They voted for change.............

[sdcopp 1]

You got a better plan? The whole free market thing didn't exactly work out too well.

I don't like bailing out companies personally, especially since I'm young and will be paying for it the rest of my life, but if we are going to bail out companies shouldn't we put somebody in charge who wasn't the one who ran it into the ground in the first place? It's like an airline pilot. Say a guy chrashes a plane into the ground, killing most everybody, and the insurance company (the role the US government is playing now, for better or for worse) says "It's okay, you were responsible for that, but we'll give you a new plane and you can fly that one."

Haha. Ok... Actually that's a great example. Mainly because the airline company actually pays the insurance company for insurance. When a pilot crashes a plane the insurance company has absolutely no say whether or not the pilot can fly again for that company (that's the company's job). If the airline company deems the pilot worthy of still flying for them it's their own risk, if people stop flying with them and they go under that's their call. The insurance company (gov't in your example) has absolutely no say in the matter one way or the other. The airline company pays the insurance company to protect their assets, not run their business.

Are schools really teaching people that it's the government's job to control all aspects of life or that it should? I have to be honest here, and I don't mean any disrespect, but I find it shocking how many of your liberties you seem willing to forfeit to "government". You understand that this is a republic right?

I think car insurance is a slightly better example as your rates do increase, costing more in the end, but still not a perfect example.

Bailing out the automakers is an almost necessary evil because they are domestic and have been so slow to change that foreign automakers have taken the share. You don't like paying for the bailout? How do you feel about getting taxed for an overburdened welfare system? That's where we end up if the thousands and thousands of auto workers lose their jobs because the idiots in charge ran some of our largest domestic manufacturing into the ground. GM also pays taxes, and losing taxes from a company the size of GM would be a huge blow. They are teetering on Bankruptcy, and we've never seen a company that large face that before.

I agree with the principle of what you are saying (though the Bush administration was great to our civil liberties as well weren't they?) but economic reality often trumps ideals anymore.

Think of the government's role more as a surgeon here: the patient has a lethal infection in both hands and can have the hands removed to definitely save the patient's life, or nothing can be done but observe the patient who might pull through on their own with a high possibility of irrepairable damage to other body parts or die. If you're the surgeon, what do you do?

You're right that the Govt. shouldn't be running our lives for us, but as a free market society we sure as hell aren't getting ourselves out of this without some direction and help. The one irony of all this is that we are the largest consumer nation, so a great deal of the world is dependant on us as well; we get to be the biggest domino in this ugly stack up and if we fail we are taking a lot of people globally with us.

[cptjeff 0]

You got a better plan? The whole free market thing didn't exactly work out too well.

I don't like bailing out companies personally, especially since I'm young and will be paying for it the rest of my life, but if we are going to bail out companies shouldn't we put somebody in charge who wasn't the one who ran it into the ground in the first place? It's like an airline pilot. Say a guy chrashes a plane into the ground, killing most everybody, and the insurance company (the role the US government is playing now, for better or for worse) says "It's okay, you were responsible for that, but we'll give you a new plane and you can fly that one."

Haha. Ok... Actually that's a great example. Mainly because the airline company actually pays the insurance company for insurance. When a pilot crashes a plane the insurance company has absolutely no say whether or not the pilot can fly again for that company (that's the company's job). If the airline company deems the pilot worthy of still flying for them it's their own risk, if people stop flying with them and they go under that's their call. The insurance company (gov't in your example) has absolutely no say in the matter one way or the other. The airline company pays the insurance company to protect their assets, not run their business.

Are schools really teaching people that it's the government's job to control all aspects of life or that it should? I have to be honest here, and I don't mean any disrespect, but I find it shocking how many of your liberties you seem willing to forfeit to "government". You understand that this is a republic right?

Well, first off, there is no fundamental right to capitalism or a free market economy. Also the constitution doesn't say much about the government bailing out businesses. In fact, the constitution gives congress a hell of a lot of leeway. Fundamental rights are only awarded to individuals, not corporations. That's stuff like freedom of speech and religion, prevention of unreasonable searches and seizures, a lot of stuff that was routinely violated completely for very badly justified "national security concerns" during the Bush administration. And yes, it's a republic. Do you even know what that means? You complain about taxpayers not having a say in how the money is used, blah de blah. But republic means that it's not at all a direct democracy and the people don't ever have a direct vote, and we have our say by electing representatives. Those representatives are congress and the president. Guess who decided on the bailout. Congress and the President. By the system we have in our republic, the citizenry approved those plans.

You're arguing about whether the government should be bailing out companies or not, so let me lay out the alternative scenario. Say the government does not bail out the US automakers and banks.

First, let's set up a few baselines. In 2008, the labor force was about 150 million, or about half of the US population. Second, current unemployment nationally is around 8 percent.

Now, the automakers. Bad and falling sales figures for various reasons, so they're short on capitol. They're surviving on loans from large corporate lenders. Now let's say the corporate lenders go under. The big three automakers will all collapse in short order, having to lay off everyone. Okay, right there you're at 250 K jobs. Gone. Poof. Add to that jobs created by the suppliers of The big three. Around 1 million. Gone as well. Right there, the nationwide unemployment rate goes up a full percent. We're now at 9%.

