It's a free country!!

[DeputyDan]

Of all the money the current administation has pissed away - - the GM money has the best change of helping middle america long term.

I don't really care for any of their meddling into private industry but GM failing impacts pretty much everyone in some form or fashion.

 

[on_two_wheels]

Really?!!! They are giving GM $50 billion....BILLION dollars just to allow them to go through bankruptcy! They could have done that on their own! The first $20-30 bil was to prevent it!! Furthermore, Chrysler is being purchased by another company, anyway. Once that is done, what's to stop that company from shutting it down in two years? GM is already casting aside thousands of jobs.

I read GM cut 21000 jobs (not sure how accurate, though). Now, I realize that impacts several industries down the line so let's be generous and say it cost 40000 jobs when all was said and done. With $50 billion, that's $1.25 million per lost job. You don't think it would have been wiser to let the bankruptcy happen on it's own and simply dedicate that money to retrain those people, fund pensions, etc? Especially since it happened anyway?!! Too bad the government is concerned with the elite, the CEOs, etc, not the people. NOTE: Job #s I believe was a worldwide figure of 21k.

Additionally, Obama now wants a single entity to regulate banks which would most likely be the Federal Reserve. How does a private bank (the Fed) regulate private banks? That's like asking wells fargo to regulate B of A. The only difference is no one will be regulating (or auditing) the Fed. How is this not seen as a step toward socialism?

By the way, just to alter the course and keep this entertaining, Ford Foundation is a huge contributor and led by members of the CFR (Council of Foreign Relations). Ironic that they knew to take a huge loan just before the bubble burst, thus avoiding the gov't restrictions. CFR also runs the country. Taking care of their own.

Bush Sr was the first to actually come out and publicly call for a "new world order" using those exact words. The "new world order" is a goal of the CFR and it's worldwide affiliates. Do the research. I disagree with some things I've found but when I look at everything that has happened the last 20 years, hard to deny.

I can't remember what president (FDR, I think) said "Nothing that happens in this government is by accident. Everything is planned."

 

[H2Andy]

yeah, you're on conspiracy theory ground there

 

[on_two_wheels]

Agreed....but everything I said in previous post can be verified. Not many people are willing to actually research anything. They just blindly take what is spoon fed to them. There's a reason the wealthy are presidents....even before high cost education, media and million dollar advertising. Starting with #1, Presidents are among the wealthy.

 

[H2Andy]

oh, no doubt

there have been a few exceptions, but yeah ... there's a very privileged class in the US that basically runs politics

 

[Jrock1062]

The NEw Deal was where it got intrenched

actually A. Jackson stared that long before FDR

 

[Web Monkey]

If it's such a free country, why weren't WE asked if WE wanted to dump a total of $50 billion dollars our OUR money into GM? GM is currently valued at approximately $500 mil. In order to break even (according to financial wizards) the company would have to be valued at somewhere between $62B and $69B!!!

If we can get GM to produce something revolutionary like electric cars with good speed and range, that recharge using something other than fossil fuels, the money will have been well spent.

Also, FWIW, there's no such thing as "wasting" money. Even if GM does "something", then fails, doing "something" will have provided jobs, and paid people so they could keep the lights on, pay the phone bill and buy food. The end product isn't as important as the process.

Terry

 

[H2Andy]

on the news, the bailout moneys given to the banks is going to be repaid. a lot of them want to do it ASAP for a number of reasons (namely to get the government out of their hair)

U.S. bailout repayment seen bigger than expected: report - Yahoo! News

there's a good chance that we'll get back a good share of the GM and Chrysler money, not to mention all the trillions of dollars implied by a functioning economy

without the bank bailout, i dont' even know where we'd be right now

 

[on_two_wheels]

It'll be paid back on paper. Once it's paid back how much do you think they'll lower our taxes? It's like gas. Raise it .70/gal for a few months, then lower .50/gal. Everyone is happy it went back down but it's still a .25/gal hike. They'll raise our taxes to pay for it, then lower by half of that increase and we'll all be pacified.

