It’s about keeping the banks solvent, which Constitutionally is the number one duty of government.

So this is an excuse to flood money created out of air to any companies far and wide. A few years ago Bernake talked about helicopter drops of money. This is it. This is how it looks.

Within a year or two as a result the dollar will be crushed and inflation will make 1980 look like a boy scout.

We always hear that Bernake is a student of the Great Depression. And it is apparent that in all his studies he has come to the conclusion that he could have created a better one.

Come to think of it, what do you want to bet that auto biz lobbyists were singing the praises of free trade when that was going down? And Bush folded. At the time I remember thinking that the whole steel tariff idea was just a friendly NSFW to the “international community” and that he had probably learned something about playing with others. I was wrong, obviously.

I have this vision of Obama spending the next four years writing checks… He might want to get one of those handy “stamps” to avoid cramping up.

This might be a good time to buy a key supplier for nothing, apply for a few billion, split the cash with Chavez and set yourself up in Venezuela.

I feel like a genius for the fact that I drive a 1993 Ford Escort. The 91-96 Escort’s mechanicals are all from Mazda, so I have Japanese reliability, but since I have a Ford logo between the headlights, I don’t have to worry about any laid off GM workers trashing it! If you are smart, you should head down to one of those corner used car lots in the seedy part of town and get one for yourself….

But soon to rise again for well deserved festivities and merriment, I assume?
Have a good new year, thanks to you and your team for all your hard work.

Good point. Text reinserted.

And now I’m going to lie down…

I haven’t heard of all these other bailouts, they may come in a couple years, but right now all I see is “just about every auto producing nation is throwing cash at their our automakers.”

Automakers in Germany and Japan were profitable enough and managed well enough to build up reserves, and are now acting rapidly to control costs and shore up their supplier bases. They don’t need welfare. Except for maybe in China, which is honest enough to nominally call itself Communist.

As the foreign automakers cover any losses with their own reserves while the US automakers are blatantly subsidized, not just to stay open but to dump their cars on borderline credit customers at 0% on the taxpayers’ dime, I would not be surprised to see trade action.

Good point. Text amended.

Considering the glacial pace of World Trade Organization action, by the time they do have an opinion it probably will not matter any more. That, and just about every auto producing nation is throwing cash at their automakers, so which nation is going to bring a complaint to the WTO?