“Mock all you want” okay.

“McCotter is pretty consistent in sticking to a conservative ideology” except for this one, very important, time.

“it’s his opinion that this is a crisis and not a time for ideological orthodoxy” right, i got that, he said so in the video.

“You know, the way the guy you voted for says he’s not going to repeal Bush’s tax cuts” big swing and a miss, ronnie schreiber. beware your assumptions and stick to the points of the arguments.

“I know that it’s hard for a “progressive” like you” ooo, strike two.

“but some folks in Washington actually serve their districts” foul tip! i agree, he is trying to serve his ditrict. doesn’t mean he’s not wrong, though.

“assy plant” ha! you said assy plant.

“Perhaps you’d be willing to tell them to their faces how you think they are lazy and greedy.” strike three! never said this. i think they are neither lazy nor greedy.

“Apologize for imputing racist motives to me.” ask nicely, you cur. (where’s my slapping glove and dueling pistol?) actually, i was the one being racist here, not you.

“You’re eliding past my point that CAFE gives structural advantages to the imports, who for the most part don’t make large cars and light trucks” i’m not eliding past anything. no one had an advantage, the CAFE standards were there for all. if the big 3 decided to keep making trucks and suvs then fine, but they knew the price of that. it was a level playing field.

“Does a large segment of American consumers find that domestic cars don’t meet their needs? Sure” thanks for agreeing with me.

“Apple computers are “largely unneeded” because they only have 10% of the personal computer market” i would include the generally higher price, too, but yes, they are largely unneeded.

“Maybe we’ll start hearing about how “nobody” wants an Apple computer” there is a difference between want and need you seem to be missing here.

“Yep, another one of those mean, nasty, greedy American corporations.” you’re not even trying to throw strikes anymore, just aiming for the batter. it is a fact that some american corporations get large subsidies. for good or bad, it’s what happens.

“Toyota is run by living saints” i think you have to be dead to be a saint, no?

“but that’s a side issue to the indisputable fact that Japan keeps out US agricultural products” yes, and agribusiness has a strong lobby and if they wanted to push the point of better trade with japan i am sure they could manage it.

“Why do you want Toyota and Honda to be able to sell products here but have no problem with Japan restricting imports of those things that we can produce competitively?” i never said this. bad assumption.

“So, do you approve of giving healthy banks billions in giveaways?” no.

Well, I supported Chuck Baldwin in the last election, so it looks like you and I may be lone voices in all of this. But, of couse, now we have worked ourselves around to NOT helping the Detroit 3. Afterall, someone has to be the first to say no to Federal money. Grove City College and now GM!

obviously, you know, believing in the free market system and 100% against socialist tendencies.

Mock all you want, but, yeah, McCotter is pretty consistent in sticking to a conservative ideology, so if he decides to support government intervention in business, it’s obvious that it’s his opinion that this is a crisis and not a time for ideological orthodoxy. You know, the way the guy you voted for says he’s not going to repeal Bush’s tax cuts because raising taxes in a recession is a bad idea, notwithstanding his ideologies.

“The fact that McCotter supports some kind of aid package to the Detroit 3 means that he believes the crisis is real”

gee, i wonder what finally got him around to this way of thinking, it couldn’t be because…“there’s a time for ideology and a time for action.” exactly, he’s perfectly willing to give up his conservative ideology if it means he’ll be gettin’ some money action.

McCotter’s been consistent. He opposed the Wall Street bailout at the time, contrasting Wall Street to the real economy where people actually make things. He’s representing his constituents, not looking for cash in his own pocket. I know that it’s hard for a “progressive” like you (aren’t diseases progressive?) to understand that it’s not all about personal power, but some folks in Washington actually serve their districts. You’re welcome, as Rep. McCotter said, to come to western Oakland and Wayne counties and visit the shuttered Wixon assy plant and the people who worked there. Perhaps you’d be willing to tell them to their faces how you think they are lazy and greedy.

“The Asian companies don’t make big cars and until recently didn’t sell fullsize light trucks so the mpg avg of their entire lineup was better.”

darn those tricky asians and their inscrutable ways – making quality cars people like while obeying the CAFE standards. those bastards!

Apologize for imputing racist motives to me.

You’re eliding past my point that CAFE gives structural advantages to the imports, who for the most part don’t make large cars and light trucks.

“Now the Detroit 3 are suffering for selling the cars & trucks people wanted.” nice use of past tense:

I try, unlike some, to use precise descriptions when possible. The profits of the Detroit 3 in the 1990s shows that, yes, people did want their products.

“overpriced” and “largely unneeded” and would be two other good terms to use.

Largely? That’s a bit of a weasel word. Does a large segment of American consumers find that domestic cars don’t meet their needs? Sure, but a majority of Americans still, apparently, prefer the domestic brands. The Detroit 3 had a 55% market share in October and GM sold about 20,000 more cars than Toyota. Ford and Chrysler each sold more cars than Honda.

