Bailout Watch 539: HERE's Your GD Bailout! (Car Dealers)
After taking plenty o’ heat for “helping” Chrysler and GM shit-can nearly 2000 car dealers, the Obama administration has arranged a little sugar for the remaining stores—and then some. They’ve created a federal loan guarantee program for dealer inventory financing that’s worth, you guessed it, billions. Automotive News [AN, sub] reveals that the Small Business Administration’s “pilot” program for car dealers (women and domestics first?) will run from July 1 to September 30, 2010. And what, pray tell, do the lucky, politically-connected car dealers get for our money?
The agency will guarantee no less than 75 percent of the dealer’s floorplanning (i.e., inventory) loans, from $500 thousand to $2 million, with a maximum repayment term of five years. “The SBA estimates it will be able to offer guarantees on 4,500 loans in the first three months of the pilot. In the following 12 months, if past patterns hold, it will be able to do about 7,500.”
That ought to do it! “This is a lifeline thrown out for thousands of dealers throughout the country,” said Bob Cockerham, owner of Car World Kia in Santa Fe, N.M. “This could end up igniting the runaway inflation that some economic analysts believe will result from uncontrolled, unsustainable federal deficit spending.”
No, he didn’t say that. He said “saving thousands of dealerships.” Cry the beloved franchisee, eh? Anyway, how much is THIS boondoggle going to cost me? NADA? AN? Bueller?
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"The only thing close to what you are claiming is the Lancet article which has helped make the Lancet a laughingstock." - me "Really, so the real serious scientists must believe in compiling totals from newspaper obits. " - Agenthex Do you know the methodology they used? It was obscene. Here's some keys for you: - They used 47 "cluster" interviews....which is just ridiculously low for statistical accuracy when expanded to an entire country. - They interviewed main street households (i.e. off a main street in the city, a flaw itself) and asked about "deaths" in the household pre-invasion and post-invasion leading up to July 2006. - The difference in "deaths" was determined to be caused by the U.S. invasion and deemed "excess deaths". Note: Consider here for a moment the implications that all deaths after the invasion were attributed to the U.S. - The Lancet report said there were 82 deaths pre-invasion and 547 post-invasion, then multiplied up in relation to the Iraqi population of 27,139,584, and came up with an estimated 654,956 "excess" deaths, 2.5 % of the population. - 601,027 were attributed to the violence (mainly from gunfire and mainly among men aged 15-59), the rest coming largely from increased illness and disease. (Note that the gross figure of ~650k was inflated by 50k with illness and disease, again being attributed to the U.S. invasion in the ultimate report) - If it is assumed that there were 601,000 violent "excess" deaths between March 2003 and July 2006 (about 40 months), that should produce an average of about 500 violent deaths per day. My point behind this is not to CREDIT other numbers, but to discredit this report. It was not a study, per se, but an exercise in statistical manipulation. Scientists manipulate information nearly as often as politicians unfortunately. And to your point, the real scientists try to conduct relevant studies to bring useful information to light. Joe
WildBill: Take a chill pill. Yes, Saddam was a bad guy, but at one time we supported him. We have supported alot of bad guys until they were no longer useful. THe Iraq war WAS A HUGE WASTE OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS!!! What did we get for that? Lots of dead American soldiers who put their lives on the line for the most dishonest and crooked President and Vice President in the history of the United States. THe same Administration that delivered the worst economy since the Great Depression. The same ones who started the auto bailouts. So you know what? Stop whining about how terrible Obama and the Democrats are. There not perfect, but they are ten thousand times better than the jerks and crooks who ran us into the ground for the last eight years. Bush and Cheney are still lying through their teeth about what happened with "WMDs". THey should just shut the hell up and go away. Nobody misses them. Not even all the Republican-donating car dealers and executives.
amadorgmowner@"Bush and Cheney are still lying through their teeth about what happened with “WMDs”. THey should just shut the hell up and go away. Nobody misses them." I do.