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GM to Become "Government Motors"

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#101 ·
Re: (justanotherusername)

Quote, originally posted by justanotherusername »

We're reaching dangerously high levels of unemployment right now, and the loss of a major industry like this would be catastrophic.

don't worry, we'll trade high unemployment for high inflation rates soon enough
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#102 ·
Re: (justanotherusername)

Oh I agree. Losing GM would be bad for losts of workers. But...the government is trying to "bail water out of a sinking ship" And since when is working an option or ever should be??? Who wants a job? So if I just wanna sit on my ass I can get paid with some gov't cheese? Total b.s. I hate the welfare state. You can't encourage people to work with handouts.
Some big corporations will go down, no matter how much the government "tries to prop them up" Businesses fail and new ones rise from the ashes.
 
#103 ·
Re: (LANZADJUST)

Quote, originally posted by LANZADJUST »
I've been wondering that a while....why do we really need a central bank??

Are you ****ing serious??
I'm just going to put this in simple terms: Efficiency and we have to have one to function as a nation.
 
#104 ·
Re: (LANZADJUST)

Quote, originally posted by LANZADJUST »
So if I just wanna sit on my ass I can get paid with some gov't cheese? Total b.s. I hate the welfare state. You can't encourage people to work with handouts.


You're out of touch with reality. There are MILLIONS of people out of work right now who want to be working. There are no jobs for them to take. What would you suggest? Let them starve?
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#105 ·
Re: (VarianceVQ)

Yep, dead serious. Think about how our economy is run and how the value of a dollar is based on what "people perceived the value of a product to be"
blah blah...its fun to think about what could be.
watch zeitgeistthemovie.com interesting if you have 2 hours to spare.
 
#106 ·
FV-QR

Oh go to a Ron Paul fanclub meeting and GTFO.
You know, our government has been giving BILLIONS of free money to corporations in agribusiness for DECADES. Where's the outrage over that?
How about the billions we give to Israel to buy weapons from our corporations? Where's your outrage there?
Or, best yet, the BILLIONS in subsidies and tax breaks for American oil corporations? Where was the "OMG Socialism!" when that started?
Just stop, you're clearly a fool.
Quote, originally posted by LANZADJUST »
Yep, dead serious. Think about how our economy is run and how the value of a dollar is based on what "people perceived the value of a product to be"
blah blah...its fun to think about what could be.
watch zeitgeistthemovie.com interesting if you have 2 hours to spare.
 
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#107 ·
Re: (LANZADJUST)

Quote, originally posted by LANZADJUST »
I've been wondering that a while....why do we really need a central bank??

we are a monetary economy, not a barter economy. In the US, we have US dollars. The fed controls the amount and influences the behavior of US dollars in the economy.
 
#109 ·
Re: (LANZADJUST)

Quote, originally posted by LANZADJUST »

Yep, sounds like socialism to me. Gov't needs to stay out of business, or otherwise rip up the constitution
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Be careful what you wish for....
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I think you need to read the Constitution again if you think it has anything in it favoring capitalism over socialism, especially considering the concept of socialism you refer to was not even prevalent until long after the Constitution was written. The Constitution itself is primarily concerned with distribution of power between the people, their elected state governments, and their elected federal government, not between businesses and government.
It is a big leap for most of you to assume that 50% government ownership necessitates "government control." It was a foreign concept to me as well until I moved to Canada, but here there are companies known as "Crown Corporations." These are for-profit companies, 100% owned by the government, but run as arms-length entities. Canada Post, for example (USPS equivalent) is owned by the government of Canada, but unlike the USPS actually returns a profit, the dividends of which are then returned to the Government of Canada, and indirectly to the people of Canada. Other Crown Corporations such as the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) compete with non-governmental entities (other TV stations), but at the same time are not "state-run news" puppets of the Canadian government.
There's something in between "public company" and "government control"; between "capitalism" and "socialism". Government ownership != control
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#110 ·
Re: (LANZADJUST)