By your standard, Apple computers are “largely unneeded” because they only have 10% of the personal computer market. Maybe we’ll start hearing about how “nobody” wants an Apple computer, but I doubt it. Lefties love them their Apples, yum, yum.

As for overpriced, one of the reasons why the domestics are losing money is that they have to compete on price with mfgs who have lower costs. Hondas aren’t cheap, btw.

“Japan, though, will not allow any US rice to be sold there because Japanese farmers are politically very strong.”

if only the U.S. farmers had a strong farming lobby behind them. it must be so tough on companies like cargill.

Yep, another one of those mean, nasty, greedy American corporations. Toyota is run by living saints, I tell you, saints! One can debate who has more political power in their respective countries, Japanese farmers or US agribusinesses, but that’s a side issue to the indisputable fact that Japan keeps out US agricultural products. Why do you want Toyota and Honda to be able to sell products here but have no problem with Japan restricting imports of those things that we can produce competitively?

according to your man from the video above yes, some healthy banks are getting the money. one large example: wells fargo.

So, do you approve of giving healthy banks billions in giveaways? I gave an example of one less than healthy bank (though with $75 billion in cash on hand) that has already received as much as Detroit is requesting in a loan and most likely will request more. At least those loans will have to be repaid, unlike the direct injection of cash to the banks.

then perhaps, as a matter of national security we should bail out the supply chain folks instead. you know, get to the meat of the matter.

Perhaps, but had we had some kind of coherent industrial policy and recognized the true need to have a manufacturing base instead of buying cheap shit from China this wouldn’t be an issue. I’d rather some money went to prop up the US machine tool industry but unfortunately, there hardly is a machine tool industry left in the US.

How about just giving us back our fair share of tax revenues and let us decide how we want to spend it? After all, it is our money in the first place and the United States is, after all, a union of individual states that balances federalism with states’ rights.

“The fact that McCotter supports some kind of aid package to the Detroit 3 means that he believes the crisis is real” gee, i wonder what finally got him around to this way of thinking, it couldn’t be because…“there’s a time for ideology and a time for action.” exactly, he’s perfectly willing to give up his conservative ideology if it means he’ll be gettin’ some money action.

“The Asian companies don’t make big cars and until recently didn’t sell fullsize light trucks so the mpg avg of their entire lineup was better.” darn those tricky asians and their inscrutable ways – making quality cars people like while obeying the CAFE standards. those bastards!

“Now the Detroit 3 are suffering for selling the cars & trucks people wanted.” nice use of past tense: “wanted” is pretty darn accurate these days. “overpriced” and “largely unneeded” and would be two other good terms to use.

“Japan, though, will not allow any US rice to be sold there because Japanese farmers are politically very strong.” if only the U.S. farmers had a strong farming lobby behind them. it must be so tough on companies like cargill.

“Healthy? So Citigroup which already has gotten $25 billion (does that figure sound familiar?) from the TARP isn’t considering bankruptcy?” according to your man from the video above yes, some healthy banks are getting the money. one large example: wells fargo.

“The point is, though, that defense industry is dependent on a supply chain, including machine tool companies, that itself is dependent on the business of the Detroit 3.” then perhaps, as a matter of national security we should bail out the supply chain folks instead. you know, get to the meat of the matter.

So, as a compromise, let the Detroit 3 go bankrupt and use the $50,000,000,000 to aid families in Michigan: built army bases, construct highway off ramps, and give grants to the University of Michigan.

CAFE standards favor the Asian companies because it stands for Corporate Average Fuel Economy. The Asian companies don’t make big cars and until recently didn’t sell fullsize light trucks so the mpg avg of their entire lineup was better.

As for the Europeans, with the exception of M-B and their smart brand, nobody is importing their small A segment cars here. None of the Asians are bringing in the tiny kei cars. They know that Americans prefer larger vehicles. Now the Detroit 3 are suffering for selling the cars & trucks people wanted.

This analysis is correct, but it doesn’t tell the entire story. The sordid, ineffective regulatory mess that we call CAFE was enacted because our elected officials didn’t have the guts to discourage fuel consumption by slapping a high tax on motor fuel. The European and Asian governments that taxed fuel found that hitting car buyers in the wallet made them choose smaller, more efficient vehicles and limit their driving to keep costs in check. Our regulatory approach did very little to change Americans’ preference for larger vehicles and nothing to reduce driving. In fact, it’s easy to make the case that the combination of cheap gas and fuel-stingy cars encouraged people to drive more.

McCotter is right to imply that CAFE burdens the Detroit 3 more than it does the import automakers. I found his entire argument in favor of the bailout to be compelling.

