Author Topic: So anybody else find it shocking that Obama basically took over GM?  (Read 943 times)

TraceOneInfinite Flat Earther 96'

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Since when does the president have the right to basically have the CEO of a company fired, and then start dictating to them what kind of products they should be allowed to make, and bail them out of their bad debt using tax payers money?

This is bad in so many ways.  The premise of Obama's whole argument for doing it is very threatening to this nation.  How can anyone deny that it is socialism?

GM had already been making small economy and fuel efficient cars.  It was just that nobody had been buying them.  People wanted to buy the big SUV's.   So how is it GM's fault that people wouldn't buy the clean energy fuel efficient cars from them and instead they wanted to the big SUV's?  How is that GM's fault?

GM was already in business to make money.  Every business is in it for their own survival.  They do their best to turn a profit, or otherwise they fail.  So if they were already doing everything they could to turn a profit, then how is having Barack Obama oversee and run their company going to make them any more successful?

The government created many of these problems in the first place.  They had already been making demands upon the industry about what kind of cars they should biuld, demanding seatbelts, airbags, etc... safety regulations... Did you know death by car accidents actually increased after government forced them to produce cars with seatbelts?   

...Then the big and most important question that none of these idiots in the media are asking, is did we elect Obama to be CEO in Chief?  Is that the presidents responsibility as outlined in the Constitution to dictate how our businesses should be ran, and what is most profitable for them, controlling their finances and production?   Then choosing which businesses to let fail, and which businesses to bail out, at the expense of the American people?  This is socialism, no doubt.
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Re: So anybody else find it shocking that Obama basically took over GM?
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2009, 08:51:27 AM »
Even though I am not going into the economic aspects of it-I am by no means an expert in the field- there are two separate questions of principle here. 1) How is tax payer money used 2) Does an elected representative of the public have the right to oversee, and intervene in ,economic life.

Now, surely, what to do with tax payer money, as a matter of principle, is for the public to decide. True, the American system is largely based on keeping the public in the darkness while public funds are channeled into high-tech development, with profits later privatized. If you're against the misuse of public funds- and given your "since when" question-the high-tech sector is where you should direct your attention, since this is clearly an instance of government stepping out of line, and betraying it's accountability to the public.

A totally separate issue is whether an elected representative, in a democratic country, should be able to intervene in the economy on behalf of the public. Whether or not Obama is actually doing what is in the public interest in this particular case is an open question. However, I do not see how a person who believes in democracy- forget "socialism" -can doubt, in principle, the legitimacy of an elected representative intervening in the economy on behalf of the public, when ,say, destructive trends need to be mitigated.
« Last Edit: April 02, 2009, 08:56:16 AM by I TO DA GEEZY »
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Suga Foot

Re: So anybody else find it shocking that Obama basically took over GM?
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2009, 08:57:10 AM »
The American tax payers are now a huge (major?) shareholder of GM.  Obama, being the tax payers representative, now has the power to fire the CEO.


And it's not the size of the cars that led GM to fail, it's because GM makes shitty cars.
 

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Re: So anybody else find it shocking that Obama basically took over GM?
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2009, 09:10:16 AM »


A totally separate issue is whether an elected representative, in a democratic country, should be able to intervene in the economy on behalf of the public. Whether or not Obama is actually doing what is in the public interest in this particular case is an open question. However, I do not see how a person who believes in democracy- forget "socialism" -can doubt, in principle, the legitimacy of an elected representative intervening in the economy on behalf of the public, when ,say, destructive trends need to be mitigated.


Because America is a Republic not a democracy.  Also, according to the constitution, an individual has the rights to ownership of what he produces, NOT the government.  Therefore, the owner of GM bares the responsibility of his businesses success or failure, and Barack Obama has no rights to infringe upon a private corporation, niether for it's benefit nor for it's detriment.  The founding fathers were totally against this sort of thing.

...By the way I-Geezy, you are a well-known socialist like your God Noam Chomsky, so you falsely imagine a "good and righteous" (which has never really existed for any long-term period) government that can supposedly make the economy do what it's supposed to do (which is also impossible because one can not control the market).
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TraceOneInfinite Flat Earther 96'

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Re: So anybody else find it shocking that Obama basically took over GM?
« Reply #4 on: April 02, 2009, 09:12:27 AM »
The American tax payers are now a huge (major?) shareholder of GM.  Obama, being the tax payers representative, now has the power to fire the CEO.