Quote, originally posted by LANZADJUST »
Yep, dead serious. Think about how our economy is run and how the value of a dollar is based on what "people perceived the value of a product to be"


where do you think value comes from in any situation? There have been three prominent theories of how things are valued
1. Adam Smith: labor theory of value states the value of a good is related to the amount of labor used to produce it
2. François Quesnay: the value of output is related to the amount of land used in its production
Both of these theories are widely regarded as having severe shortcomings and false.
3. Democritus (5th century B.C.): value is subjective and must be judged within the context of its present state of existence
Yes, we knew how things are valued way back in the 5th century B.C. The human mind is the source of value, that is the value of something is whatever people say it is.
I'm curious to know how you think things are/should be valued
 
#111 ·
Re: (BTM)

Quote, originally posted by BTM »

don't worry, we'll trade high unemployment for high inflation rates soon enough
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I think what the Fed is doing right now is sort of spread the pain around as much as possible without upsetting the capitalism model. Unless you live in a house full of gold therefore wanting the Fed to do nothing so only a few can come out ahead while the rest is suffering then I guess that is pure capitalism. I doubt most people would want that. But I agree that doing too much then you can get into that "Socialism" gray area but so far, the Fed is treading a fine line between socialism and moderate capitalism.
The other option is doing nothing and let companies such as AIG, Citi, GM ... fail but that is such a scary scenario that nobody is willing to try out (read The Great Depression). Political stability is something that cannot be underestimated even here in the US. Can you imagine a scenario such as the Rodney King episode but in a larger scale? A bit unlikely but possible if unemployment reaches 20%.
 
#112 ·
Re: (livingVoice)

Quote, originally posted by livingVoice »

I think what the Fed is doing right now is sort of spread the pain around as much as possible without upsetting the capitalism model.

The point is that spreading it around doesn't help anything. Higher employment rates in the short run will cause massive hikes in inflation, the only way to overcome inflation is to decrease GDP, leading to lower employment rates, and over and over and over and over. Even if natural unemployment (the long run curve) is attained through messing around with employment and inflation, we will only end up in a situation in which we achieved natural employment with an elevated rate of inflation. And again, the only way to decrease inflation is to decrease GDP, and it begins all over again.
 
#113 ·
Re: (BTM)

Quote, originally posted by BTM »

The point is that spreading it around doesn't help anything.

I guess it depends on what you meant by "help". My company obviously does not need any bail out but some poor guy working for GM could use some help. The Fed then print money and give it to GM which will in turn increase inflation which in turn reduces my cash saving value. I guess it's like a hidden tax. Some would argue that's unfair for the other guys who don't need bail out but the argument here is may be it's better for the country overall if one helps the others out a little bit I guess.
Quote, originally posted by BTM »
Higher employment rates in the short run will cause massive hikes in inflation, the only way to overcome inflation is to decrease GDP,

Not necessary true since it assumes a close society or close financial system. There are too many variables that you have to consider. For example if Detroit makes the best cars in the world (I am allowed to dream right
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), California makes the best semi conductor products,.. and assumes we need to hire extra work force for those jobs. Since those products are highly desirable which command a high premium, then our dollars will actually gain values even in the face of high employment. This not unlike an oil rich country.
 
#114 ·
Re: FV-QR (justanotherusername)

Quote, originally posted by justanotherusername »

That's exactly right, and they won't be hiring anywhere near as many workers as will be put out of work if GM closes its doors.

So you do agree that the industry does not require as many workers as it has now to satisfy market demand yet you want all of them to keep their jobs? That does not make sense.
Quote, originally posted by justanotherusername »

You're dreaming. People won't buy cars from a bankrupt automaker, and GM's parts can't exist as seperate entities. There are too many shared components.

They buy their cars now and GM is a company with no viable future. After bankruptcy that no longer would be the case. I used Chevy and Caddy as an example, they can build and sell whatever the market wants. Assuming that the market even cares.
 