As for the CFR, here's just a sample of the positions member have/do hold. If this many members of any other organization held this many positions of power, we'd be wondering how that's possible. However, since there's also powerful media members, it's not widely talked about. The same media that reports on the bailout and such. Non-political members include Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw. Would you trust what they report? Most do. Granted, some of these are pretty old but many are within my lifetime and this is hardly a conclusive list. Just what I researched in the last couple hours (I'm bored at work). ;-)

• Les Aspin – Sec of Def under clinton
• J. Bowyer Bell[24] - founded a consultancy, the International Analysis Centre, whose clients included the United States Department of State, the United States Department of Justice, the Central Intelligence Agency
• W. Michael Blumenthal – Sec of Treasury (carter)
• Harold Brown – Sec of Def (carter) Dep Def Sec (LBJ)
• Zbigniew Brzezinski – Nat’l Sec Advisor (carter)
• William P. Bundy – CIA, Foreign Affairs Advisor (JFK & LBJ)
• George H. W. Bush - President
• Dick Cheney – Vice President
• William S. Cohen – Sec of Def (Clinton)
• Warren Christopher – Def Sec (Carter)
• E. Gerald Corrigan - 7th President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Vice-Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee and Director Goldman Sachs
• William J. Crowe - Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (reagan & bush), ambassador to the United Kingdom (clinton)
• Kenneth W. Dam - Deputy Secretary of the Treasury (bush)
• Thomas R. Donahue - Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO
• Allen Welsh Dulles – Dir. CIA, was on Warren Commission
• Dianne Feinstein – Senator, Chaired Senate Rules & Intel committees
• Tom Foley – Speaker of the House of Rep
• David Gergen – Adivsor to Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Clinton
• Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. – Chairman Carlyle Group in DC (under investigation)
• Maurice R. Greenberg – Former Chairman/CEO of AIG
• Alan Greenspan – Chairman of Fed Reserve
• Chuck Hagel – Former Senator, current Nat’l Sec Advisor
• W. Averell Harriman – Sec of Commerce (Truman)
• Theodore M. Hesburgh – Priest worked with Carter, FDR and Nixon
• Carla A. Hills - United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (carter)
• Stanley Hoffmann – Author w/ extensive published books on foreign policy & politics
• Richard Holbrooke – Special Rep for Afghanistan & Pakistan (obama)
• Bobby Ray Inman – Selected (but declined) Sec of Def position (clinton)
• Nicholas Katzenbach – US Attorney General (LBJ)
• Lane Kirkland - served as President of the AFL-CIO for over sixteen years
• Jeane Kirkpatrick – Foreign policy advisor and Ambassador to UN (reagan)
• Winston Lord – advisory and ambassador positions (kissinger, nixon, clinton)
• Charles Mathias, Jr. - Senator
• John McCain – Senator
• John J. McCloy – Advised 5 presidents and served on warren commission
• William J. McDonough – UN Investment Committee Chairman
• Donald F. McHenry – Ambassador and UN Rep
• George J. Mitchell - Senator
• Bill Moyers – white house press sec (johnson)
• John S. Reed – Chairman NYSE, CEO of Citigroup
• Elliot L. Richardson – Sec of Def, Atty General, Sec of Commerce
• Alice M. Rivlin - Board of Directors NYSE, Governor of Fed Res.
• David Rockefeller – CEO of Chase
• Jay Rockefeller - Senator
• Robert Roosa – Treasury Undersecretary Monetary Affairs (JFK)
• William D. Ruckelshaus – Director FBI, Dep Atty General
• Brent Scowcroft – NSA (Ford, Bush)
• Donna E. Shalala – Sec Health & Human Svcs (clinton)
• George P. Shultz – Sec of State
• Theodore Sorensen – President’s special counsel and advisor (JFK)
• Adlai E. Stevenson I, II & III – Three generations of high level politicians (senators/governors)
• Strobe Talbott – Dep Sec of State
• Peter Tarnoff – Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs
• Fred Thompson - Senator
• Cyrus Vance – Sec of State (carter)
• Paul Volcker – Former Chairman Fed Res, current Econ Recovery Advisory Board
• Paul Warnke – Gen Counsel for Sec Def
• Clifton R. Wharton, Jr. – Dep Sec of State
• Robert Zoellick – Dep Sec of State, Director Goldman Sachs, President of World Bank
• Dwight Eisenhower- President
• Richard Nixon – President
• Gerald Ford - President
• Jimmy Carter - President
• George Bush - President
• Bill Clinton - President
• Hubert Humphrey - VP
• Nelson Rockefeller - VP
• Walter Mondale - VP

Now, since conspiracies are simply fun to think about, I'll add a little. Of the last 6 presidents, only one is not on this list and that ONE is the only victim of an assassination attempt.

 

[on_two_wheels]

Having just reviewed that article, at least 4 of the banks listed have CEOs that are also members of CFR. JP Morgan, Amer Ex, Goldman Sachs, and MetLife. Coincidence? Probably not. I'm not saying it's ALL bad. I think the government does it's best to create a good life for the people but I also think they have their own agenda and, if compromised, will protect it before our quality of life.