And it's not the size of the cars that led GM to fail, it's because GM makes shitty cars.

No, that is not correct.  Previously, one had the option to buy or not buy shares in GM.  Which is a right of the individual to buy or not buy.  Now Obama has basically forced every American to buy shares in GM, by way of bailing them out.  This is a great corruption of presidential power.



....by the way, I would rather have Obama abusing government powers than Bush, but that is another discussion entirely.
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Re: So anybody else find it shocking that Obama basically took over GM?
« Reply #5 on: April 02, 2009, 09:40:45 AM »


A totally separate issue is whether an elected representative, in a democratic country, should be able to intervene in the economy on behalf of the public. Whether or not Obama is actually doing what is in the public interest in this particular case is an open question. However, I do not see how a person who believes in democracy- forget "socialism" -can doubt, in principle, the legitimacy of an elected representative intervening in the economy on behalf of the public, when ,say, destructive trends need to be mitigated.


Because America is a Republic not a democracy.  Also, according to the constitution, an individual has the rights to ownership of what he produces, NOT the government.  Therefore, the owner of GM bares the responsibility of his businesses success or failure, and Barack Obama has no rights to infringe upon a private corporation, niether for it's benefit nor for it's detriment.  The founding fathers were totally against this sort of thing.

...By the way I-Geezy, you are a well-known socialist like your God Noam Chomsky, so you falsely imagine a "good and righteous" (which has never really existed for any long-term period) government that can supposedly make the economy do what it's supposed to do (which is also impossible because one can not control the market).

 I did not suggest government should intervene to benefit the corporation, in fact I'm very much opposed to the idea (though this is the standard form of government intervention, against which you don't speak much). Public representatives in democratic societies should only intervene on behalf of the public. If the government doesn't serve the public it should be revoked. Now, I very much agree that individuals should have the right to own what they produce, note, "individuals", not collectivist private tyrannies (or corporations). In fact, this is what I just said and I'll repeat it: the public should make informed decisions as to what to do with the taxes it pays. Corporations on the other hand, tend to take the fruits of public funds- like it happent with, say, computers- and then privatize the profits accruing from them. So, yeah, I don't think the public should buy from the corporations what it paid to develop. As for the impossibility of controlled economy-- you are currently living in one, only that it is controlled so as to benefit the corporations, not the general population.  And as for wanting "good and righteous" governments: if wanting a government which is accountable to the public is that much of a delusion, then I guess we're not all very fond of democracy.
« Last Edit: April 02, 2009, 09:46:17 AM by I TO DA GEEZY »
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Re: So anybody else find it shocking that Obama basically took over GM?
« Reply #6 on: April 02, 2009, 10:04:48 AM »
GM was/is on the verge of bankruptcy, and GM is just too damn big to fail. The alternative would have cost us millions of jobs. As the son of a UAW (United Auto Workers) union leader, I follow the auto industry closely. From the time FDR had GM close their car productions to make room for tank production, to now, the auto industry has been on the verge of socialism. The 70's saw the invasion of Japanese cars, and the 80's saw GM and Ford try to milk profits by making shitty cars so that people buy cars more often. Instead, by the mid-90's, GM was fucked over when people wised up and then went to foreign cars. Ford managed to recover, reintroduce the Mustang and rebuild itself as an American Icon. GM however went big, Chevy was making Hummers, going large with SUV's, which worked until gas prices shot through the roof. Just recently, they changed their model to more compact, fuel effectuate cars, one which an Impala gets 30mpg instead of my '03 Impala which gets 23mpg. GM was starting to change, but no one is willing to invest in GM. They have screwed themselves of 20-30 years of bad business. If you think GM is bad, Chrysler is even worst. My dad, a buy an American junkie said after working on Chrysler, he'd never buy a Chrysler (though he did buy my sister a PT Cruiser... ha ha ha), and many people would agree with them.

