when it was low, and made a nice profit from the stock when I sold. I have a different view of Ford than I do GM.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

You have my motivations tabbed wrong, cyclops. I am not high on GM, regardless of whether it was Obama or not that helped promote it. I did invest in Ford when it was low, and made a nice profit from the stock when I sold. I have a different view of Ford than I do GM.

Right, right. You just run around calling it 'government motors' and trashing it constantly for reasons that have NOTHING to do with Obama bailing them out.

Are you prepared to admit that bailing them out was the right thing to do? It saved a ton of jobs and now looks like the company will continue into the future, which certainly isn't a bad thing for America.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

Are you an equal opportunity guy, cyclops? For example, do you also favor bailing out all companies in trouble these days? After all, isn't it unconstitutional for government to treat people or businesses unfairly or with different policies? And wouldn't it be good for America if all bankruptcies were eliminated?

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@Cycloptichorn,

It's called Obama Motors

http://washedit.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/obama-motors.jpg

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@okie,

okie wrote:

Are you an equal opportunity guy, cyclops? For example, do you also favor bailing out all companies in trouble these days? After all, isn't it unconstitutional for government to treat people or businesses unfairly or with different policies? And wouldn't it be good for America if all bankruptcies were eliminated?

I don't have such a black-and-white view of the world, Okie; and we also have to ask ourselves what 'bailing out' means.

In the case of GM, when Obama 'bailed them out,' the investors and bondholders took a bath, the top executives were fired, and the whole thing was put in Chapter 11. It was then reorganized as a new company, with new leadership, and has been profitable ever since then. What's so bad about that - especially if we can recover most if not all the money it cost to do so?

The alternative wasn't acceptable, because it would have meant millions of jobs lost during a time when we ALREADY were experiencing very high unemployment. What makes sense about adding more unemployed to that? About allowing businesses just to fold, when the effects would hurt us?

The Financial Sector bailouts should have been handled like the GM one.

I note that you don't have much to say about the SPECIFICS of GM, but instead are forwarding an ideological point. As usual. Nothing matters to you more than proving that you are right, Socialism is bad, etc... you ought to admit that bailing them out was the correct thing to do. Every bit of available evidence shows that it was.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

In the case of GM, when Obama 'bailed them out,

Obama used tax payer money to buy a controlling share and GM became OM.

Obama took from the American taxpayer... maybe it's time for Obama to 'give back' what he has taken.

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@okie,

Quote:

I think they should sell the stock, but I wouldn't recommend anyone buy them either. I am sure somebody would, however, if the price is low enough

Except the interest has already pushed the proposed price up 33% okie.

You are free to not buy it but not wanting others to buy is nothing but hoping the government has bigger deficits. But then you do that all the time. Put your partisan politics ahead of the country.

I can't wait to see how the GOP is going to pay for the tax cut without increasing the deficit. Oh.. they don't give a damn about the deficit I guess.

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@H2O MAN,

That time is at hand. The restructured GM's public stock offering is at hand and we will see how the government comes out , So far things look OK.

Cyclo's description above was mostly correct. However what GM experienced was not what is prescribed in Chapter 11 bankrupcy law. The actions of the bankrupcy judge were preordained by the administration and, contrary to law, the UAW's claims for payments to their retiree health care pension funds were put ahead of those of the bondholders in a brokered deal made as a payoff to the the Democrat Party's largest political contributors.

This is ironic because the UAW was one of the major actors in GM's demise (their last strike against GM was to prevent it from modernizing two of the assembly plants in Flint MI to raise productivity & quality and enable themto compete with Honda & Toyota plants in the South.) . Indeed the only unionized auto manufacturer in the USA that didn't go under was Ford, while none of the non union manufacturere in this country failed.

So in GM's restructuring the management was fired; the bondholders took a bath (as Cyclo said) but the Union benefitted from it all in a crass political payoff. Not a very encouraging picture for one considering an investment in the U.S. manufacturing industry and the creation of jobs in this country.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Cyclo's description above was mostly correct. However what GM experienced was not what is prescribed in Chapter 11 bankrupcy law. The actions of the bankrupcy judge were preordained by the administration and, contrary to law, the UAW's claims for payments to their retiree health care pension funds were put ahead of those of the bondholders in a brokered deal made as a payoff to the the Democrat Party's largest political contributors.

...

So in GM's restructuring the management was fired; the bondholders took a bath (as Cyclo said) but the Union benefitted from it all in a crass political payoff.

Why should anyone trust what you have to say on these issues? You regularly emit statements which are verifiably false, and then fail to respond when you are called out on it with links to evidence showing you are wrong. These statements are inevitably based far more on your ideology than they are reality. I don't know what about that screams 'valued and trusted contributor' to A2K.

Re: the pension funds for the UAW, the government had an interest in protecting those, because without those funds the government would simply end up on the hook for paying for these people's retirement in other ways; many union members had little invested elsewhere, in a similar manner to Enron. The bondholders, on the other hand, are probably doing just fine.

Cycloptichorn

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