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By Robert Scheer
By Gina B. Nahai
$25.00
$21
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Flickr / Anatoli Axelrod
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GM CEO Rick Wagoner resigned Sunday, apparently at the request of the Obama administration as part of a larger bailout agreement. The ouster of the man who gave us the Hummer wasn’t entirely unexpected. He spent the last eight years driving the world’s biggest car company into a ditch. Now if only we could apply this logic to the banking bailout. Update
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By David Sirota — In the 21st century Gilded Age, the blue-collar shower-after-work crowd is given the tough, while the white-collar shower-before-work gang gets the love, and never before this week was that doctrine made so clear.
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This week’s episode of “Left, Right & Center” finds the full lineup of co-hosts—Matt Miller, Tony Blankley, Arianna Huffington and Robert Scheer—debating the latest developments in the unholy marriage between big banks and the U.S. government, speculating about what might be done about the American auto industry and doing a little on-the-fly analysis of comparative economic systems. Listen and learn.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — It makes sense to prop up ailing carmakers. Allowing GM and Chrysler to go bankrupt could be a triggering event that might make a very bad economy much worse.
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truckend.com
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General Motors, recipient of the 2009 “Nation’s Most Resistant-to-Change Company That Still Gets Federal Assistance” award, wants more. The auto giant on Wednesday asked for $16.6 billion in loans, on top of the $13.4 billion already granted. All this amid GM plans to shed 47,000 jobs worldwide.
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By Eugene Robinson — Obama must deal with a new presidential role that he did not seek but cannot avoid: managing big chunks of the private-sector economy.
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fordnewsblog.wordpress.com
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What’s to be done about the floundering American automotive industry? Appoint a “car czar,” you say? No, this is a job for a whole team of people, such as the newly formed Presidential Task Force on Autos. One small hitch: It’ll be headed up by Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers.
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freewebs.com
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Although President Bush has kicked off the auto industry bailout process before leaving office, some would call Bush’s strategy more of a punt to his presidential successor, Barack Obama.
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Bernie Madoff made a big mess, and Detroit’s Big Three drove themselves to the brink. So what’s the good news this week—Caroline Kennedy’s auspicious entrée into her famous family’s political biz?
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The New York Times / Doug Mills
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In an avowed effort to save capitalism from itself, President Bush announced Friday that he would throw the Big Three failing auto companies a $17.4 billion lifesaver, siphoning that money from the initial $700 billion bailout slush fund authorized by Congress in October.
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Aislin, The Montreal Gazette —
Posted on Dec 19, 2008
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By Eugene Robinson — Despite the popular myth, lemmings don’t really hurl themselves off a cliff to reduce their numbers. That sort of behavior is seen only among Republicans in the Senate, who gave us a demonstration when they torpedoed legislation to bail out the auto industry.
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By Marie Cocco — I must admit that when the danger of a global financial implosion became apparent in March, I did not understand how all those worthless Wall Street credit swaps really could be the fault of an overpaid union welder at an auto plant somewhere in Michigan.
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Illinois’ Governor of Ill Repute is the focus of some lively exchanges among “Left, Right & Center” co-hosts/government corruption watchdogs Tony Blankley, Matt Miller, Robert Scheer and Arianna Huffington. Also: Who’s Steven Chu?
Posted on Dec 12, 2008
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elitemrp.net
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The White House has shifted from its original position to state that it now is willing to consider using bailout funds from the $700-billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, to keep the country’s top three automakers afloat. The announcement comes after negotiations in Congress to provide a $14-billion bailout to Detroit broke down.
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By Joe Conason — Nearly every current poll shows that most Americans oppose federal assistance to the auto industry, but legislators should also consider how voters would feel if the nation suffered the full consequences of a cratering auto industry—and if those voters then found out that the facts were not quite what they seemed to be.
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New York Times / Stephen Crowley
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Agreement has been reached between the White House and congressional Democrats to offer the U.S. auto industry a $14 billion emergency package aimed at keeping the Big Three going until spring. Also, in the grand tradition of state socialism, the deal includes a new auto “czar” to oversee the restructuring of Detroit.
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By Marie Cocco — As Congress and the White House lurch toward possible approval of a loan package for the crippled auto industry, we are undoubtedly in store for more union-bashing.