Perhaps the Detroit 3 should change their strategy. Liberating TARP funding for an auto bailout may be as simple as changing the company names from GM, Ford and Chrysler to AIG, Citicorp and Freddie Mac.

Nobody is saying that the Dearborn Truck Plant might have to switch from building F-150s to F-22s. We have a dedicated full time defense industry now.

The point is, though, that defense industry is dependent on a supply chain, including machine tool companies, that itself is dependent on the business of the Detroit 3. Had we not already let most of our manufacturing base wither, including steel and textiles mentioned above, we might not be so vulnerable to an implosion of the Detroit 3. That’s water under the bridge now, but what’s left of our industrial capacity may not be able to take a hit from a Detroit collapse, and that would indeed put our defense capabilities at risk.

As for those in the southern states concerned with the loss of the textile and furniture industries, you have my sympathy. Unfortunately for those of us in the industrial midwest, you also have close to a trillion dollars of our money that Washington extorted from us and sent to you. Some of that paid for military bases and defense plants. Some of it went to pay federal employees in Maryland and Virginia. And some of it paid for the roads and off ramps leading to the Mercedes and Hyundai plants in Alabama.

Healthy? So Citigroup which already has gotten $25 billion (does that figure sound familiar?) from the TARP isn’t considering bankruptcy?

Will Citigroup Survive? Four Possible Scenarios

Citigroup may soon get all the sleep it needs. Investors are growing increasingly concerned that the global financial behemoth could go the way of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. Shares of the company, which was once the world’s largest bank, closed at $3.77 on Friday. The company’s board members reportedly met on Friday and will continue to talk over the weekend to discuss the firm’s options. There are a number of possible outcomes, not all of which conclude with the end of Citi. “Somehow they need to get the price of their stock up,” says James Ellman, a hedge fund manager at Seacliff Capital. “If they don’t they are in for a lot of big problems.”

That’s because the Japanese protect their domestic markets. Tariffs and non-tariff barriers protect the JDM from foreign competition.

It’s debatable whether the US mfgs can design cars that would be accepted in the Japanese domestic market. What’s not debatable is, that we can make at least one thing better and cheaper than Japan and that’s rice. Japan’s farmers tend to have small plots of land and use inefficient farming methods. Growers in Texas and Louisiana, on the other hand, are pretty efficient and grow great rice. Japan, though, will not allow any US rice to be sold there because Japanese farmers are politically very strong.

CAFE standards favor the Asian companies because it stands for Corporate Average Fuel Economy. The Asian companies don’t make big cars and until recently didn’t sell fullsize light trucks so the mpg avg of their entire lineup was better.

As for the Europeans, with the exception of M-B and their smart brand, nobody is importing their small A segment cars here. None of the Asians are bringing in the tiny kei cars. They know that Americans prefer larger vehicles. Now the Detroit 3 are suffering for selling the cars & trucks people wanted.

As for those of you who don’t know the difference between a US Senator and a member of the House, well, maybe you should learn some civics before joining the debate.

Japanese regulations and reality require smaller cars. There are large cramped urban areas where size is at a premium. Suburbans and Crown Vics are a no go. And America NEVER had a small car that was twice as good, much less half as expensive. As far as I know the domestics effort to sell cars there was limited to Saturn opening a dealership for about 9 months before giving up. The domestics never really tried to sell in Japan because they are uniquely unsuited to it and had the sense to realize it.

They never really tried to sell there, so the whole they wouldn’t let us sell in Japan thing is bull. You couldn’t import american cars over there any more than you could ship some Kei cars over here as anything but novelty items.

Arguing about the fate of the domestics as if it has anything to do with this bailout is kind of beside the point. This 25 billion will do nothing, NOTHING, to stop their failure. It will delay it for a few months. Even if you gave them enough cash to get them viable, it wouldn’t change the fact that to do so they would have to kill all the brands, fire a bunch of workers, and generally cause almost the same level of economic devastation as letting them fail totally will.

That is the raw fact of the matter. The situation is so far beyond a measly 25 billion that the bailout is a joke.

The only real justification to bail them out know is so they have time to beg for more money. Anything else is horseshit.

Also, that “the automakers and the unions” are generally uttered in the same breath concerns me very much. The UAW needs to go away completely and forever and the automakers need to be able to operate without that anchor. If that means that an overpriced $140k line worker has to be to be replaced with one earning $60k, then that’s fine with me. The reality is that, while these guys can deliver a compelling argument, most of their vehicles just aren’t very good. It’s as simple as that, and it’s the only thing that matters really.

point 1. domestics haven’t done anything since the 70s to restructure is wrong because look at all the poor white and blue collar workers out of work and pensioners worried about their retirement in our district.

point 2. why is the big 3 here? workers and pensioners have not been begging and btw, CAFE hurt us. wait, wasn’t restructuring and innovation what you have been doing since the 70s, big3? and wall street screwed up our credit, and congress failed us by passing the bailout (btw, we still want some of that money, chairman congressperson).

ooo…”nebulous”. nice.