Bottomline though, we can not let either company fail, because people like my father, and many other fathers across this country, were/are employed by GM, and that is millions of jobs lost. We cannot have that happen, not now. In all honestly, GM deserves to fail, it deserves all it would get, but with millions of blue collar jobs on the line, we need to step in and get them in the right foot. I don't agree with firing the CEO, but it was more symbolic than anything. No one else was fired, and the same team is still there. It was a message, get your act right and lets do what we have to do.
 

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Re: So anybody else find it shocking that Obama basically took over GM?
« Reply #7 on: April 02, 2009, 11:13:06 AM »

 I did not suggest government should intervene to benefit the corporation, in fact I'm very much opposed to the idea (though this is the standard form of government intervention, against which you don't speak much).


Actually I do speak against it, it's just that you've only visited the board a dozen or so times in the last 5 years.


Public representatives in democratic societies should only intervene on behalf of the public. If the government doesn't serve the public it should be revoked.


Government has never served the people, it exists for it's own purpose like anything else in this world.  Therefore, it is always inclined to grow and expanded, just as all leaving things seek to grow.  It's only in your imaginary Noam Chomsky government when I succession of thousands of years of righteous leaders take power and the world turns into a utopia.  In reality, if we did get a great and righteous leader one of his successors would surely take all those powers we had granted the government and abuse them.  It will happen eventually, and most likely it will happen right away.  That's why the goal of the constitution was to limit government.  The American government was origionally put in place NOT TO SERVE THE PEOPLE, but rather to PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL!!  Now Obama is infringing on those rights.  Imagine if you started a company and the president came in and fired you just because he has more power than you do?...that's what we've came to.


Now, I very much agree that individuals should have the right to own what they produce, note, "individuals", not collectivist private tyrannies (or corporations).


OHHHH Ofcourse, so your saying that Bill Gates was supposed to provide us with all the benefits of the computer all on his own.  He was supposed to have the time  to manufacture, build, distribute, and so on millions of computers all over the world all on his own?  Without the help of the so-called collectivist private tyrannies?

No actually, what Bill Gates did was he owned a company that provided a living for millions of employees and goods and services that improved the standard of living for millions of people.


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Matty

Re: So anybody else find it shocking that Obama basically took over GM?
« Reply #8 on: April 02, 2009, 11:15:57 AM »
my view would be if the government has to step in to prop up a company financially, it has already failed and bailing it out not only prolongs the inevitable but takes away the incentive and capital from being used effectively in the meanwhile. regardless of the amount of jobs lost, it is far more damaging to the economy long term to try and keep failed enterprises afloat.

with the case of banks it is straight up robbery of the tax payer when funds are used to shore up bad balance sheets. although car companies have plenty of bad debt to their names, they do continue to produce a tangible product (whether banks choose to continue lending is debatable) and this side of it is problematic when you get into government beauracrats making management decisions where they should have no say whatsoever. i could be wrong, but GM may need even more money and fail in the future regardless of whether it is propped up as a zombie-company in the short-term. time will tell...

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Re: So anybody else find it shocking that Obama basically took over GM?
« Reply #9 on: April 02, 2009, 11:17:48 AM »
GM was/is on the verge of bankruptcy, and GM is just too damn big to fail. The alternative would have cost us millions of jobs. As the son of a UAW (United Auto Workers) union leader, I follow the auto industry closely. From the time FDR had GM close their car productions to make room for tank production, to now, the auto industry has been on the verge of socialism. The 70's saw the invasion of Japanese cars, and the 80's saw GM and Ford try to milk profits by making shitty cars so that people buy cars more often. Instead, by the mid-90's, GM was fucked over when people wised up and then went to foreign cars. Ford managed to recover, reintroduce the Mustang and rebuild itself as an American Icon. GM however went big, Chevy was making Hummers, going large with SUV's, which worked until gas prices shot through the roof. Just recently, they changed their model to more compact, fuel effectuate cars, one which an Impala gets 30mpg instead of my '03 Impala which gets 23mpg. GM was starting to change, but no one is willing to invest in GM. They have screwed themselves of 20-30 years of bad business. If you think GM is bad, Chrysler is even worst. My dad, a buy an American junkie said after working on Chrysler, he'd never buy a Chrysler (though he did buy my sister a PT Cruiser... ha ha ha), and many people would agree with them.

