[Liberator]

Ok, I saw video of Bernake saying that if they were to allow people to look at they books it might destabilize the dollar and wreck the economy...

This guy's outta control.

This is why I didn't want Obama in office.  Not cause he's a black man, not cause he's a Democrat, but because I knew he was gonna appoint people who were gonna try and do a power grab for whatever department he made them head of.

[Blue Lion]

Obama must be pretty powerful if he could put in this guy in 2006 when he took over for Alan Greenspan.

Remember 2006? When Bush was still in office?

[General Battuta]

Ok, I saw video of Bernake saying that if they were to allow people to look at they books it might destabilize the dollar and wreck the economy...

This guy's outta control.

This is why I didn't want Obama in office.  Not cause he's a black man, not cause he's a Democrat, but because I knew he was gonna appoint people who were gonna try and do a power grab for whatever department he made them head of.

Sweet lord, you're thick.

I mean, I know we're not supposed to make personal attacks, but...seriously. That just takes the cake.

As Blue Lion pointed out, Bush appointed Bernanke.

[Kosh]

Ok, I saw video of Bernake saying that if they were to allow people to look at they books it might destabilize the dollar and wreck the economy...

This guy's outta control.

This is why I didn't want Obama in office.  Not cause he's a black man, not cause he's a Democrat, but because I knew he was gonna appoint people who were gonna try and do a power grab for whatever department he made them head of.

Bush did exactly the same stuff man.

What exactly was your point then when you said

"They're supposed to stop situations like 1929 or what is happenening now from happening, and they didn't. The main selling point of the 1913 federal reserve act was to setup a system to stop bank panics."

This outta be good.

Are you just trolling or do you have a hard time understanding simple concepts? Name one case of a near miss which was only averted by intervention from the Federal Reserve.

I mean, I know we're not supposed to make personal attacks, but...seriously. That just takes the cake.

Helicopter Ben really is out of control though.

[Blue Lion]

Are you just trolling or do you have a hard time understanding simple concepts? Name one case of a near miss which was only averted by intervention from the Federal Reserve.

Why does it have to be a near miss? Secondly, how do you define a near miss banking panic?

Thirdly, why is this to the exclusion of non near misses? Why are we skipping the time when the Federal Reserve actually does their job? Are you saying that every time the Fed changes something (or announces they aren't changing something) they are doing it for giggles? They lost a bet?

I love this because the only way you'll agree the Fed actually does something is if they let the economy totally tank and then jump in at the last second to save the day.

Right now, when they didn't change interest rates, because we weren't on the edge of falling into another banking panic, it doesn't count as anything.

This is my entire point. People will only jump on them when they do things wrong, because if they do things right, it's not supposed to stand out. We've had 3 banking panics since the Fed came. The Great Depression, S&L and now. And you're saying those panics were caused by the Fed and none averted?

[Liberator]

I haven't seen a panic yet.

There haven't been any runs on any banks or anything.  There's not been any riots in the street.

The only run I've seen on banks has been the government rushing to take over...

[Blue Lion]

I haven't seen a panic yet.

There haven't been any runs on any banks or anything.  There's not been any riots in the street.

The only run I've seen on banks has been the government rushing to take over...

Bear Sterns went right down the tubes. Luckily the FDIC took care of most people's fears, but still.

[Liberator]

Which is what it's for.

What's been established is that certain businesses won't be allowed to fail, even if they should.  GM shoulda been gone several years ago.

It's cold, I know that, there are living, breathing people who depend on these businesses for a living.  But what about the other people who have poured they're retirement or life savings into a business or corporation that mishandled they're money and it's all gone?  Don't they deserve some kind of recompense for they're investment?

Bankruptcy isn't a dirty word.

[TESLA]

I haven't seen a panic yet.

There haven't been any runs on any banks or anything.  There's not been any riots in the street.

The only run I've seen on banks has been the government rushing to take over...

Give me time, just give me some time 

whoooo hahahahahahhahaahahhahahaha 

[Blue Lion]

Which is what it's for.

What's been established is that certain businesses won't be allowed to fail, even if they should.  GM shoulda been gone several years ago.

It's cold, I know that, there are living, breathing people who depend on these businesses for a living.  But what about the other people who have poured they're retirement or life savings into a business or corporation that mishandled they're money and it's all gone?  Don't they deserve some kind of recompense for they're investment?

Bankruptcy isn't a dirty word.

You want these people to get money for nothing? That's very bailout-y of you.

[TESLA]

Which is what it's for.

What's been established is that certain businesses won't be allowed to fail, even if they should.  GM shoulda been gone several years ago.

It's cold, I know that, there are living, breathing people who depend on these businesses for a living.  But what about the other people who have poured they're retirement or life savings into a business or corporation that mishandled they're money and it's all gone?  Don't they deserve some kind of recompense for they're investment?

Bankruptcy isn't a dirty word.