#115 ·
Re: FV-QR (7.62)

Quote, originally posted by 7.62 »

So you do agree that the industry does not require as many workers as it has now to satisfy market demand yet you want all of them to keep their jobs? That does not make sense.
.

No, you simply don't understand the dynamics. What will happen is that about 1 million Americans will lose their jobs. As the economy recovers, less than half that number of jobs will be recoved in the auto industry, and foreign exports will go up, as well as vehicle prices. Domestic production capabilities is what keeps US car prices as low as they are compared to the rest of the world.
It makes perfect sense when you consider the big picture. A very large number of these auto industry jobs will NEVER come back to the US.
 
#116 ·
FV-QR

Ok, so here's a question (from someone who isn't generally too bright on these issues, but is at least smart enough to admit it
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)
GM is obviously a worldwide company, much more so then Chrysler, the other big (future) fed-owned company. What happens to the worldwide divisions (Opel, Vauxhall, Holden, and to a lesser extent, Saab, and GM's huge presence in China and South America), with the bailout money and ownership as a whole? Is any of that gov. money and resources going into foreign companies, or are their governments doing any helping of their own, or are they basically ok, and we're the only ones in trouble??
 
#117 ·
Re: FV-QR (VDub2625)

Quote, originally posted by VDub2625 »
Ok, so here's a question (from someone who isn't generally too bright on these issues, but is at least smart enough to admit it
Image
)
GM is obviously a worldwide company, much more so then Chrysler, the other big (future) fed-owned company. What happens to the worldwide divisions (Opel, Vauxhall, Holden, and to a lesser extent, Saab, and GM's huge presence in China and South America), with the bailout money and ownership as a whole? Is any of that gov. money and resources going into foreign companies, or are their governments doing any helping of their own, or are they basically ok, and we're the only ones in trouble??


This is a good question, and it's really hard to say. It wouldn't surprise me to see them try to sell off some of the overseas assets, but I wouldn't even speculate on it without knowing more about the actual numbers. I'm pretty sure I've read that GM was still making money overseas.
 
#118 ·
Re: FV-QR (7.62)

Quote, originally posted by 7.62 »

So you do agree that the industry does not require as many workers as it has now to satisfy market demand yet you want all of them to keep their jobs? That does not make sense.

That's not the point. Established markets tend to shrink much more rapidly under adversity than they can grow in prosperity, and it takes far less time to create adversity than prosperity.
Think of it like a person jumping from a burning building -- better to throw down something soft to try and deaden the landing than just let them smack the sidewalk and hope you can resuscitate.


Modified by PassSedanGLX at 3:29 AM 4-29-2009
 
#119 ·
Re: (LANZADJUST)

Quote, originally posted by LANZADJUST »
......... Yep, sounds like socialism to me. Gov't needs to stay out of business, or otherwise rip up the constitution
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Be careful what you wish for....
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The US Govt has been sticking its nose, for better or worse, into business for years and all of a sudden, it's an issue for you ??
A quick example from the year .................. 1987.
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11....html
Seriously dude, wake the **** up.
 
#120 ·
Re: FV-QR (justanotherusername)

Quote, originally posted by justanotherusername »

No, you simply don't understand the dynamics. What will happen is that about 1 million Americans will lose their jobs.

You just agreed that other companies in North America can do their job without affecting production output. What you are proposing is welfare.
Quote, originally posted by justanotherusername »
As the economy recovers, less than half that number of jobs will be recoved in the auto industry, and foreign exports will go up, as well as vehicle prices. Domestic production capabilities is what keeps US car prices as low as they are compared to the rest of the world.
It makes perfect sense when you consider the big picture. A very large number of these auto industry jobs will NEVER come back to the US.

Just what exactly do you mean by economic recovery? It sounds like you are implying that it will result in consumption and spending levels reverting back to pre-crisis years. This simply will not happen. There's been a profound shift in consumer attitudes when it comes saving and spending and it will take many years before annual vehicle sales approach a number that justifies industry's capacity as it currently stands.
Also, production of cars in UK did not decline significantly following Leyland's collapse.
 
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