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Flickr / SteelCityHobbies
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White House and congressional leaders have agreed to bail out the auto industry. Detroit will get $15 billion in loans and, to make sure the Big Three keep running after their warranties expire, a so-called car czar will oversee long-term restructuring. And because we’re really serious about getting this right, George W. Bush gets to pick the car czar. D’oh!
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Flickr / Franco Folini
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As congressional leaders, the White House and President-elect Obama came to terms with a $15-billion loan package for the auto industry, Sen. Chris Dodd suggested Sunday that not all executives should stick around to spend that money. GM CEO Rick Wagoner “has to move on,” the senator declared on “Face the Nation.”
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AP photo / Paul Sancya
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By Michael D. Intriligator — Considering only two options for an imperiled General Motors —either bailout by the U.S. government or bankruptcy—omits an important alternative, which I see as the best option: a takeover of GM by Toyota Motor Corp.
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By Marie Cocco — Over the past 10 months, as the hemorrhage of jobs began to push the national unemployment rate toward its October level of 6.5 percent, about 3 million Americans were thrown off the insurance rolls or had their incomes fall so much that they became eligible for Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
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aolcdn.com
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With a bailout of the Big Three hovering over our political landscape, popular opinion has signaled a considerable voice against any federal support for the failing auto industry. A poll shows 61% of Americans oppose a bailout, believing any government assistance would be both unfair and ineffective in fixing the economy.
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cartype.com
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After a dismal November, Ford Motor Co. is hanging by a thread, but the automaker told Congress on Tuesday that it is in better shape than Chrysler and General Motors and could make it through its current economic crisis with a little help—to the tune of $9 billion in standby loans.
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Flickr / SteelCityHobbies
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The auto industry bailout would have no chance of passing without the muscle of the Big Three’s unionized work force. Yet you can’t turn around without hearing someone trash autoworkers for the terrible crime of trying to earn a decent living.
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Check out the most recent “Morning Review Friday with Roy Ulrich,” where UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky discusses Proposition 8’s current legal status, and Truthdig’s own Titus Levi engages in a fruitful debate on the virtues and pitfalls of a bailout of the auto industry in Detroit with the Cato Institute’s Dan Ikenson.
Posted on Nov 21, 2008
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By Eugene Robinson — The Big Three left Capitol Hill empty-handed, but they’re bound to get some kind of federal help, however grudging. In the end, I don’t think either George W. Bush or Barack Obama wants to be remembered as the president who lost the auto industry.
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AP photo / Carlos Osorio
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By Bill Boyarsky — If jobs weren’t disappearing and a depression threatening, it would be easy and satisfying to send the American auto industry into bankruptcy or liquidation. But this isn’t the time to make Chrysler, General Motors and Ford pay for their years of failure and shortsightedness.
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finance.google.com
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In a little over two weeks, the Dow has tumbled more than 2,000 points as bad economic news continues to pile up. Word on Thursday that jobless claims hit a 16-year high, combined with a dreary outlook for Detroit and a lack of confidence in major financial institutions, helped drive the DJIA down to 7,552.29.
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AP photo / Carlos Osorio
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By Titus Levi — There’s no guarantee that a bailout would save the incompetently managed American automobile industry. However, doing nothing may be worse, especially for the state of Michigan.
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washingtonpost.com
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Republican Sen. Richard Shelby seems to be one of the only real capitalists left on Capitol Hill. The Alabaman argued Wednesday that U.S. auto firms should be left to the realities of the market, letting companies like Ford, GM and Chrysler go bankrupt and forcing the failing industry to carry out what Shelby believes are much-needed reforms.
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Flickr / SteelCityHobbies
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The chief executives of the Big Three American car companies head to Washington Tuesday along with the head of the United Auto Workers to beg Congress for a bailout that seems less and less probable.
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AP photo / Charles Dharapak
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Looks like John McCain and his camp have decided to cut bait in Michigan after their efforts to win over voters in the Midwestern state didn’t quite pan out as they’d hoped. Instead, as Politico reports, McCain’s team is focusing on other important states like Florida and Ohio.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — If he carries Michigan, many routes to victory are open for Barack Obama. Without Michigan, he’s got a big problem.
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AP photo / Paul Saneya
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Dr. Jack Kevorkian, whose controversial work as a euthanasia advocate earned him both the nickname “Dr. Death” and time in the slammer, has a new crusade: to win a seat in Congress. Stranger things have been known to happen in American politics.
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