Why GM's Not the Only Company Rush Limbaugh Should Boycott 21 comments
Rick Newman
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If Rush Limbaugh wants to properly protest the Obama bailouts, he’ll have to boycott a lot more than General Motors (GMGMQ.PK).
Limbaugh and some other conservative pundits have suggested that Americans should refuse to buy cars from “Government Motors,” as a way to express their outrage at President Obama’s interference in our free-market economy. “Be it General Motors, be it Chrysler -- whatever else Obama ends up controlling and running -- the American people are not going to want it to succeed,” Limbaugh said on his radio show recently. He also cited a poll claiming that nearly one-quarter of Americans support a boycott of GM.
It’s not exactly a news flash to say that Americans are uncomfortable with a bailout regime that amounts to more than $9 trillion worth of government commitments so far. Duh. Hardly anybody thinks this is the ideal way to run an economy. But boycotting one of America’s biggest companies to protest the actions of the American government on behalf of the American people is a more interesting idea. Rush needs to go further, though.
He should also urge true patriots to open their wallets and promptly cut up any credit cards issued by American Express (AXP), Citibank (C), Bank of America (BAC), JP Morgan Chase (JPM), GMAC, Wells Fargo (WFC) or any of the other 550 or so banks that have accepted bailout money from the Treasury Dept. They’re all beneficiaries of cheap government loans that have allowed them to earn a subsidized profit by lending taxpayer money back to taxpayers at higher rates than the taxpayers are charging the banks.
You may have trouble finding a credit card issued by a bank that hasn’t accepted Obamabucks, so get used to paying for everything in cash. And while you’re at it, make it euros instead of dollars, to protest the Federal Reserve’s expansion of the American money supply. The Europeans have been much more disciplined and deserve our support.
If you refinanced your mortgage over the last few months, you should march right back to the bank and renegotiate at an interest rate that’s 4 or 5 points higher. That’s only right, after all, since those low rates are courtesy of the Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) bailouts and further machinations by the Federal Reserve. It’s un-American to pay such low rates when we could have higher rates uncorrupted by government interference.
If you have a life insurance policy underwritten by AIG, Lincoln National (LNC), Principal Financial (PFG) or the Hartford (HIG)—bailout recipients all—the only honorable thing to do is make the insurance company itself the beneficiary of your policy. That way they’ll get all the money, no matter what happens to you, which is what the Darwinian outcome would be if the government simply stepped aside, the way it should, and let the insurers collapse.
And while boycotting General Motors and Chrysler, make sure you also boycott Ford (F), Toyota (TM), Honda (HMC), Nissan (NSANY), Hyundai (HYMLF.PK), Kia, Mercedes, and BMW vehicles that are made in America, since they too have benefited from Obama’s collateral bailout of the U.S. automotive supply chain. It might be more patriotic to buy a Japanese-made Toyota or a German-made Volkswagen, since governments in those nations have offered a bit less support for their home-grown automakers than Obama has.
But the purest form of protest would be to skip the new car altogether, and buy a jalopy that doesn’t require a loan. That’s all that most Americans would be able to afford if Obama hadn’t bailed out the banks and the car-financing companies, in addition to the automakers. And just to be safe, do all the maintenance yourself, since the mechanic down the street may be getting a tax cut this year. He doesn’t need any more of a bailout than he’s already gotten.
Disclosure: no positions
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This article has 21 comments:
I can remember one or two years ago a big chain letter calling for people to boycott Exxon Mobile so that they'd have to lower their gas prices, and then their competitors would also have to follow suit in a giant attempt to manipulate oil prices.
While all of these company boycotts I can think of come from the left, I'm surprised there isn't more of a push for Republicans to boycott say Heinz Ketcup. Boycotting Government Motors would be the first big republican led boycott I could think of.
From my experience I see most of the city/suburban drivers in foreign imports, be it Honda civics, Toyota corollas, Nissan, or the more upscale Mercedes, BMW etc. The place where I really see the American cars doing well is the more rural parts and rural parts are usually more Republican. If the rural drivers aren't supporting Government Motors, then that would require the Urban/suburban drivers who traditionally don't buy American cars to buy American cars.
I think these trade wars are a dangerous path to go down be it from the left or the right. The reason I buy something is because I value that product more than my money and I buy the best product for the lowest cost. What's the problem with that?
Uh, I think they already have done that. Otherwise it would still be called General Motors rather than Government Motors.
The author again: "He should also urge true patriots to open their wallets and promptly cut up any credit cards issued by American Express (AXP), Citibank (C), Bank of America (BAC), JP Morgan Chase (JPM), GMAC, Wells Fargo (WFC) or any of the other 550 or so banks that have accepted bailout money from the Treasury Dept."
Good ideas all.
Yeah, we get the idea of the article: Since the government subsidizes virtually everything, American patriots can't possible operate without patronizing the politically-connected business. We shall see. Tactics requires making deals with the devil, we allied with Stalin to defeat Hitler, but we aren't going to roll over and play dead while Obama rolls the country downhill to Eurosocialism. By the way, even though "we all agree" in America and we want the government to run everything, Eurosocialism (at the time) is not playing so well in Europe.
mindyourpolitics.blogs...
Am I wrong?
I suspect the collapse of the credit supply will effectively impose a boycott on pretty much the whole of the author's long list. So I am content.
