Write Review
1,894,368 Total Reviews 3,384 New Reviews
7,146 Users Online

Politics and Religion

Put up or shut up what Jake?
St. Croix 59 reads
posted

Your answer to the problem....OMG GM, an American icon is going to fail if we don't do something now, and save those UAW jobs, because there are a lot of 70 year old men that need their Cadillacs.  

My answer to the problem....expand the Stimulus  program to incorporate training and relocation support for the affected workers. Some, not all, will be working for BMW, Honda, Toyota. And yes, the vultures were already circling Delphi and other auto suppliers. But again, we will never know.  

I worked for the airlines for a few years after graduating from college. Do the names Pan Am, Eastern, Braniff, TWA mean anything to you. How many airlines went bankrupt? How many hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost. Pan Am was an American icon. Where was the government? The government decided to deregulate the airline industry in 1978, and as a result, many airlines were bloated, and not prepared for the eventual changes. They crashed and burned along with the jobs. The difference I guess Jake was 2009. World was coming to an end, and we needed to save GM to save America. Seriously?  

On this specific economic issue I am a purist, but like you I too have a Keynesian slant to economics. Well at least I'm guessing you're a Keynesian adherent. I just would have used the Stimulus plan.

Now with respect to that Cadillac, are you that old guy in the Seinfeld episode down in Del Boca Vista?  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0NAhWiXU88

P.S. I actually have no idea what GaG or even Jack would say regarding the GM bailout, and if they would have supported it.

-- Modified on 8/10/2017 7:09:49 AM

WomanLvr1529 reads

When it finally happens, when Trump either resigns or is impeached, and Pence becomes our next president, we all know Pence will pardon Trump.  But, if Pence pardons Manafort or any of the other Trump cohorts, do you think he has a chance of getting elected in 2020?

ReplyQuoteReport
JakeFromStateFarm59 reads

After Donnie The Dunce's incendiary words yesterday, markets around the world are selling off and Tillerson is walking back Trump's words. Sort of.

Related Link: http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/09/politics/north-korea-donald-trump/index.html

ReplyQuoteReport
JackDunphy51 reads

Any real hope of salvaging this situation, diplomatically speaking, is for the Chinese to sit on Kim and for Kim to take Trump's threat seriously.

 
The plan, either coordinated with the Chinese bc or not, is to have them tell Kim:  

 
"Look, this Trump character is a nut. Have you EVER seen ANY other U.S. president talk like this??? He bombed a Syrian air base with Russians their and he used a MOAB against ISIS. This guy doesn't bluff and play for keeps and WILL end your regime unless you get to the bargaining table fast."

 
Now, do I think this strategy will actually work? No. But I think it has a much better chance than to continue on with the sanctions charade and to continue to speak like past U.S. presidents, who chose in a much more measured and non-confrontational manner.

ReplyQuoteReport
mattradd49 reads

Now, why would you believe that when we are already being told "his aides are warning against reading too much into the combative talk."

You do know the North Koreans and the Chinese can read English! ;)

Related Link: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/09/trump-north-korea-comments-reactions-241434

ReplyQuoteReport
JackDunphy50 reads

Aren't you making my point for me?

ReplyQuoteReport
mattradd64 reads

to your friends and enemies, exactly where you stand! ;)

ReplyQuoteReport
JackDunphy38 reads

...ever helped us with N. Korea?

 
They are a completely different kind of foe and we know all the "smart" tactics have failed in the past. Kim thinking Trump is a totally different kind of U.S. president may end up helping us here, imo.

ReplyQuoteReport
mattradd53 reads

Plenty! ;)

ReplyQuoteReport
ed200058 reads

Posted By: JackDunphy
". . . . Have you EVER seen ANY other U.S. president talk like this???
When I first heard Trump, my first reaction was he sounds like Harry Truman.

 
Low and behold, now everyone's on it. Just Google "Harry Truman Fire and Fury" for various reports that Trump's loquacity mirrored that of Truman after dropping the first bomb on Japan, warning the Japanese of the wrath to come should they not quit.

-- Modified on 8/9/2017 4:46:20 PM

Related Link: Truman's warning to the Japanese

ReplyQuoteReport
GaGambler60 reads

The market is doing just fine today, a very small pullback after days of setting new records is hardly a "sell off"

 
The Dow is still over 22,000 the S&P is well over 2,400 and the NASDAQ is comfortably over 6,300. Every major index is within spitting distance of record highs.

 
Don't you EVER get tired of being wrong?

ReplyQuoteReport
WomanLvr49 reads

Just imagine where the DOW 30 (DJIA) would be today, if all of the biggest U.S. banks, our auto industry, and the entire U.S. economy were allowed to crash, when Obama rode up on his big white horse and saved the day!

