Ed is spot on about GM tonight

[Omaha Steve]

Marta and I each got a new Chevy at the market bottom of 09. It was our first new car in 30 years. I got the clunker deal on my Cobalt. I got rid of 12-16 mpg that smoked bad with 150,000 miles, for a 28-34 mpg clean air engine. The loan, bankruptcy, and clunker program all worked!

Look at the jobs Obama & co SAVED. Not just auto workers, all the support jobs two. GM gears are made in Ne. GM seats are made in Ia. Both by contractors. Look at the new jobs coming up with new tooling. Well you get the idea.

I'm getting this bumper sticker on my next order:

[Shagbark Hickory]

1. Great our addiction to automobiles remains strong. nt

[Omaha Steve]

4. IF the freight train that runs by my house would let me ride and run on schedule...

It would take me right to my plant. There is only one express bus that runs in our area. It doesn't go near my plant. Marta and I often have to work over without notice and that screws up car pooling. I cut my gas use in half. We helped save badly needed jobs. Got a suggestion on what was a better idea?

[Shagbark Hickory]

8. A better way to get to work or a solution to our addiction to automobiles?

It sounds like you're being pretty efficient under the circumstances. There isn't much else you can do except for riding a bike or motorcycle and that's probably not such a good idea in Omaha most of the year.

As for our addiction to automobiles, we need to build a high speed passenger railway infrastructure and as much as I hate to say it (because I'm a suburban slob in the country's worst sprawling city), we need to reform how cities are developed to get sprawl under control and use land and resources more efficiently.

I wasn't a big fan of the cash for clunkers program amidst the second greatest depression. It encouraged a lot of people to trade in otherwise reasonably OK cars for new ones. The old ones were owned outright in a lot of cases, and the scheme encouraged so many to get a new car, that people have to take out a loan for an in many cases the fuel efficiency increase is marginal.

I would have supported cash for clunkers if it required people to trade in their cars permanently and instead use another form of transportation.
But as it stood, it was a limited time program that required people to go deeper into debt and make a big ticket purchase at time most were very uncertain about their jobs and the economy. The sensible thing to do for most was to save money. And it was wasteful. Those trade-ins were destroyed.

[madokie]

9. Many of us out here don't have the luxury of the option of not owning a vehicle

and its as simple as that. I'd be dead in the water here if not for a vehicle to get me somewhere. You see that little cart there in the picture. Its saved me many gallons of gas getting me to and from, O yeah, I designed and built it myself too. I've got three under my belt now in fact so not only have I done something for me also for others too. I repeat I have no other options than to have a vehicle to get around in. Damn sure aren't any taxis or buses or trains or airplanes or boats or whatever running routes around here.

[Shagbark Hickory]

11. That's what I'm talking about when I say we need development reforms.

But I have to ask, how has that cart saved you so much in gas? Its not like you can legally drive that down the street.

[madokie]

15. I can do so in my town. Valid drivers license is all that is required

I rarely go to town but anything bigger than a go cart is legal here. We have about as many tractors on our streets as we do cars actually. Out here where I live I use this to get me from neighbor to neighbor where I would otherwise be using a gas vehicle for and the savings from not having to use a gas powered vehicle in my little over an acre with lots of upkeep yard. I can't just up and walk anywhere I want to go anymore or ride a bike or any of that. I can walk short distances but that is all, not enough to keep up with my yard work.
We'll never have mass transit out here in my or my kids lifetimes I'd bet on that.

where mass transit works I'm all for it but not all of us live where that is remotely a possibility

[Shagbark Hickory]

17. Well that's not really one of the bigger transportation challenges we face...

You getting into town every once in a while is not that big of a deal.
One of the bigger challenges is getting tens of millions of daily commuters who travel the distance from where you live to Tulsa or in some instances like my area (metro atlanta), the distance from where you are to OKC or Wichita... daily!

There's also the long distance travel which has become very expensive. I went down to florida last month, it cost a fortune and took an entire day to get there.

[AlabamaLibrul]

22. Cash for Clunkers sucked if you weren't willing to play into the Bush-esque "go shopping with debt"

meme.

What I'm saying is that at a time when I had no car, all the cars I could afford were getting crushed for no reason except to create new debt for the banking system (because they LOVE to hold people in that bondage) and with the ostensible boost of 5-20mpg, not taking into account the waste of crushing perfectly good cars and building new ones.

