Posted on 11/19/2008 8:51:31 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Shelby: ‘Somebody has to speak for the taxpayer’ By Klaus Marre Posted: 11/19/08 11:13 AM [ET]
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said Wednesday that U.S. carmakers should file for bankruptcy and get rid of their management.
Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Banking Committee, said the money Democratic leaders want to give to the auto industry would be “life support.”
“I don’t believe that they have immediate plans to change their model, which is a model of failure,” Shelby said on CBS’s “Early Show.” “I wish that they would. I know they’re in dire circumstances.”
The senator argued that the best option would be for the struggling carmakers to file for bankruptcy and not for U.S. taxpayers to bail out the industry.
However, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) argued that “bankruptcy would be very disruptive.”
“You have a whole network of suppliers, small businesses and others who would get stiffed, to use the legal term, in a bankruptcy,” Frank, who appeared on the show together with Shelby, stated.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
If they were as quick to get the Big Three off life support as they were poor Terry Schiavo, this wouldn’t be an issue.
However, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) argued that “bankruptcy would be very disruptive.”I would rather be disrupted than forced to subsidize an industry that has destroyed more capital than the value of Toyota and Honda combined: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122669746125629365.html
... Over the past decade, the capital destruction by GM has been breathtaking, on a greater scale than documented by Mr. Jensen for the 1980s. GM has invested $310 billion in its business between 1998 and 2007. The total depreciation of GM's physical plant during this period was $128 billion, meaning that a net $182 billion of society's capital has been pumped into GM over the past decade -- a waste of about $1.5 billion per month of national savings. The story at Ford has not been as adverse but is still disheartening, as Ford has invested $155 billion and consumed $8 billion net of depreciation since 1998.
As a society, we have very little to show for this $465 billion. At the end of 1998, GM's market capitalization was $46 billion and Ford's was $71 billion. Today both firms have negligible value, with share prices in the low single digits. Both are facing imminent bankruptcy and delisting from the major stock exchanges. Along with management, the companies' unions and even their regulators in Washington may have their own culpability, a topic that merits its own separate discussion. Yet one can only imagine how the $465 billion could have been used better -- for instance, GM and Ford could have closed their own facilities and acquired all of the shares of Honda, Toyota, Nissan and Volkswagen ...
The joke writes itself here.
The GWB/Pelosi/Obama deficit sugar daddies Japan and China are getting a bit nervous:
Gold Rush (China Expected to Shift Reserves into Commodities and Gold)
Standard ^ | 11/14/08 | Benjamin Scent
Beijing is considering changing its asset allocations during the financial tsunami in order to build up gold reserves “in a big way,” the source said.
China’s fears about the long-term viability of parking most of its reserves in US government bonds were triggered by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s US$700 billion (HK$5.46 trillion) bailout plan, which may make the US budget deficit balloon to well over US$1 trillion this fiscal year.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2133477/posts
Japan economists call for ‘Obama bonds’
Asia Times Online ^ | November 19, 2008 | Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - Japanese economists, increasingly concerned that the United States might seek to pay its enormous and growing debt obligations in a weakened US dollar, are looking to the possibility of US Treasuries being issued in yen.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2134187/posts
Barny Frank, the bastard that helped cause it all saying he knows how to fix it, and that is to do the same destructive things that caused it. All politicians need to have a brain transplant. I am on the verge of embracing anarchism, couldn’t be any worse than things are with politicians running them.
“Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said Wednesday that U.S. carmakers should file for bankruptcy and get rid of their management.”
I somewhat disagree. The auto industry needs to “get rid of” the UAW, and bankruptcy would set that solution in motion. Then they need to move operations out of Michigan, and bring all the facilities to the South or the Midwest.
Screw the morons in the rustbelt. Imbicils and socialists should not have jobs... Let the union fools go begging to their “messiah” for some pocket “change” they “can believe in.” Reality is a bitch boys.
Congress is a failure. Don’t bail them out either.
You guys already stiffed (we) the taxpayers...You've committed us to a debt we will never be able to pay off...
So the question is NOT, are we going to pay??? We know we're going to pay...The question is, who we are going to pay it to...
If the car companies get a miniscule amount (compared to the whole), there's going to be millions of extremely poorly paid workers who will at least continue to be poorly paid, instead of going completely on welfare, which would cost the taxpayers even more...
The host needs to die to kill off the parasites.
Notice to all GM share holders:
Did your stock increase by 67% from 2007 to 2008?
Go Chapter 11, then fix the problem.
who would get stiffed, to use the legal term, in a bankruptcy,” Frank,
And we all know how familiar Bawney is with getting "stiffed".
I read the headline:
Shelby: ‘Somebody has to speak for the taxpayer’ By Klaus Marre Posted: 11/19/08 11:13 AM [ET]
I then quickly glanced at the second line:
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said Wednesday that U.S. carmakers should file for bankruptcy and get rid of their management.
I realize it’s delusional to envision a politician ever saying this, but I initially misread the second line to say:
“The U.S. government should file for bankruptcy and get rid of their management.”
How does an enterprise that has already racked up $85 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security have the chutzpah to throw hundreds of billions more in taxpayer dollars down a bailout rathole? Let me stipulate that GM’s management has performed miserably. But the notion that federal micromanagement can achieve superior results is truly laughable.
A voice trying to get rid of the competition for his Japanese and other foreign transplants. The only silver lining in this ‘kill the big three’ bs from Shelby is this will also kill his ‘Southern Auto industry. There is no way to sustain suppliers long term for the small southern operations. Not that foreign entities would anyway-once the big three are gone it’s Bye Bye America. Also, I heard that Airbus will not get the contract for the new fighter jet so Sen. Shelby’s fabulous deal where he won 2000 jobs for Alabama and Air Bus got 20 billion minimu is off.
I think you should ask Loehman stockholders about this-it’s more similar.
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