Please don’t spend taxpayer dollars on a GM, Ford, and Chrysler bailout / loan. If I wish to invest in any of these companies, I can already do so directly, without government help.
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That’s what I wrote to my reps.
Update: This was a nice touch.
When the Big 3 close a bunch of plants and lay off a bunch of workers next year, even though the gommint gave them $25 or $50 billion or whatever it turns out to be?
Every analysis I’m reading says that Ford, GM, and Chrysler are suffering from a lot more than recession. Bad management, bad labor deals, bad supplier contracts, etc are all weighing them down. Even with a bailout, significant Chapter 11 style reorganizing is needed if they’re to endure.
How will Americans respond, after being sold the bailout on the idea that it would save jobs?
And if Congress attaches a bunch of strings to the bailout, such as: “You can’t close plants and lay people off,” then the $50 billion does nothing more than delay the inevitable, right?
Sorry, I didn’t see the problem you guys saw, since I use Firefox, which was displaying fine. IE did not like the prior post, which was composed in Word then pasted in. Pretty funny that IE can’t handle Word.
Anyway, yeah.
*from a secret meeting in China, circa 1970*
General Zhiang Pao: “We need to own America.”
Secretary Mao Ping: “Yes. But how?”
Pao: “We’ll use trinkets.”
Mao: “That won’t work.”
Pao: “Yes it will. We’ll make cheap stuff, and sell it to Americans.”
Mao: “Who doesn’t like cheap stuff?”
Pao: “Exactly. And we’ll sell it to them on credit!”
Mao: “Super number one great special yay!”
Pao: “What?”
Mao: “Sorry, an immature American is voicing me.”
Pao: “HiiiiiiYaaaaaaagh!”
Mao: “Anyway, then we’ll use the debt to purchase actual American property.”
Pao: “Eventually, it will all be ours. And all we’ll be out is a pile of trinkets.”
So, if you’re Uncle Sam, and you’re reading this (and I know you are!) please give me a few hundred billion dollars.
If you are just a sucker regular citizen: Would you like a loan to buy a car? Please drop a line. I can’t give you a loan just this second, because credit is frozen and whatnot, since I’m stuck with toxic assetts at the moment (for the love of all that is sane, why did I buy so many chia pets?). Also, I have not technically produced any cars, because I’m waiting for government money to help me tool up for that sort of thing. But it’s looking good, so just sit tight, and I should be able to loan you money to buy one of my cars soon.
Miami, FLA - Republican governors met to sift through the wreckage of the 2008 election, hoping to find enough bits and pieces to knit together a platform for 2010 and beyond.
“We took a whoopin’,” commented Sarah Palin, pausing between interviews to give an interview on her way to a press conference, quickly adding, “but it wasn’t my fault.” She then either got something caught in her eye or spent a full minute winking, before continuing. “That gosh darn Bush, what with his unpopularity and all, plus the economy, my goodness! You go to a soccer game and shoot a moose, and I’ll tell ya, the regular people there are downright concerned about good old American values and whatnot.”
Tim Pawlenty and Charlie Crist then tackled Palin, allowing Bobby Jindal to speak.
“We have to return to some popular values,” said Jindal. “Looking at the returns, the only segment of voters we dominated is old white men, which isn’t really a good base for the future, since chances are they’ll up and die. We need to find a way to reach minorities, and women, and people who use the interweb and know how to text message and stuff.”
“There is a silver lining to the last eight years, though,” added Jindal. “What with Republicans having abandoned fiscal conservatism, small government, free market principals, as well as showing a lot of difficulty mustering up much energy for dignity of human life issues, there’s really very little barrier to us just becoming Democrats. And they really are hooked up with the demographics we’re trying to reach.”
But do you realize Barack Obama quit his last elected position without even finishing out the term?
That’s right. Apparently some better job came along and he told the voters of Illinois, “Thanks and all, but I quit. Got a better gig.”
Maybe the US should make back-up plans in case some better job than the presidency comes up for Obama. After all, there are only about a zillion better jobs out there.
On the brilliance of my prior post, I urge you to take some time and watch this.
It’s funny (very Izzard), it’s brilliant. I wish we’d listen.
Thanks to Sisbol4.
With a tip of the hat to Paula Poundstone, who is a very funny woman, I thought of a solution to the economy thingy today.
She was on NPR this morning telling Barack Obama that he needs to simply tell his supporters what it is he wants them to do to save the world, and they’ll do it. They’ll fix pot holes while stuck in traffic. They’ll build windmills in their pants - well she may not have said that. The point is, they love him, and they await his orders.
Anyway, it got me thinking. Windmills and pants always do. Obama has ten million names on his email list. If he emailed all his supporters, and asked them, as a personal favor, and as a patriotic duty, to spend an extra $100 dollars tomorrow, that would be one billion dollars fed into the economy in a single day. That’s 1/1000th of our GDP. In one day.
How can that not boost the economy?
Okay, it won’t. But at least this way, people actually get something for their money.
Now, if each of them will spend $100,000 we could really get something done.
Deon and I were just discussing the inadequacy and stupidity of our currently available curses (see Good Morning thread).
What society needs is a list of new curses that actually mean something, and can be said on TV.
So, if you could just make them up, that would be great.