Bottomline though, we can not let either company fail, because people like my father, and many other fathers across this country, were/are employed by GM, and that is millions of jobs lost. We cannot have that happen, not now. In all honestly, GM deserves to fail, it deserves all it would get, but with millions of blue collar jobs on the line, we need to step in and get them in the right foot. I don't agree with firing the CEO, but it was more symbolic than anything. No one else was fired, and the same team is still there. It was a message, get your act right and lets do what we have to do.

Your commiting a most common error when it comes to analyzing the economy; and that is to focus upon what is seen and not what is unseen.  You are only focused upon the people at GM losing their jobs.  But what you neglect to see, is that this government bailout will be expensive upon the American public at large, and therefore, it will cause everybody to have less money either through inflation or taxation; therefore, instead of one business failing, 100's of businesses will fail because people will have less money to spend on the things they truly want and desire.  There standard of living will decrease because the government is now dictating to them where they should spend their money, rather than the individual making the decision as to what will benefit him most.
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TraceOneInfinite Flat Earther 96'

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Re: So anybody else find it shocking that Obama basically took over GM?
« Reply #10 on: April 02, 2009, 11:18:40 AM »
my view would be if the government has to step in to prop up a company financially, it has already failed and bailing it out not only prolongs the inevitable but takes away the incentive and capital from being used effectively in the meanwhile. regardless of the amount of jobs lost, it is far more damaging to the economy long term to try and keep failed enterprises afloat.

with the case of banks it is straight up robbery of the tax payer when funds are used to shore up bad balance sheets. although car companies have plenty of bad debt to their names, they do continue to produce a tangible product (whether banks choose to continue lending is debatable) and this side of it is problematic when you get into government beauracrats making management decisions where they should have no say whatsoever. i could be wrong, but GM may need even more money and fail in the future regardless of whether it is propped up as a zombie-company in the short-term. time will tell...

Word
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Matty

Re: So anybody else find it shocking that Obama basically took over GM?
« Reply #11 on: April 02, 2009, 11:29:41 AM »
m dogg takes a political stance in his post above. it represents the government viewpoint in the sense that you 'cannot let gm fail' is a short-term politcally motivated decision as opposed to having any relevance to long-term prosperity or economic foundation. maybe the government can actually force GM to turn itself around, but the chances of this are extremely remote, to say the least. it is representative of the wider argument of government intervention. what people fail to see is the long term consequences of keeping failed companies afloat. it's not rocket science either, it's just what has to be done for the country to remain free and prosperous in the future.

the funny thing is obama has hinted he may let them fail anyway. the right thing to do, but also proves his leigance to the banks that do even less for the economy directly and due to the sheer amount of deriatives and exotic bad debts are slowly squeezing the wealth out of the nation.
« Last Edit: April 02, 2009, 04:54:39 PM by Matty »
 

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Re: So anybody else find it shocking that Obama basically took over GM?
« Reply #12 on: April 02, 2009, 11:44:13 AM »
GM was/is on the verge of bankruptcy, and GM is just too damn big to fail. The alternative would have cost us millions of jobs. As the son of a UAW (United Auto Workers) union leader, I follow the auto industry closely. From the time FDR had GM close their car productions to make room for tank production, to now, the auto industry has been on the verge of socialism. The 70's saw the invasion of Japanese cars, and the 80's saw GM and Ford try to milk profits by making shitty cars so that people buy cars more often. Instead, by the mid-90's, GM was fucked over when people wised up and then went to foreign cars. Ford managed to recover, reintroduce the Mustang and rebuild itself as an American Icon. GM however went big, Chevy was making Hummers, going large with SUV's, which worked until gas prices shot through the roof. Just recently, they changed their model to more compact, fuel effectuate cars, one which an Impala gets 30mpg instead of my '03 Impala which gets 23mpg. GM was starting to change, but no one is willing to invest in GM. They have screwed themselves of 20-30 years of bad business. If you think GM is bad, Chrysler is even worst. My dad, a buy an American junkie said after working on Chrysler, he'd never buy a Chrysler (though he did buy my sister a PT Cruiser... ha ha ha), and many people would agree with them.