Bankruptcy should be a dirty word (not in the porno sense   )

It should be treated very seriously. Blue collar crime, (as its called) is causing thousands of people to lose their savings, jobs and way of life. Not simply good enough, that people get off with it, while keeping their personal millions. Free to make the same mistake again.

[SpardaSon21]

I think what Liberator was trying to say is that bankruptcy can be a vital part of the creative destruction necessary for capitalism to function properly.  Right now GM is making poor use of its available resources, preventing other companies from making better use of them.  If GM were to dissolve, companies that would make more efficient use of its former resources would get the resources, and put them to better use.  GM's employees that are not being used to their highest productivity would go and be hired by another company, possibly for higher pay, and the financial capital that is invested in GM would go to a different company, that would probably put it to use expanding their plants and hiring workers, increasing productivity.

[General Battuta]

That I definitely agree with.

[Liberator]

Thanks Sparda, I apparently wasn't clear enough in my comment.

GM is being dragged down by they're all but biological ties to the UAW, which now owns part of the company from what I've seen/heard/read.  I guess that's a big "Thank You for your support and getting me elected!" from certain politicans.

[Blue Lion]

Of course they're making poor use of their assets.... they're in bankruptcy. If workers and investors want to go elsewhere, they are certainly entitled to. If these other car companies (or I guess any company) want their assets (like what, anyways? Workers? Factories? Contracts with parts manufacturers?) there is nothing stopping them.

They can't just dissolve and go away. They have debts they have to pay and ARE currently selling off parts of the company.

But the only people who have the money to BUY all the stuff is Vehicle Acquisition Holdings LLC. If you've never heard of this company, you should. If you're an American or Canadian citizen, your government is part owner.

60.8% US treasury
11.7%  Government of Canada and Ontario
17.5% UAW
10% "Old" GM

But I am curious, is the UAW dragging the company down by getting the workers more money, or can these workers get even more money somewhere else? And why isn't THAT company being dragged down?

[Kosh]

But I am curious, is the UAW dragging the company down by getting the workers more money,

They are already overpaid. I've heard wages for your typical assembly line worker are $60+ per hour.

[Blue Lion]

Take this article for what it's worth. But the "assembly line worker makes an ungodly amount of money" is just untrue. As stated in the article, if that were true, the average assembly worker would be making 150k a year.

http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=1026e955-541c-4aa6-bcf2-56dfc3323682

I won't post the whole article but I'll put some tidbits.

More important, and contrary to what you may have heard, the wages aren't that much bigger than what Honda, Toyota, and other foreign manufacturers pay employees in their U.S. factories. While we can't be sure precisely how much those workers make, because the companies don't make the information public, the best estimates suggests the corresponding 2007 figure for these "transplants"--as the foreign-owned factories are known--was somewhere between $20 and $26 per hour, and most likely around $24 or $25. That would put average worker's annual salary at $52,000 a year.

But then what's the source of that $70 hourly figure? It didn't come out of thin air. Analysts came up with it by including the cost of all employer-provided benefits--namely, health insurance and pensions--and then dividing by the number of workers. The result, they found, was that benefits for Big Three cost about $42 per hour, per employee. Add that to the wages--again, $28 per hour--and you get the $70 figure. Voila.

Except ... notice something weird about this calculation? It's not as if each active worker is getting health benefits and pensions worth $42 per hour. That would come to nearly twice his or her wages. (Talk about gold-plated coverage!) Instead, each active worker is getting benefits equal only to a fraction of that--probably around $10 per hour, according to estimates from the International Motor Vehicle Program. The number only gets to $70 an hour if you include the cost of benefits for retirees--in other words, the cost of benefits for other people. One of the few people to grasp this was Portfolio.com's Felix Salmon. As he noted yesterday, the claim that workers are getting $70 an hour in compensation is just "not true."

If regular old workers in Detroit were making 150k a year, Detroit wouldn't be Detroit.

[Kosh]

If regular old workers in Detroit were making 150k a year, Detroit wouldn't be Detroit.

A.) There are very few of those workers compared with before, most of them have been laid off by now.

B.) What's left made a run for the suburbs.

[Blue Lion]

A.) There are very few of those workers compared with before, most of them have been laid off by now.

So what does the average worker make then?

There aren't average assembly line workers who make $70 an hour. The average worker in the UAW makes about the same as other workers or other companies. They just extra health care and pensions. The simple fact that you thought an assembly line worker would be one of the highest paying jobs in the country is very telling.

[Liberator]

It's not how much they were making, it's certain other concessions, like a job pool where you can go and sit in this room for 8 hours a day, playing cards or gameboy or whatever, waiting for a job to come along, and then have the freedom to turn it down and continue to sit there, drawing pay and benefits, because the job wasn't exactly what you wanted.

I heard about this policy from a gentleman on NPR of all places, he had called in to talk about this subject and he related the story about how he had used this service the company offered him and after about 3 weeks a posting came up that this other guy was offered and he didn't take it, it was exactly what he wanted except that he would have to move to Minnesota, which he was apparently unwilling to do.  What would you have done?