Can you say DOW 900?

ReplyQuoteReport
St. Croix54 reads

Let's just say, thank God for GM NOT being in the DOW. A useless investment since the 2010 IPO.  There was no need to save GM or Chrysler, the 2 auto manufacturers that were "bailed" out.  

I'm confused. Who created TARP? Was it Obama? And the well capitalized banks like JP Morgan were forced to take TARP even though they didn't need it.

If you want to give Obama some credit, then give him credit for a poorly designed $800B Stimulus.  It still had some value. Other than that, we give WAY too much credit to Obama, Trump or any Administration for the rise in the value of the market.

ReplyQuoteReport
JakeFromStateFarm57 reads

Please explain to the class why letting GM fail and adding ANOTHER million jobs lost to the HUGE unemployment rolls of early 2009 would have been a remotely good thing?
Tell us: are you also in favor of nuclear winter to stop global warming?
I used to take you seriously.  For that I feel so used.
I'm wondering if GaGa has your back on this.....

ReplyQuoteReport
St. Croix55 reads

I bet a lot of thought went into that number.  

Jake, without me going through a long dissertation on a subject that's been debated ad nauseam, just google GM bailout. You will get pros and cons, and probably based on political ideology.

Companies, large and small fail all the time. I'm just not a fan of selective government intervention  in the private sector, even with the backdrop of 2009. First GM employed 200K. Chrysler less than 100K, and mostly UAW workers. I'm not anti UAW, but that was a factor. Second, GM and Chrysler had valuable assets, and those assets would have been acquired by other solvent auto companies. Yeah maybe even a Toyota, or any number of other foreign auto manufacturers. Third, the other auto manufacturers, yes mostly in the south, would have picked up the slack. At least this is what I think would have happened, but I guess we will never know.  

Now look at GM today. IPO price of $34 in 2010. Stock is what $35 today. Their products are still tired old GM products. A result of "creative destruction" or as you like to call it "Darwinism", whatever, the end results should be new technologies, new products, new services, and I don't see that with GM today. But to Obama's credit, ($800B plus Stimulus plan) was the right thing to do, but the wrong thing was the amount (should have been higher) and how it was allocated. Part of it could have been used for relocation and training at other auto companies, but that wouldn't fly at a non-union company.

Jake, we will never know what would have happened if we let GM and Chrysler fail.

ReplyQuoteReport
JakeFromStateFarm62 reads

1) Your employment figures for GM and Chrysler don't include hundreds of thousands of other jobs at the suppliers who make so many of the components that go into their cars.
2) You blithely say the two companies' assets would have been bought by someone else.  Why?  At that point in a damaged economy not enough people were buying cars.  That's why GM and Chrysler were in bankruptcy to begin with. Same answer for southern mfrs. picking up "the slack." There WAS no slack.
3) GM today.  Please explain how GM's flat current stock price is relevant to anything I said? And as for "tired, old GM products," you're entitled to your opinion but I respectfully disagree.  GM is making great trucks, hybrids, full electrics, Corvettes and Caddies that are technological leaders.  Hardly "tired old products."  The implication that they are holdovers from GM's pre-bankruptcy days is just wrong.  
You also don't talk about what the impact of at least hundreds of thousands more unemployed workers (in your scenario) would have had on an economy that was already in a free-fall.
In the end you are at least honest in terms of saying "we'll never know."  So there's that.

ReplyQuoteReport
St. Croix60 reads

Your answer to the problem....OMG GM, an American icon is going to fail if we don't do something now, and save those UAW jobs, because there are a lot of 70 year old men that need their Cadillacs.  

My answer to the problem....expand the Stimulus  program to incorporate training and relocation support for the affected workers. Some, not all, will be working for BMW, Honda, Toyota. And yes, the vultures were already circling Delphi and other auto suppliers. But again, we will never know.  

I worked for the airlines for a few years after graduating from college. Do the names Pan Am, Eastern, Braniff, TWA mean anything to you. How many airlines went bankrupt? How many hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost. Pan Am was an American icon. Where was the government? The government decided to deregulate the airline industry in 1978, and as a result, many airlines were bloated, and not prepared for the eventual changes. They crashed and burned along with the jobs. The difference I guess Jake was 2009. World was coming to an end, and we needed to save GM to save America. Seriously?  

On this specific economic issue I am a purist, but like you I too have a Keynesian slant to economics. Well at least I'm guessing you're a Keynesian adherent. I just would have used the Stimulus plan.

Now with respect to that Cadillac, are you that old guy in the Seinfeld episode down in Del Boca Vista?  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0NAhWiXU88

P.S. I actually have no idea what GaG or even Jack would say regarding the GM bailout, and if they would have supported it.

