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The largely unloved Mitt has done it again! In a blatant ploy to capture the under-informed Right, Romney has managed to alienate just about every independent in Michigan by attempting to justify his '08 op-ed piece which, the reader may recall, essentially suggested throwing GM and Chrysler under the bus. (In the name mind you, of pure, unfettered free-market capitalism, a blissful state unknown to this country since FDR and the New Deal).
In his latest screed, he professes joy over the newfound competitiveness and profitability of the two ex-chapter 11 companies, but bemoans the fact that their survival was achieved through government bailout. How much better it would have been, he opines, to have done the same thing with a "privately funded" bankruptcy.
Pay close attention to the following, my right-of-center compatriots: GM and Chrysler would also have preferred a nongovernmental solution, and much effort was expended in trying to achieve one. There was, however, one tiny, insignificant obstacle, one trivial speed-bump on the road to renewed privately-financed well-being:
Nobody had any money after the '08 financial meltdown.
The banks were as broke as the auto industry, Lehmann Bros went belly up, AIG was on the ropes, the investment banks were dry. Only the federal government had money, or, rather, access to money, for the simple reason that the feds own the printing press!
Thus, while not a preferred solution, the Treasury-financed bailout was (read my lips) the ONLY solution.
Mr. Romney casually blames "bumbling management" for the automotive crash. The same "bumbling management" that created the Car of the Year in 2006 and 2007, as well as the 2006 Truck of the Year. The same "bumbling management" that, decades ago, made the first, huge American automotive investment in China. The same bunch of idiots who bought the moribund Daewoo in 2002 for a song. It's now called GM Korea, and it designs, manufactures and exports Chevrolets throughout the world. It and GM China are General Motors' strategic anchors in Asia.
Romney and others claim we weren't tough on the UAW. News flash: it's tough to be tough when the union's strike fund is so large that it will outlast any car company three times over. We were dumb not to pick a fight we couldn't win? I don't think so!
And then there's the argument that the government shouldn't prop up losers; bankrupt companies should just go down the drain. That's what the free-market proponents say, and I agree ... EXCEPT: what if federal regulation and meddling, in the form of a grotesquely-skewed dollar/yen exchange rate (giving the Japanese producers a roughly $4,000 per car cost advantage), not to mention Corporate Average Fuel Economy mandates of the early '80s, which, if the Japanese had written the rules (and maybe they did) could not have been more damaging to Detroit, had been some of the primary causes of the American producers' gradual decline? And what of the brilliant federal move in 1998 (the Community Renewal Act) which pushed banks to issue mortgages to prospects who couldn't hope to meet their obligations? What of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, those quasi-governmental pillars of financial acumen, who helped propel us into a bubble that burst in '08, taking North American auto sales from a going rate of 16 million to about 8 million? Revenue cut in half, while fixed costs continued, creating a cash drain of roughly $4 billion per quarter for GM alone!
Perhaps the brilliance, the charisma, the inspirational leadership, the manifest sincerity and financial acumen of "The Mitten," had he been CEO of GM at the time, would have averted disaster.
May I express doubt?
This is all a ploy on Romney's part to win the Michigan primary by wooing the knee-jerk right. It may work. But his stand, should he become the candidate of my party, will be grimly remembered by the electorate at large when November rolls around, and the voting pattern in this key automobile state won't be a pretty sight. Chickens will come home to roost.
The largely unloved Mitt has done it again! In a blatant ploy to capture the under-informed Right, Romney has managed to alienate just about every independent in Michigan by attempting to justify his '08 op-ed piece which, the reader may recall, essentially suggested throwing GM and Chrysler under the bus. (In the name mind you, of pure, unfettered free-market capitalism, a blissful state unknown to this country since FDR and the New Deal).
In his latest screed, he professes joy over the newfound competitiveness and profitability of the two ex-chapter 11 companies, but bemoans the fact that their survival was achieved through government bailout. How much better it would have been, he opines, to have done the same thing with a "privately funded" bankruptcy.
Pay close attention to the following, my right-of-center compatriots: GM and Chrysler would also have preferred a nongovernmental solution, and much effort was expended in trying to achieve one. There was, however, one tiny, insignificant obstacle, one trivial speed-bump on the road to renewed privately-financed well-being:
Nobody had any money after the '08 financial meltdown.
The banks were as broke as the auto industry, Lehmann Bros went belly up, AIG was on the ropes, the investment banks were dry. Only the federal government had money, or, rather, access to money, for the simple reason that the feds own the printing press!
Thus, while not a preferred solution, the Treasury-financed bailout was (read my lips) the ONLY solution.
Mr. Romney casually blames "bumbling management" for the automotive crash. The same "bumbling management" that created the Car of the Year in 2006 and 2007, as well as the 2006 Truck of the Year. The same "bumbling management" that, decades ago, made the first, huge American automotive investment in China. The same bunch of idiots who bought the moribund Daewoo in 2002 for a song. It's now called GM Korea, and it designs, manufactures and exports Chevrolets throughout the world. It and GM China are General Motors' strategic anchors in Asia.
Romney and others claim we weren't tough on the UAW. News flash: it's tough to be tough when the union's strike fund is so large that it will outlast any car company three times over. We were dumb not to pick a fight we couldn't win? I don't think so!
And then there's the argument that the government shouldn't prop up losers; bankrupt companies should just go down the drain. That's what the free-market proponents say, and I agree ... EXCEPT: what if federal regulation and meddling, in the form of a grotesquely-skewed dollar/yen exchange rate (giving the Japanese producers a roughly $4,000 per car cost advantage), not to mention Corporate Average Fuel Economy mandates of the early '80s, which, if the Japanese had written the rules (and maybe they did) could not have been more damaging to Detroit, had been some of the primary causes of the American producers' gradual decline? And what of the brilliant federal move in 1998 (the Community Renewal Act) which pushed banks to issue mortgages to prospects who couldn't hope to meet their obligations? What of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, those quasi-governmental pillars of financial acumen, who helped propel us into a bubble that burst in '08, taking North American auto sales from a going rate of 16 million to about 8 million? Revenue cut in half, while fixed costs continued, creating a cash drain of roughly $4 billion per quarter for GM alone!
Perhaps the brilliance, the charisma, the inspirational leadership, the manifest sincerity and financial acumen of "The Mitten," had he been CEO of GM at the time, would have averted disaster.
May I express doubt?
This is all a ploy on Romney's part to win the Michigan primary by wooing the knee-jerk right. It may work. But his stand, should he become the candidate of my party, will be grimly remembered by the electorate at large when November rolls around, and the voting pattern in this key automobile state won't be a pretty sight. Chickens will come home to roost.
