AlexS

Joy Global at the Heart of the Commodity Machine

We won't see a recovery until capital is allowed to flow to private enterprise. With the government absconding with essentially all the new money I doubt that a recovery will happen anytime soon. We will need to first toss out our current Congress, and probably our newly-elected President.

Why AIG Gets Billions While GM Gets Scorn

Part of the GM contracts was that GM would provide health care benefits for life. Even as the rest of us get pushed into Medicare at 65, GM continues with gold plated coverage (free, I believe). So bear that in mind. Part of the GM bailout would go to paying for retirees to get health care benefits that you can only dream of.

Why AIG Gets Billions While GM Gets Scorn

I still think AIG got bailed out because Governor Paterson of New York had just given the OK for AIG to start tapping the finances of its subsidiaries, which would have put them in a position to start "bridge" loaning (bankrupting) the AIG insurance and annuity contracts of its subsidiaries. This was on Sept 15. The bailout came on Sept 16.

www.wnyc.org/news/arti...

Harvard Endowment: Punishing the Present to Benefit the Future?

Harvard will spend all the money they can get their hands on - and then some. Really there's nothing more to understand than that fact. No wonder so many of them go into politics, to the detriment of taxpayers everywhere.

Toll Brothers: Are They Serious?

Under the new accounting system it's positive for a company to lose money because that qualifies you for government bailouts. It's negative for a company to make money because that just qualifies you for higher taxes.

Obama's Stimulus Package is Morphing Into a Monster

Maybe there is no plan. Bread and circuses. That's what the Roman leaders would throw to the mobs. We just have the equivalent of Nero and Caligula right there in Washington, D.C. And they can't even blame it on lead poisoning from the drinking cups.

How Can GM Bondholders Be Bailed In?

My plan is to write to the bank that holds my mortgage and offer to exchange my $100K mortgage for a $50K mortgage. Then I will write to the bank and offer to exchange my $50K mortgage for a $25K mortgage. Then I will .....

The Tyranny of the Shareholders

Isn't the real issue that a bankruptcy of the Big 3 automakers would leave the UAW with nothing to do? Their political friends in Congress will keep that from happening, that's for sure.

Would Glass-Steagall Have Stopped this Mess?

I don't believe that Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Bros., and Goldman Sachs were commercial banks (please correct me if I'm wrong), so they were already choosing to be brokerage rather than commercial banks. So the repeal of Glass-Steagall would have no effect on what they did to bring on this crisis, since they didn't take advantage of its repeal anyway. But I don't quite understand if the author is attempting to lay the blame for this problem on the repeal of Glass-Steagall (as in the title and first part of the column) or on an ineffective regulatory apparatus (as in the major portion of the text). The two are two different things, and one does not prove the other.

Six Myths about the Big Three

The big problem I think is retiree's health care costs. When I retire from the Fortune 500 company where I work I will still be able to use my company's health insurance policy. But the company won't subsidize me (I will pay the full freight). That's the way it is for most people I've talked to from big companies with good health insurance policies. The Big 3 shouldn't be on the hook for retiree's health care policies and the more they downsize the worse the problem will get, because there will be fewer workers for every retiree. The problem with a bailout, as I understand it, is that it won't change that basic equation, and without a change there it won't be long until the Big 3 are just back asking for more.

Bail Out Capitalism, Not Detroit

We shouldn't bail out the government, either. They've done the worst job of all.


On Nov 21 02:54 PM mitchm wrote:

> To those who oppose to Auto Industry Bail out;
>
>
> In a perfect world of Capitalism only the strong survive and business
> takes care of itself. But those are not the ground rules we have
> been playing under. The government has controlled and mismanaged
> the credit markets with the introduction of the Community Reinvestment
> Act and followed it up with deregulating and miss managing Fannie
> Mae and Freddie Mac to the point that our credit system almost collapsed.
>
> Add to that the deregulation of the futures market that allowed oil
> to hit $147.00 per barrel and started a consumer driver recession.
> It is the governments fault, they caused the problem and they should
> stand good to fix it. Gm has been in a restructure program for the
> last several years that should reach a majority of it’s goals by
> 2010. I’m talking about moving the legacy cost of the retirees to
> the UAW, which with other cuts and changes would drastically improve
> Gm’s underlying cost
> per vehicle. Some say that GM built gas guzzler SUV’s and trucks
> that the public didn’t want, but that was untrue, an out right lie.
> They were built due to demand for such vehicles, look at your local
> Toyota lot and see the number of full size V-8 trucks and SUV’s.
> Toyota saw the demand and was trying to tap into that large market.
> It was $4.00 a gallon gas that killed it in less than a month and
> no company can change
> production over in less than 6 months and retool especially with
> the availability of loans gone. The government subsidized these large
> vehicles with large tax credits for business owners and drove the
> demand even higher. Another government mess up. We pay more to other
> countries in the form of aid to help with our security. Those opposed
> to helping out our manufacturing base survive the mess ups of the
> government should ask themselves who will build the tanks and planes
> the next time we need them. It makes me sick to my stomach to see
> supposedly grown men and women play these political games and argue
> over the fate of millions of worker’s future when they caused the
> problem to begin with. It’s time for our elected officials to get
> off their, he said she said, politically driven backsides, accept
> the responsibility that they know is their’s and fix this short term
> problem.

Bail Out Capitalism, Not Detroit

Very good. Couldn't agree more.

Magazines Continue to Be Ripped by the Economy

"Extraneous" is the operative word here.

Congress Offers Big Three Automakers Help, Makes Demands in Exchange

With a burn rate of $2.3 billion a month, the latest loan will last until about a year before the Volt is scheduled to launch. Will there be another $25 billion bailout next year to get to the Volt, and another the following year to tide them over until the Volt starts to make money, which it probably won't? That would make $100 billion in all, or about $40 a share for two stocks (not counting Chrysler) that are trading in the range of $1-3 dollars a share.

Congress' motto: No price is too high that it can't be paid with taxpayers' money.

Peak Oil's Bell Is Ringing

Regarding the boy who cried wolf, in the end there really is a wolf, and he really does eat the sheep if not the boy. Peak oil criers may be off in the timing, but are surely right in their stance.