[dionysus]

13. gotta find the down side to everything i suppose. how do you expect people to get to work if public

transit isn't available?

[Shagbark Hickory]

18. I'm so glad you asked. Figuring out the answer to that problem should have been a top priority.

Jobs could just as easily been created building transit infrastructure.

[dionysus]

21. right, but that doesn't do people outside of metro areas any good.

[Shagbark Hickory]

24. People outside of metro areas aren't really the problem.

[NJCher]

2. what's more...

Japanese cars, I learned from a report on NPR, are not looked at as the cool cars they once were. The new fuel-saving American cars are taking that position.


Cher

[madokie]

3. I'm a ford man but country comes first with me

President O did the right thing and the news that Ed was giving us is proof of that.
Thank you and Marta for helping to make this happen. :hi:

[notesdev]

5. The GM bailout was a disaster

The cost effectiveness of the bailout as a jobs program is horrendous; additional extended unemployment would have been cheaper and just as effective. In the meantime we're tens of billions in the hole for a private company. Oh, and the whole bailout mess really fucked the business environment in this country with the way it was handled (the arbitrary destruction of the capital structure).

If you're wondering why the economy sucks and there are no jobs out there, the ugly precedents set in the GM bailout are a huge part of the equation. What business in its right mind would invest in a situation where the government can arbitrarily step in and dole out assets to whoever lobbies hardest? What investor is going to accept a low-rate senior bond when the government can overturn that seniority on a whim?

We've got to stop bailing out failed companies, whether they are banks or otherwise; and we've got to stop the practice of giving some companies more favorable treatment than others. That's how we ended up with this zombie economy and we're not getting out of this rut until we have an economy that runs on clear, consistent, and predictable rules.

[IndyPragmatist]

12. Spot on...

I agree that it would have been terrible to see all the employees out of work, but we didn't make the right decision. Everything you mentioned was exactly right. Bailing out private corporations is not a path we want to go down. If GM goes down, its not like the suppliers and employees would be out of work for good. GM going under would have left a void that the competition would have filled. Ford has shown that they were in a much better situation that GM. Ford is back on track without a bailout. They would have probably filled most of the void left by GM.

One thing you didn't mention was the bond situation. This was what I had the biggest problem with. We completely changed the rules of debt security in large corporations. Five years ago, buying bonds from GM would have been a great idea...or it seemed that way. Bondholders are supposed to be the first to be paid in bankruptcy, but our government decided that wouldn't happen with GM. Now, I would never buy a bond from a company in danger of going under, or at least, not a huge company that would possibly be bailed out if things got really bad. What is supposed to be a safe bet has been made into a very risky endeavor.

[DainBramaged]

19. Sure. leave the market to the japanese and Korean transplants like the Republicans want

great idea, just great.


GM got loans, they weren't 'bailouted' like fucking Wall Street, when are the shills going to stop with that talking point?

[dionysus]

14. so we should have let our last bastion of manufacturing fail. i'll take idiotic ideas for 500 alex.

:rofl:

[DainBramaged]

20. It wasn't a bailout, you know it, and your continued attacks on Union companies is shameful

Your cloak of invisibility is dissolving....

[Bluenorthwest]

6. Are Ed's show or MSNBC acutally Union?

That is something you do not seem to care about. Are you promoting a scab shop? You should find that out for yourself.

[Omaha Steve]

7. I know MSNBC is unionized it's been talked about on the air!

I'm sure Ed's show is. Give me 24 hours for a written response.

Just where are you coming from on this? Do you spend any time in the Labor Forum?

OS

[Omaha Steve]

16. I haven't forgotten about you

I have a partial answer now. I'll post a full answer later today.

[Omaha Steve]

25. Union status of MSNBC!

Here is the rundown on MSNBC; the full time staff engineers are non-union, despite NABET's best efforts to get this crew to overcome their fear of being immediately fired if they sign organizing cards. The same is true at CNBC. That's the bad news.

The good news is that the freelance engineers at MSNBC are represented by NABET-CWA Local 11.


Now you see why we need EFCA!

I will have info on Ed's radio crew next week.

OS

[malaise]

10. K & R

Ed was great last night

[JuniperLea]

23. Not to mention all the GM employees who now have money to spend...

On their homes and kids and cars of their own. That stimulates other areas of the economy, creating still more jobs for other people, who will then have money to spend on their homes, and kids, and cars... and so it goes.

This is the gift that kept on giving as far as I can tell.