Bush Tells Dealers He Avoided ‘Gamble’ in Bailing Out Automakers

[highplainsdem]

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-07/bush-tells-dealers-he-avoided-gamble-in-bailing-out-automakers.html

Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Former U.S. President George W. Bush told car dealers gathered at a convention in Las Vegas he “didn’t want to gamble” with a depression in defending the loans he gave to General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC.

“I didn’t want there to be 21 percent unemployment,” Bush said in a speech yesterday to cap the annual National Automobile Dealers Association convention, attended by more than 20,000 people. “I didn’t want to gamble. I didn’t want history to look back and say, ‘Bush could have done something but chose not to do it.’ And so I said, ‘no depression.’”

The Bush administration provided loans to GM and Chrysler starting with $4 billion to each company in December 2008 and January 2009. Bush eventually provided $17.4 billion in aid to the automakers before Barack Obama’s administration expanded the rescue of the companies to $62 billion.

Obama has cited the assistance given to the auto industry as an example of policy that protected U.S. jobs. Republican presidential candidates including Mitt Romney have criticized the moves by Bush and Obama as bailouts that interfered with private markets and contributed to the national deficit.

-snip-

I hope that in the next GOP debate, these comments of Bush's are mentioned and Romney is asked if he would have preferred to gamble with a depression and 21% unemployment.

[lonestarnot]

1. So bushitler is trying to talk to car dealers and that must be because even Barney won't listen to

the nutfucker.

[Lasher]

9. I'd say his $100K + speaking fee had something to do with it.

Bush has made an estimated $15 million since leaving the White House. The former president reportedly boasts a speaking fee between $100,000 and $150,000. Nearly all of these speaking engagements have been closed to the press.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/20/george-w-bush-income-15-million_n_864685.html

[Mojorabbit]

2. I did not know Bush had given them money also

It was the right thing to do. I don't know what has happened to this country when saving an industry with a ton of jobs is controversial.

[global1]

12. So Is Bush Now Trying To Take Credit For Saving The Auto Companies?.........nt

[no_hypocrisy]

15. That's my take on it too.

[bluestateguy]

3. He gave them just enough money to last until Obama and January 20

So the auto bankruptcies would not be on his watch.

[jmowreader]

4. Interfering with private markets?

The private market FAILED here, Mitt...Cerberus Capital Management, one of the worst of the vulture capitalist joints, led an investment club that bought 80 percent of Chrysler. They couldn't get it to work and let the company go into a prepackaged bankruptcy.

Of course, if Bain Capital was running the deal they would have offshored all the manufacturing and put about a million people out of work but Mitt admits liking to fire workers.

Because the private market FAILED the government stepped in and now, Chrysler is back to being a good company.

(And in case anyone wonders: the reason Chrysler and GM failed wasn't because they made bad cars or couldn't sell cars; Chrysler Credit and GMAC were both extremely heavy subprime mortgage players. When the subprime market died and started sucking in companies, Chrysler Credit and GMAC were two of the companies that got sucked in...and they sucked their parent companies along with them. Ford Motor Credit Corporation never got into the mortgage market so was insulated from that fiasco.)

[Mnpaul]

5. What really got GM into trouble

They were dipping into the pension funds big time to make the bottom line look good giving out big executive pay packages and dividends for the investor. When they changed the rules in the 90's and GM was required to put the pension funds on the books, they issued 9 billion in bonds at 7% hoping to invest it and make 9%. They invested in dotcom and lost their butts.

[Ter]

6. We had awful choices in 2008

Bush voted for it, while Senator's McCain and Obama both voted for it.

[Kurska]

7. That was the one good thing he did. n/t

[Major Hogwash]

8. Romney has never heard of George W. Bush.

Are you kidding?

The GOP candidates don't even acknowledge that he ever existed!!!

[Lasher]

10. McCain tried to get voters to forget Junior too.

Senator Obama, I'm not President Bush. If you want to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago. - John McCain in the final US TV presidential debate, Oct 15, 2008.

But for all practical purposes, McCain is President Bush. So is Romney. They have the same basic rhetoric and ideology, and would govern almost identically.

[Solly Mack]

11. Bush is a war criminal. An admitted war criminal.

That's all anyone ever needs to say of him. It defines him. It is what he is and all he will ever be.

Fuck Bush.

[malaise]

13. Looks like the Eastwood ad is

Biting
Fugu him!

[underpants]

14. What about the $6 Billion loan (Dept. of Energy) to Ford?

and Obama fixed the mess of a "bailout" that Bush set up. Once again he found new ways to FAIL like no one could have reasonably imagined.

[sarge43]

16. So, lying us into a war that cost trillions and gained us nothing was sure bet?

Yeah, that's a rhetorical.