-- Modified on 8/10/2017 7:09:49 AM

ReplyQuoteReport
JakeFromStateFarm45 reads

By that I mean putting words in people's mouth.  I mean specifically, "OMG GM, an American icon....." etc., etc. I also never mentioned union jobs, because many of them weren't.
Also, your airlines analogy, well, isn't.  Those bankrupt airlines didn't go belly up during the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression.  And they didn't go bankrupt all at once.  Seriously.
Oh, and I've never owned a Cadillac.  And I hate Florida.

ReplyQuoteReport
JakeFromStateFarm63 reads

@ Duncey:  You Trump-bots will say ANYTHING to defend whatever he says, so you trot out the old "good cop/bad cap" ploy.  Well, it won't wash, because NO ONE even on Trump's staff knew he was going to give his "fire and fury" rant.  And it wasn't coordinated with the Chinese because his stunned staff had to tap Tillerson to walk it back.  According to reports, the talking points Trump had in front of him were ONLY about the opiod crisis, with ZERO about N. Korea on them.  So you are totally WRONG to dignify it as part of what you call a "strategy."
@ GaGa: It used to be a cliche that many Asians were myopic.  Well, it's clear you need glasses, at least in the rhetorical sense.  I said "the markets around the world," and the Nikkei slumped nearly 1.3%, the DAX was off 1.1% and the CAC40 was down 1.4%.  Of course that doesn't prove a long-term sell-off but EVERY analyst said that without Trump's ludicrous comments that markets would probably have been up.  As I write this, the Dow is off more than 80 points, ALL because of Trump.  And this AFTER Tillerson tried to walk back the war talk, so in the absence of that the damage could well have been worse.
The point is, we have a leader who has ZERO common sense and spouts off in language more typical of North Korea when he reads something he doesn't like in the WaPo.  And I'll even admit until this gaffe he'd been doing quite well on North Korea, having gotten some tough sanctions through the UN.  So why not do some diplomacy behind the scenes and wait to see if the sanctions work?  How do you think China feels, after having gone along with the UN package only to have Trump act like a ten-year-old?  We'll have to wait and see but I wouldn't be surprised if they gave Kim a wink and a nod and let trade across the Yalu continue as it has.
Nice going, President Dunce.
And his two favorite TER Trump-bots.

ReplyQuoteReport
JackDunphy76 reads

Doesn't your "NO ONE even on Trump's staff knew he was going to give his "fire and fury" rant" prove to the world leaders that he is nutty and goes off script? That he does NOT listen to his advisors?

 
Isn't that one MORE piece of evidence the Chinese would show Kim that Trump is a wild card and a "mad man" that just might attack Kim first?

 
It is in the Chinese best interests if there is not war between the U.S. and N. Korea and I would think they would use every strategy and trick up their sleeves to avoid one, whether or not it is coordinated with us and we would have no way of knowing if it was or it was not.  

 
And you couldn't possibly know his staff was really "stunned" as you are getting caught up in "reports" that may be leaked by the Trump admin for the desired affect I am speculating about.  

 

 

 
.

ReplyQuoteReport
JakeFromStateFarm41 reads

Trump is really nuts, then we agree.  Unlike you, I don't think there's a silver lining.  Neither of us know.  Also, by your last point are you suggesting his staff DID know?  "Reports" suggesting otherwise are far more believable.  Not doubt any further such "reports" will be dismissed by you as leaks.  Or fake news.

ReplyQuoteReport
GaGambler53 reads

The market that will give you the best indication about how seriously people are taking this "threat" is the gold market. If the world truly believed war was at hand gold would be shooting up in value, but that's not the case, gold is "edging up" but still below $1,300, get back to me if and when gold starts pushing $1,400 as that will be the sign the world is expecting a serious and dangerous escalation.

ReplyQuoteReport
JakeFromStateFarm58 reads

The US markets tanked today with the Dow off more than 200 points and gold was up nearly a full percent to 1285.  Of course, we'd both agree two days don't make a trend.  But the worst of the drop came after your hero said yesterday's "fire and fury" statement "maybe didn't go far enough."

ReplyQuoteReport
GaGambler50 reads

All of the major indices are within 2-3 points of their all time highs, while gold will have to increase by almost 50% to reach it's previous highs reached way back in Obamas first term.

 
and apparently all we agree upon is that two days don't make a trend. All things considered that point alone will keep you out of SPOTY contention. lol

 
I do like your choice of words. You say gold was up "nearly a full percent" while I would characterize it as "gold had a muted reaction of less than a one percent increase"

ReplyQuoteReport
nuguy4649 reads

they had miniature nukes and he knew it. did nothing. where are we today?

ReplyQuoteReport
Post Reply Back To Forum
Register Now!