I don't know anything about anything.

>>2489470

Yeah well I don't know nothin bout nothin

>>2489470

Come now anonymous. Surely you have something to contribute. Why, even "enslave the Jews" is an acceptable response. There are a lot of economic merits to slavery after all, and the Jews already have a bad luck streak going for them, so they must deserve it.

the bank bailouts were done to try to save capitalism, which depends on fully functioning credit markets. No recapitalisation/nationalisation=chaos.

The auto industry loans are more political. Politicians probably want to avoid the fallout from mass redundancies. Still, there is still a lot of industrial and commercial production related to the car industry too.

tl;dr - governments almost always step in to save capitalism

The only ideology he/they have is "greed". They're all for state rights when it serves them (oil, coal mining), but when it goes against their interests (gay marriage, Calif. carbon laws) then federal matters more. Lying sacks of shit.

GM/Ford aren't doing badly because of 'the economy'; its because they decided to make money not by making products people wanted but by fiddlign markets and rulings. SUVs took advantage of truck smog law and tax structure upon which they added $$$ accessorries, made a shitload of $$$ for a decade or two and forgot about: quality, longevity, customer satisfaction, etc. Note that most of their "new" products are nostalgia based: corvette, mustang, camaro, blah blah. Kid's ain't buy that shit, they're buying CRXs, Scions, WRXs, etc. GM Ford flushed themselves down the toilet.

>>2489497

But the whole point of capitalism is that it runs itself! The downside of of government run systems is that the taxpayers support it, the upside is that we get the service for free or at a much reduced cost. The upside of market supported systems is that taxpayers do not need to support it, the downside is that we need to pay for it.

Why would we pay to support a system we would have to pay for anyway? When you buy a car, would you settle for paying for it twice?

Better that Bush bite the bullet for this than Obama. Bush can take a controversial hit like this, everyone already hates him. If Obama did it, it'd plague him going into office.

Bush figures he can squander all the money and put the inevitable tax hikes on the democrats

two wars and two bailouts... wait we actually have to PAY for those?????


the ignorance of the typical constituent always amazes me

The bank bailout made sense, because everything in the world depended on it.

The auto bailout? What's more 'American'? GM, an American company, outsourcing workers to third world countries, or Honda, a Japanese car company bringing more jobs to the U.S.

Pic related.

>>2489541
Yeah. The Republicans cut taxes, and then the Democrats have to raise them again to pay for it.

>>2489555
>>2489541

What I don't get is why people here in the US just look at other places in the world and see that higher taxes aren't really the end of the world. It wasn't high taxes that brought us Wal mart and MacDonalds, it was unfettered capitalism. High taxes bring the taxpayers quality health care and a stable infrastructure, it's not a very difficult correlation to observe.

>>2489501

yeah I totally agree with this one. Thank god the republican party is on its last legs. I mean really, Palin? 'Nough said.

>>2489528

these are loans - the govt will get its money back (as with the banks) unless there is an unimaginably huge social disaster.

I've heard about one in ten jobs in America are tied to the car industry, if they went belly up we'd be in for some real shit. Bush is somehow worried about his legacy, and leaving a tenth of America out of a job would just look so bad...

>>2489544

the internationalisation of the car industry is all the more reason to "save" it, to try to stop the crisis spreading.

National borders don't matter much any more in the era of fully global capital (except for politicians to appeal to "patriotism" when they want votes).

>>2489622

Still defeats the purpose. Plus, what if the recipients go belly up anyway?

>>2489624

I think the only solution there is to expand monopoly legislation. In my mind, three or four big corporations still constitutes a monopoly. Especially when they're allowed to make deals with one another.

>>2489455
>I'm a socialist

Alert, OP is politically naive and redundant fagot.

GTFO to Mother Russia you pinko fuck, when I meet people like you, I peel their retard faces off.

Most Republicans did not support this bailout as it didn't have hard deadlines for achieving certain goals. The current form is basically handing them money over to so Obama can deal with it. Even so, the UAW is screaming murder on them getting screwed off this deal(nothing was cut from them). I am sure with the rewritting powers the UAW will get a better deal and further screw the auto industry and tax payers.