The following is Limbaugh's response to the media story :
" Now, for the record, ladies and gentlemen, I don't do boycotts. I do not sponsor them; I do not encourage them. I never have. I think it is media childishness when people start urging boycotts. I have never, ever done such a thing, and I didn't do this with General Motors. All I did, to clarify, was report a poll that said X number of Americans -- what was it, 18 or 20% -- say they are not going to buy a GM car anymore, after this bailout. "
Also, I do not believe Sean Hannity is supporting a boycott. Last I heard, he was still doing "spontaneous" infomercials for his Cadillac.
Hugh Hewitt was another conservative named in the Detroit News story. I do not know Hewitt's views on a boycott, but since the media has it wrong about Limbaugh (as usual), there is no reason to believe they got the rest of the story right.
did you even bother reading the entire transcript in the "radio show" link you provided?
If you did, your byline is more than misleading; it is flat out dishonest.
----------------------...
John, I guess you've been in the Colorado back country too much lately. Note that all of the above makes (and a few more) are assembled in non-UAW plants in the U.S. In addition, much of the Subaru line is "domestic" by content. Kinda blurs the "us vs. them" paradigm.
Sincerely
Ragnar
Either way, you're a disservice to the trade and reinforce the notion that journalists can't be trusted.
On Jun 10 09:36 PM User 429509 wrote:
> It wasn't that long ago that Mr. Limbaugh and Mr. Hannity were tauting
> GM, Mr. Hannity purchased a cadillac from a dealer in Jacksonville,
> Fl, that he said had the greatest service he has ever gotten with
> a vehicle, does he drive down to Jacksonville from New York to have
> that car serviced, I guess with his money someone drives it down
> for him. By the way that dealer was axed by GM. Does anyone look
> at how the advertisers do on these 2 programs, we may have found
> something here.
What is even funnier is your own hypocrisy. This is from your profile:
"Oh - and point out the many myths and follies of our hyperbolic media. Busy times for that."
Enough said.
recently GM ads have been running on his program, so I don't
really know what the point of this article is.
On Jun 10 11:32 PM Mr. Ed, Jr. wrote:
> The report is incorrect. Limbaugh does not support a boycott. (There
> is nothing in the author's quotes that has Limbaugh supporting the
> boycott-- he only is saying that many Americans are boycotting )
>
>
> The following is Limbaugh's response to the media story :
>
> " Now, for the record, ladies and gentlemen, I don't do boycotts.
> I do not sponsor them; I do not encourage them. I never have. I
> think it is media childishness when people start urging boycotts.
> I have never, ever done such a thing, and I didn't do this with General
> Motors. All I did, to clarify, was report a poll that said X number
> of Americans -- what was it, 18 or 20% -- say they are not going
> to buy a GM car anymore, after this bailout. "
>
> Also, I do not believe Sean Hannity is supporting a boycott. Last
> I heard, he was still doing "spontaneous" infomercials for his Cadillac.
>
>
> Hugh Hewitt was another conservative named in the Detroit News story.
> I do not know Hewitt's views on a boycott, but since the media has
> it wrong about Limbaugh (as usual), there is no reason to believe
> they got the rest of the story right.
While I did and do not support the government bailout of GM, it makes no sense to pretend that the bailout did not occur. It did and it is quite clear that the Obama Administration rightly or wrongly is going to spend as many tax dollars as are necessarily to create the illusion of profitability. If a boycott was going to occur, it should have happened before the government invested or gave away taxpayer monies to GM. In other words, a boycott would have potentially useful as an economic threat to avoid or curtail a government bailout of GM. Aside from righteous indignation and chest-beating, what will a boycott accomplish now?
Limbaugh is an agitator. He is also more hellbent on undermining the Obama's presidency than offering a constructive solution to the financial mess that was in large part created or severely exacerbated under the regime of George W. Bush. Remember it was Bush who started all of the bailout madness, not Obama. While it is true that Obama substantially upped the ante and has been dangerously obfuscating and/or trampling on the legal rights of creditors, he was left with the decision of whether to let GM file bankruptcy at the outset of his term as opposed to a few months later after GM was unable to provide a viability plan.
If Obama had allowed GM to fail as one of the first acts of his presidency, especially after the billions, if not trillions, of dollars spent to prop-up flagging banks, the economic consequences to GM of an ill-timed and ill-planned filed bankruptcy and to the affected workforce would have been much harsher and dramatic.
The truth is that George Bush in the waning days of his presidency didn't have the courage to cut off funds to Chrysler or GM. He had the opportunity to force those car companies to restructure under Chapter 11 before the tremendous investment by the government ever occurred. But he didn't avail himself of the opportunity to defend the principles of capitalism upon which this country was based. In contrast, see The 13 New Rules of Government Capitalism. Instead, he allowed his presidency to sink to even greater lows by caving in to political pressure to save the Big Three at all costs.
Bush was totally caught off-guard by the economic crisis and it is a bit absurd to blame Obama for bailout nation when Bush was real progenitor of those policies. So, unless Limbaugh has a coherent economic plan other than to allow all GM and Chrysler and all other companies that received federal assistance to fail after the taxpayer is already on the hook, he ought to consider the consequences of his seemingly simplistic "boycott" message.
I personally have little issue with the Government bailing out the financial system but I who own only American cars will not purchase another Cadillac until Obama is out of managment there.
www.marketwatch.com/st...