Fallout of the Auto Bailout, and argument for free market... - Page 2

OK. Can you elaborate on this?

I shouldn't have to given it's so obvious, but anway.

If you work for a company and you sign a contract giving you healthcare and a certain amount of days off, those become your rights, at least in the context that we are talking.

So you mean "contractual rights?" This seems to be a simple derivative of basic rights let's say to your life, and your liberty and your property (the product of your labor). Broken down, what's really happening in that situation is this:

Person A agrees to exchange some of their labor (which they "own" by their basic rights) for something that is either directly or indirectly some of someone else's labor (wages and benefits paid) given a certain set of parameters. This we call a contract. The government's enforcement of this voluntarily (non-coercively) agreed to contract it merely a protection of the basic rights on the side of both parties.

If A makes this agreement with B and B does not deliver on their part of the agreement after having received what A agreed to deliver, then B has effectively stolen from A or defrauded (a variant of theft) A. This would be a violation of A's basic rights.

Only if they signed the contract.

OK. Maybe. In some legal frameworks a verbal agreement can be considered binding. However I don't believe any of that changes what I've said. You're talking about the mechanism of the agreement (signing a document). It could be any mechanism that is socially understood and accepted. The principle of the agreement and its relationship to the individual's rights remains fundamentally the same.

So GM paid off the bailout money...with more bailout money?

TARP bailed out GM?
Impossible, Bush & Boner and the Clown Possi would have screamed "SOCIALISM!!!" "government takeover of corporations," BLAHHH!!

Wasn't that what they said when GM got a loan and had to change direction with their product line up? They closed Saturn and Hummer and get rid of as much weight as possible. It seems possible they made some $ in the last year.

Govt to lose $14B of auto bailout funds


Huh?


Losing $14 billion in tax money = success?

The Ministry of Truth must be running 24/7 these days just to keep up with the workload.

This unholy alliance between government and big business must end.

On another note, I thought I'd just tell everyone I've sworn off GM products. I should have learned my lesson after dealing with my 2003 GMC Envoy (fuel hog, horrible resale, wheel bearing blown at 40K). But after two Toyota Camrys, I needed a family-sized SUV. I heard great things about the GMC Acadia. I loved the styling and features. In Fall 2009, I found a used one with 15,000 miles for $10,000 less than sticker...all from a very reputable no-haggle dealer. I loved its ride, comfort, etc. It also had decent fuel economy for a fairly large SUV.

Well, the fun ended pretty soon. I traded it in for a Hyundai Sonata last night. In 20 months of ownership, the following happened:

1. Rear lift gate struts failed and were replaced under warranty.
2 "Service Air Bag" light came on. 1st attempt to fix at local dealer failed (cleaned connector).
3. Service Airbag attempt #2 failed...replaced seat belt tensioner. Same problem.
4. Servce Airbag attempt #3...hardwired whole system. Success.
5. Scratched the passenger door badly against a cement pole out of my sight. Fixed out of pocket.
6. Got rear-ended. Was other driver's fault. Insurance covered.
7. Passenger headlight capsule failed (not just the bulb). Replaced under "good will" warranty since it was 5,000 miles over.
8. Steering was clunking. Rebuilt with new rack bushings at 40,000 miles. Covered under same "good will" policy at local dealer.
9. Driver low-beam headlight failed. Bulb replaced of of pocket (not as cheap as you might think)
10. Water pump started leaking this memorial day, causing overheating. Needed to be replaced. Covered under powertrain warranty.

After the above (not all the car's fault, so to speak) my wife and I bailed. I leased the Hyundai Sonata 2.0 Turbo. Got 30 MPG in commuting traffic today, and my payment is lower. I also get all scheduled maintenance covered for the duration of the lease.

Why do I tell the above story? Perhaps if GM and Chrysler stopped making shitty cars, they wouldn't have needed to be bailed out?

Eh, My GM has been running for 11 years and over 180,000 miles with very few problems. Anecdotes in either direction are meaningless. The two of us do not make a statistically significant sample.

The fact that GM would have failed without government intervention is all the proof I really need that their products - as a whole - were crap.

Ah yes, the simplistic look at the situation. Usually the best, am I right?

Ah yes, an ad-hom as a response. Usually the easiest, am I right?

Whether it was quality, marketing, management incompetence, customer demand or cost structure...or a combination of all these...GM (and Chrysler) were on the decline. They were not competing effectively and profitably in the market. They should have both been allowed to go bankrupt. They could have emerged as a smaller, leaner, re-capitalized and probably more focused company.

So any company that fails failed because of poor products. There were no other factors that could have played equal if not larger roles in the company's demise. Of course. Anything beyond that would be too nuanced and complicated to think about.

And now the straw-man. Well played.

You, sir, took GM's near failure to mean that their products were all shit. Don't even try to turn this around on me. Don't be a tool.

You took my one statement about GM and claimed that:

• I was talking about "any company"
• I said there are no other factors that could contribute to a company's failure

I never said either of those things.

You created a straw man argument after initiating an ad-hom attack.

Next time, just ask me to clarify or explain what I mean. It will make me more inclined to have a conversation with you.

But I seriously doubt you are interested in understanding my view or having a meaningful conversation with me, so I'm sure this will fall on deaf ears.

Well, while the reasons for GM's brush with death can be debated for years, the reason for their continued existence leaves little room for speculation: Barack Obama needed to pay off some campaign favors to the UAW.