>>2489653

they'd get the money back from the sale of assets, duh. Government would obviously be the first creditor in line!

>>2489455
Neoconservativeism has nothing to do with the bailout debate. Fuck i hate it when people misuse that term. "Necon" is not a slur to be thrown at politicians and political commentators that you disagree with, it has a very specific definition.

>>2489667

i lol when people on 4chan claim to be taxpayers!

>>2489677

I'm fairly certain neoconservative means: "One who espouses half-assed political ideology that appeals to the lowest common denominator in order to press through disastrous economic policies that are incredibly lucrative to the richest 1% of society."

your turn.

>>2489671

Okay, I'm willing to bend a little here if we can admit that the unfettered free-market is not a magic elixir with absolutely no drawbacks.

>>2489713

Then you're an idiot. Neconservatism is a term, primarily associated with the foreign policy of the US. It believes in American exceptionalism, and believes that the best way to advance US interests is by aggressively promoting democracy around the globe. It's an ideology essentially formed by ex-cold war liberals, who became disenchanted with the left.

It really has little to do with domestic policies. What you're attempting to describe was Karl Rovian esq GOP policies for the Bush Administration. Bush embraced some neocn policies, but that doesn't mean everything he did is connected with the ideology.

>>2489725

unfettered free markets are just a dangerous fantasy. I certainly wasn't happy about a banking bailout or even for the auto industry, but what's the alternative?

Chaos - hundreds of thousands out of work, homes being repossessed, etc, etc.

But as I wrote in my first reply, the government's job is basically to ensure that capital keeps accumulating, hence it will always intervene in the eocnomy.

>>2489749

You just said it yourself. Disenfranchised militants gravitated towards the Reagan administration in the 1970s. But the Reagan administration promoted free-market policies like none other. Neoconservatives then adopted hard-line free market policies. You would be hard pressed to find a neocon that didn't support the market to an almost libertarian degree, it's simply out of their scope of reasoning.

Socialize the losses, privatize the gains!

>>2489750

I agree, and that's all well and good. But my ultimate question is, how can we change our economic activity to prevent this situation in the future? As is, we're just setting ourselves up for another disaster.

>>2489624

Bush is worried about his cronies. All these assholes go (back) into industry, don't forget...

>>2489794
Many neoconservatives also embrace neoliberalism; but that doesn't mean that domestic policies are at the forefront of the necon ideology.

Quite simply, you're confusing neoliberalism and neconservatism. It's a common mistake, but a mistake nevertheless.

>>2489455

....or maybe the CEOs could stop paying themselves millions of dollars and fix their own fucking company instead of being a nigger and begging the government. These companies are just going to keep fucking up if they know they're going to get a government handout.

>>2489671

There aren't many assets, is the problem. All that manufacturing base, most of it is old and no one (Nissan, etc) wants it. Some of it is grandfathered in on stuff that will need Superfund cleanup. A lot of it is debt-ridden. What a fucking toilet. Dealership network? Who likes them?

>>2489828

how about we agree that the lines separating ideologies are very blurry and I blended some fairly similar definitions. I would agree that expansionism and internationals intervention is at the forefront of neocon ideology, but also that the current neocon administration has displayed its economic policies very well. In the end, what was said and what was done turned out to be very different.

>>2489809

until we get off the merry-go-round, this is our fate.

There is no socialist movement any more, nor any large-scale or coherent movement with an alternative.

I go cry now :(

On the one hand you have the corrupt as fuck CEOs and such who killed the electric car and don't give a fuck about quality etc. In this regard the car companies should have been cut loose.

But then there are the thousands of average joes who just work there for a living and have no control over anything. Tough decision.

>>2489832

that;s not the way it works. Bush said the money is not to reward failure but to try to save the wider eocnomy.

>>2489794
The Reagan administration hardly led to a revival in libertarian values. It was the fact that the Keynesian model couldn't account for the things that were happening in the economy. The so-called hard pressed free market approach your saying that Neocon's gravitate towards is simply untrue. Neocon's believe in large amounts of government spending and low taxes. Not low taxes and limited spending/regulation.

>>2489540
Obama wouldn't pass this bill. This is not economics, this is just printing money and throwing it at everything that wants a piece.