don’t forget, the gov. bailed out Chrysler before and was paid back in full by Lee Iaccoca and CO.

No, no, a thousand times no. The government did not bail out Chrysler before. It did not make a direct investment in Chrysler. No treasury funds were expended then. All that happened was that congress guaranteed loans to Chrysler. The loans that Chrysler received were from non-government investors.

What we are doing today is a completely different animal. The government is buying private companies with no guarantee that it will later sell or relinquish its share.

Beyond that, Lee Iacocca played a shell game to make it look like he made Chrysler profitable as it was. That is certainly not true as Chrysler laid off tens of thousands of workers, even after the loan guarantees. And even if it was a success, where is Chrysler today? Clearly, government intervention at any level does not seem to work long term.

bustoff..I don’t disgree…but where do we go from here? Conservatives must be more more than the party of no.. or the party of I told ya so.

conservatives must offer solutions or the Dems will continue to own US

Conservatives must be more more than the party of no.. or the party of I told ya so. Conservatives must offer solutions or the Dems will continue to own US.

Since the Dems have the White House and Congress, they have no interest in any bi-partisan agenda. The GOP must make their case directly with the American people, like they did in the Contract With America. I absolutely agree that the GOP cannot be satisfied in just pointing out the blame. They must also be prepared to point out the way, and put together a substantive game plan for restoring this country’s economy.

It’s not “politics” to refuse to purchase a govt-made piece of shit. Govt has no accountability on any level, which is why the free enterprise system always outperforms govt, unless the govt secures a monopoly, and then there are no choices.

this auto crisis is huge…cars effect every aspect of the US economy and for that matter the world economy.

And because GM sat on their collective asses and simply waited for the next bailout check to clear, they gave the government an opportunity to micromanage their company. GM has been described as a pension and health care provider attached to a money-losing car company. Had GM cleaned up their own house, instead of jacking around waiting for the sun to shine, they wouldn’t have President Urkel calling the shots for them. I have no desire to buy any car from Obama Motors, but GM showed absolutely no signs of weaning themselves off of the bailout crack pipe any time soon.

LBH,

It’s good to be loved, and I agree about the magnitude.

I just don’t think anything the Leftards are going to do will fix it.

Certainly, they will use the magnitude of the problem as an excuse to get some horribly fucked-up program passed, that would otherwise not stand a farts’ chance in a windstorm to pass.

I look at the Lefts’ track record. It is consistently bad and if America is to succeed, the Republicans and moderate Democrats really must say no until we get to a correction in the 2010 mid-term elections.

We’re not saying no to an American party. We’re saying no to a foreign disease whose aim is to dismantle America and freedom worldwide.

Savvy?

Telling the auto companies to suck it up would be showing backbone.

This is Obama’s car company now. We’ll see how it works out.

I’ll defer to Mitt on this one. He knows the auto business. knows what turnaround involves, has been there, done that.

I think what Mitt is expressing is some relief (that I also felt) that the BLANK CHECK approach was not gonna be used this time.

As far complaining that the gov.should not be in this as deep as they are…well, that ditch has already been dug. The thing to do now is stop making the hole bigger and get these companies reorganized and the workers working. Once done, the gov. turns the keys back over to those who hopefully won’t run their cars over the cliff again.

don’t forget, the gov. bailed out Chrysler before and was paid back in full by Lee Iaccoca and CO.

ya know I luv ya Zig… but the I’m a pure conservative “blanket” thrown over ever issue is not a good answer at every turn.

this auto crisis is huge…cars effect every aspect of the US economy and for that matter the world economy.

can we at least agree on the magnitude of the problem?

Consumers will go for the best car deal they can get…politics mean nada on the car lot.

Wrong, at least in my case. Politics mean a great deal. GM and Chrysler’s bankruptcy-is-not-an-option attitude earned them an eternal boycott from me. Ford is still a viable choice, so far. Otherwise, I’ll be sticking with Honda, Toyota, BMW, Audi, Hyundai, etc. Plenty of choices elsewhere, away from GM and Chrysler.

This is no surprise to anyone who had paid close attention to Romneys’ record. He was a RINO, like the rest of the MSM-selected Republican front runners.

Mitt Romney is not a conservative–not by any measure of the word. …

Romney’s entire political career has been built by catering to the eastern liberal establishment. That he is now attempting to remake himself into a conservative (and that Christian “leaders” are willing to assist this façade) is both laughable and detestable!

…

Romney is still listed today as a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a group supported by Billionaire leftist George Soros dedicated to shifting the GOP leftward on social issues such as abortion rights and stem cell research.

…

As to the issue of “gay rights,” Mitt Romney’s record is equally clear. He has consistently facilitated the radical homosexual agenda.

….

On the subject of gun control, Mitt Romney promised that he would not lift a finger to “chip away” at the gun laws in Massachusetts–a state that has some of the most draconian gun restrictions in the country.

As recently as 2002, Mitt Romney said, “We do have tough gun laws in Massachusetts; I support them.”

….

and

Romney, despite his recent contradictory statements, endorsed a massive amnesty of illegal aliens in 2006.

Evidently, Soros, et al, were working on a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose election, wherein the Conservative voters would be denied any choice of a viable candidate. We ended up with a racist Mulatto Socialist and a faux Republican.

Duncan Hunter and Sarah Palin – 2012

You missed my point. What we are doing today are not loan guarantees or even loans. It is a direct take over.

If you read the article I linked, you will see that the loan guarantees did not save Chrysler then either. It was Chrysler’s creditors taking losses, Chrysler having massive lay offs (after telling congress that saving jobs was the reason for the loan guarantees), and the minivan that saved Chrysler. And then what did Chrysler do? Immediately after that, Chrysler dug the hole it finds itself in by agreeing to unsustainable labor and dealer contracts.

Let me give you an alternative solution. Stop investing my money, taken from me at gun point, into companies that have unsustainable business plans. Allow them to restructure under bankruptcy while removing onerous and questionable regulations like the CAFE standards. That alone, removing the CAFE standards, would allow Chrysler and GM (and Ford) to split up into more specialized companies, if that is their best interest. As it is, Hummer and GMC can not survive as separate entities because they do not have the small fuel sippers to sell at a loss to balance out their main products.

Wait and see. Oshamo the huckster hasn’t exactly done that great a job governing thus far. This GM decision cold end up costing us billions of dollars. I wouldn’t be surprised if he worked out a deal to hand the company over to the union.

Purity of ideological thought is for those who have the luxury of only needing to observe life Rob. Living life takes the ability to see clearly the cards being played without looking at them thru the prisim of dogma.

Sing along now… “ya got to know when to hold’em, know when to fold’em”

never realized you were an idealist…Mitt can’t afford that bit of intellectual finery and still be a viable politician.

LBH: Subsidizing inefficiency and failure is bad, no matter how it’s done. Mitt is wrong on this one, ambiguous or not. Of course, the king of the “Ransom Note Method”, little ribby, just rubs his hands in insane glee whenever he can spin anything a Republican says.
Obama’s fascist takeover of GM is just that, and nothing more.
Americans will probably just boycott GM and Chrysler, and will be right in doing so.

populism is ‘en vogue’ with both parties to a sickening degree. left or right, you are tolerable if you are not a populist or an overly nationalist nutbag. problem is that is a serious minority.

you guys need to think about ron paul, seriously.

give him some $$$ and turn him loose on Obama.

he’s better than mccain, palin, and romney. what else do you have newt gin-grinch? c’mon.

Lbs if our conservative leaders do not act as conservatives because you say it’s not politically convenient then what use is it electing them?