Bottomline though, we can not let either company fail, because people like my father, and many other fathers across this country, were/are employed by GM, and that is millions of jobs lost. We cannot have that happen, not now. In all honestly, GM deserves to fail, it deserves all it would get, but with millions of blue collar jobs on the line, we need to step in and get them in the right foot. I don't agree with firing the CEO, but it was more symbolic than anything. No one else was fired, and the same team is still there. It was a message, get your act right and lets do what we have to do.

Your commiting a most common error when it comes to analyzing the economy; and that is to focus upon what is seen and not what is unseen.  You are only focused upon the people at GM losing their jobs.  But what you neglect to see, is that this government bailout will be expensive upon the American public at large, and therefore, it will cause everybody to have less money either through inflation or taxation; therefore, instead of one business failing, 100's of businesses will fail because people will have less money to spend on the things they truly want and desire.  There standard of living will decrease because the government is now dictating to them where they should spend their money, rather than the individual making the decision as to what will benefit him most.

See, but here's the problem, putting 2-3 million people in the unemployment line, and in a highly concentrated area in the upper mid-west, you will see a region of the country decline to almost 3rd world levels. When GM fails, not only does GM fail, but all the companies that build parts, tires, service shops, dealerships, it hits harder than the burden it puts on taxes.

See, here's the deal, for many years we never gave a flying fuck what companies did, and they worked themselves into a hole that sadly homie, you, me and our generation will pay for until we die. As I talked to a Baby Boomer, he said that he hoped he would never have to see the day when we will have to pay off all the selfish governing we have done for 30 years. He said everyone knew what was going on then, they knew it was costing the next generation, but as long as they could keep their way of life, no one cared. Well homie, we will have to pay, we will have to find a way to keep banks from falling, from manufactures from putting millions out of work, and yeah our economy will suffer, but when we were spending more than we were making, when we were borrowing more so our government could spend to keep people in office, it's all coming to a head. Homie, it's over, it's either 2-3million more unemployed, or we spend more and fuck the dollar. I'm a liberal, I can give 2 flying fucks about the dollar, as long as people can eat.
 

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Re: So anybody else find it shocking that Obama basically took over GM?
« Reply #13 on: April 02, 2009, 02:50:09 PM »
Brian, I'm not sure Microsoft is the best way to support your case. Without the good services of the government Microsoft wouldn't be the empire that it is. In other words, Bill Gates didn't make it on his own. The question is whether you support the idea of allocating public funds and goods to corporations. You claim you "speak against it". If so then why did you just attempt to justify the parasite nature of Microsoft. Sure, it provides jobs, so did slavery, so do sweatshops, does that make them legitimate? If not, it also doesn't justify the privatization of public funds.

You seem to be concerned with individual rights. Corporations infringe on individual rights non-stop. They dominate the traditional media, they are making attempts to dominate the internet, they dominate the government, they constantly deceive the public through propaganda, not to speak of their tremendous impact on foreign policy.Let's also not forget their institutional structure which is straight totalitarian top-down control.Yet, all of this does not count as infringements on individual rights in your moral calculus.

Now, clearly you understand the idea of collectivist entities existing for their own purpose.I share your disgust with such entities.However, there is hardly a more paradigmatic example for such entities than modern corporations, which were initially designed to be temporary public projects, with revocable charters, untill early in the 20th century when they were granted the rights of human beings, not through legislation, not through the constitution, but through judicial  activism. They were also ordered a new pathological purpose by the courts- to maximize profit, without any regard for the human environment, unless it serves their business interest. Governments, though often corrupt, have at least some accountability to the public.

In addition, people like Adam Smith, not indifferent to individual rights and markets,would be disgusted by such monopolies that totally undermine free markets, while subjecting people's labour to external control.



« Last Edit: April 02, 2009, 03:06:27 PM by I TO DA GEEZY »
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Re: So anybody else find it shocking that Obama basically took over GM?
« Reply #14 on: April 02, 2009, 08:52:55 PM »
We need more post like this, lets get legit discussion going in this section again.