Blah blah. You made a blanket statement about GM products based on flimsy reasoning. Try to defend it all you want by turning your attack dogs on me, but you fail at supporting your initial point at all. It still stands as a ludicrous statement.

Of course it's ludicrous. That was the point. I'm sure GM made perfectly good vehicles that lasted a somewhat decent amount of time, so the "crap" statement was indeed an exaggeration on my part.

The fact is Toyota and other competitors ran their business more efficiently and made vehicles that more and more people preferred over GM's. GM couldn't compete. It would have failed if Obama hadn't bailed them out (and burned $14 billion in tax dollars in the process).

GM's vehicles weren't "crap", but it's evident their business was going down the crapper.

The best part is from the MSNBC version of the story:


This is becoming a common refrain from this administration. The stimulus worked...things didn't get better but they would have been worse if we didn't. Yes, unemployment increased...but things were worse than we thought.

Nothing this administration does is ever wrong...it's just that things would have been worse. A conveniently unprovable claim.

its all a scam

http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/05/31/g...lt-tax-credits

I think you need to chill out, actually. That, and you need to learn what the American political spectrum is. It's different than Europe's to say the least. To Americans, he's super-liberal. In fact, he was the most liberal US Senator when elected, if I'm not mistaken. No one is comparing him to Stalin et al.


Agreed. I might add the Dodge Ram. I've not seen many other Chrysler products that are built well. I know some that are complete and utter crap.




Ding ding ding ding! We have a winner. This was nothing but a union bribe. I'm sure the fact that Obama gave GM to the unions won't hurt his chances of getting them to vote for him.


Man, you have to be confrontational about EVERYTHING, don't you? I realize that. I was just sharing my experiences. Speaking for myself alone, I'm done with GM.

One bad experience and you give up on a company forever? Does that translate anywhere else in life? One fight and you divorce your wife? One bad relationship so you give up on all women?

And the award for terrible equivalencies goes to:




See this is one of the dynamics of a free market. The more expensive the good, and the more screwed you feel by the seller, the more likely you are to stay away for a long, long time. Great incentive for those companies to consistently make great products rather than get sloppy, lazy and take customers for granted and let competitors (like Toyota, et al) eat your lunch.

No. I simply question SDW's overreaction.

I love how liberals are anti-corporate for 95% of the week, and then abruptly turn around and defend flushing $14 billion dollars of taxpayer funds to an ill-conceived corporate bailout.

Memo to the left: you don't understand how the economy works. Bankruptcy is not some scary right-wing menace. It is a way of re-pricing corporate assets to reflect new and changing economic realities.

Auto plants, tools and skilled workforces do not disappear after a bankruptcy. The fact is that with the new Korean auto industry entrants, the U.S. can only support two major automakers. It would have been far, far better to have Chrysler's Jeep and Minivan nameplates moved over to Ford (and use the 300 as part of a new high-end line) than to simply repackage three lacklustre automakers in business.

Obamanomics won't work here and in a decade or two we'll be back to where we started. The hard fact is that there was an opportunity to restructure the North American industry that's now lost.

Unbelievably, in a time when Acura is actually on the ropes, we have almost permanently ceded the upscale auto industry to foreign nameplates.

Except the overreaction demonstrates a lack of critical thought--which makes sense coming from religious people.

Bingo!

No, multiple experiences. That car was the latest. I had an Envoy ("professional grade") that blew a wheel bearing at 40,000 miles and was HORRID on gas. My ex's Grand Am needed new or recut rotors every 10,000 miles. My ex brother-in-law had all kinds of brake problems with his mid-nineties Grand Am at the time. Incidentally, my Hyundai only needs service every 7,500 miles. Reliability is one reason they are now outselling Toyota.

"Lack of critical thought?" So I should keep going with GM products, expecting a different result?

Well, first you should research how aberrant your bad experience was. In the future, do your homework about whatever product line you intend to purchase. Come on, you really can't think of that on your own? You really think this is a blind "BUHHH, BUY TIME HURRR" or "SHUNNNNNNNNNN THE EVIL GM CARS SHUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!" dichotomy?

Statists get really defensive where government is concerned.

Understand? Understanding requires thought. Feeling requires nothing.


Almost every major airline has been restructured through BK. They're still around, only they're much more efficient than ever, and better able to respond to "new and changing economic realities" such as > $100 oil. Meanwhile, GM and Chrysler continue to exist so they can build shitty products that no one wants. Thank you Obama.

This debacle cost about $200 for every taxpayer (there are about 138M tax filers in the US, about half of whom actually pay anything). Next time you pull the D lever, think about what it's going to cost you. Oh yeah, the left is unable to think...

First, I think you should really seek some anger and anxiety management. There is no reason for you to be this worked up. Secondly, I did give multiple other examples. I also researched the vehicle I purchased. The fact is that it was a lemon. And as I just stated, it's not the first one I've seen.

I agree that there must be some reason you're attacking like this. You can't possibly just be taking issue with my choice of car brand and statement that I've had enough bad experiences with one in paricular...can you?

That's the problem. We all do.

Meanwhile, our beneficent and all-knowing Government is desperately seeking to rid itself of that pig, locking in a certain loss for all of us: U.S. Hurries to Sell GM Stake. This, despite Obama's assurance that the bailout was a wise investment:


General Motors Will Never Repay Taxpayers: Obama's spin on GM's latest profit report is pure baloney

So, was Obama lying, or is he simply a buffoon? I'll go with the latter.

Why did we elect this dolt?