25B goes to healthy banks and wall street bad. give us money good.

while your bailout policy sucks, we will actually use our bailout loans properly. we promise.

if auto industry goes bankrupt people won’t be able to keep their homes. because they can SO keep their homes, now

finally: labor costs. one of the problems that michigan suffers is still operating under the industrial welfare model of governance we get a bad rap for this so please, give us money american government, you know, for our industry.

two pillars of americans’ finances, business and government, help undergird undergird! nice! american prosperity. if one of those go, where will americans go? to the government. you know, just like the big3 are.

finally (again) if no manufacturing base, the u.s. can’t defend itself. so it’s a security issue biatches! al qaida will reign down holy allah-fire if we don’t get $25b!

with no auto bailout, america will be a nation with no path to middleclass prosperity. because middleclass is SO prosperous the last few decades.

First the Japanese people are smarter than us –They wouldn’t buy an American car if it was twice as good and half the cost.

But here is what I have noticed when it comes to cars –just about everybody I listen to is right—the auto execs have made mistakes—the union does have somewhat ridiculous wages and rules but here is what I would like to see get fixed—keep in mind these are not the first manufacturing jobs for the U.S. to lose just the latest—ok here goes

Consider this—

The domestics sell half –the foreign cars sell half

The loss revenue and expense to our government in lost tax revenues will be catastrophic if the domestics fail—the loss to the us if the other half fails is a small blip

Sounds to me like we hit the domestic half a lot harder in taxes than we hit the foreign half

Follow me on this—why don’t we, in the manufacturing segment, tax end products instead of workers—lets tax items as they come off the assembly line and into the ports –we have a tax system that apparently favors moving jobs offshore –good paying jobs that fund our federal and state governments, fund social security and provide health care. These taxes are imbedded in the cost of products made in America—let’s make them transparent and charge everybody the same—we would at this point be able to keep these automobile jobs and bring the ones that have already left back here. I am not saying protectionism but I am saying equal.

If we look at the way our Government collects taxes we begin to see that the tax system unfairly rides on the back of the American manufacture worker. Service industry does not have this problem except with illegal aliens were the illegal is not required to pay into the system but the American worker is. The answer with this one is easy make him a citizen with all the responsibility that includes. ( I would love to be making cell phones and computers with new citizens in new plants here in Texas than shipping them in from South Korea) To answer the manufacturing workers problems lets change the way we collect taxes and make it fair to all.

I think when compared to other countries it’s the income tax, social security tax, payroll tax, property tax etc that makes us fall behind not the actual wage—now is there waste in Detroit you betcha , but I think they realized this a while back and have been working on it for a while now.

And while we’re at it—why can I buy an item off the net with no sales tax –doesn’t this also run the guy down the street who is doing it the right way out of business. The same guy paying property taxes and sales tax that’s paying for the road I am driving on and the school my kids go to.

Washington needs to collect taxes in a way that is fair and keeps our jobs here not runs them offshore.

Off course I could be totally wrong –wouldn’t be the first time

Thanks for your time – let me know what you think

Stan Bryan

LOL!

The guy is representing his constituents. If he was my representative, I’d expect him to do the same for me. Too bad for him cherry picking data points tells only the reality the D3 want to hear, not what objective reality is.

This hearing would not be occurring if the D3 built competitive products from the consumer’s perspective. That’s why there are no bailout hearings for Honda or Toyota or Nissan or BMW or, etc, etc, etc.

It is nice political theatre (and shows how he got where he is) but it plowed no new ground in the bailout debate.

Also, notice he didn’t have a question as he himself remarks. Most commentators have focused on how the Detroit 3 CEOs did, but the real action is how the Congressmen try to score political points off each other. The CEOs are just there to provide a reason to debate, they are a side show to the politicking that is really going on. Washington observers watch the questioners (Congressmen) not the responders (witnesses).

It’s really not that people are pissed off. It is that the big-3 need Chapter 11 to be viable.

It really is that simple.

It is about using our brains, not holding our noses.

With post Bankruptcy assurances Chapter 11 will work, and the US auto industry will go on to thrive.

Another country tried to bail out its auto industry. The companies that it tried to bail out for 30+ years now belong entirely to India and China.

Without restructuring $25 Billion is just the tip of the ice burg, the big-3 will never be profitable again without a Chapter 11 restructuring.

Otherwise, it represents a ‘call to arms’ to each and every other American who does not have ‘Big Auto’ behind them: including ‘Sam the baker’s apprentice’ who was just laid off.