So now, we have all the indirect jobs. These will take longer to go away, but they will. These are all the jobs around auto plants at resturants, support services, janitorial staff, service sector jobs. Some will go away instantly, others will take slightly longer. Even after all of the previous layoffs by the big 3, about a quarter of detroit's population works in the auto industry as of the latest 2008 figures. Poof. Gone. All of that money goes away from local industries and businesses. The sudden 25% drop in revenue combined with bad lending conditions lead say half of those businesses to die. That gets you a majority of detroit unemployed.

Detroit dies. Michigan dies. An economic impact on that scale has never happened before.

Oh, and with all the ripple effects across the nation, you loose a conservatively estimated 1.5 million jobs. Unemployment nationwide is now at 10%. More then one in 10 members of the workforce is out of work. And this doesn't count students who can't find work, people who are only working 2 hours a week when they were working 40, ect.

For reference, at the height of the great depression the unemployment rate was about 25%.

Now we can look at the financial services industry. Couple million jobs right there. Say you loose 2/3 of them. We'll call it 2 million for a quick figure. These are high level jobs that pay well and drive the economy in other sectors. Gone.

Unemployment up to 11.5%.

Now you have the ripple effects from those jobs, which will be greater since they're pretty high paying. So let's go with around 3 million. Looking at our ration from the auto industry, it's about 1:1 for that level of pay. Higher paying jobs being lost will have more of an impact.

So, 3 million. 2% of the US workforce.

Unemployment will be around 13.5%.

I could go on with construction jobs and so on, but you get the idea. It's not a pretty picture. When Obama says that the automakers and banks are too big to fail, that's why. If they both collapse, the US starts a downward cycle that could send the US into great depressionesque levels.

You wanna argue that it's not the government's role? Fine. But keep in mind what the alternative is. And keep in mind that the only way we could get out of the great depression was massive government spending. And before you get on the "it was really WWII" thing, keep in mind that the effect on the economy would have been the same if they built all the ships and planes and sunk them immediately. The war just gave FDR and excuse to spend much much more then he would ever have the political backing for without it.

Oh, and scariest of all? The Red Wings would be absolutely forced to move.

Edit: I should also mention that some economists have unemployments reaching 11-12% even with the big three and banks kept afloat, and it's not ridiculous. Unemployment is 9.8% right now in North Carolina, and that's not the highest in the nation (guess). If we take that worst case scenario and add the banks and detroit collapsing, you're probably at around 18-20%, which is around what it was during most of the great depression. Not a happy picture.

[foppa21 0]

Think of the government's role more as a surgeon here: the patient has a lethal infection in both hands and can have the hands removed to definitely save the patient's life, or nothing can be done but observe the patient who might pull through on their own with a high possibility of irrepairable damage to other body parts or die. If you're the surgeon, what do you do?

You advise. Excepting a couple extreme conditions, that's all you do at first. A surgery like that, barring those few extreme circumstances, requires the patient's expressly signed consent.

[cptjeff 0]

Think of the government's role more as a surgeon here: the patient has a lethal infection in both hands and can have the hands removed to definitely save the patient's life, or nothing can be done but observe the patient who might pull through on their own with a high possibility of irrepairable damage to other body parts or die. If you're the surgeon, what do you do?

You advise. Excepting a couple extreme conditions, that's all you do at first. A surgery like that, barring those few extreme circumstances, requires the patient's expressly signed consent.

And in a republic, we advise by proxy of our representatives. Congress consented for us, that's exactly what their job is in the legal system.

The US is not a direct democracy and never will be.

[sdcopp 1]

Think of the government's role more as a surgeon here: the patient has a lethal infection in both hands and can have the hands removed to definitely save the patient's life, or nothing can be done but observe the patient who might pull through on their own with a high possibility of irrepairable damage to other body parts or die. If you're the surgeon, what do you do?

You advise. Excepting a couple extreme conditions, that's all you do at first. A surgery like that, barring those few extreme circumstances, requires the patient's expressly signed consent.

And in a republic, we advise by proxy of our representatives. Congress consented for us, that's exactly what their job is in the legal system.

The US is not a direct democracy and never will be.

exactly, to continue the surgeon example, we've given Congress the decision making capacity for us by electing them much like authorizing a Dr to take whatever steps necessary to save a life in the event something routine goes wrong.

There's no perfect solutions to this mess, but something does have to be done and those in charge of our largest enterprises have generally proven their greed or ignorance without the capacity to sustain the business and move it forward.

[foppa21 0]

Think of the government's role more as a surgeon here: the patient has a lethal infection in both hands and can have the hands removed to definitely save the patient's life, or nothing can be done but observe the patient who might pull through on their own with a high possibility of irrepairable damage to other body parts or die. If you're the surgeon, what do you do?

You advise. Excepting a couple extreme conditions, that's all you do at first. A surgery like that, barring those few extreme circumstances, requires the patient's expressly signed consent.

And in a republic, we advise by proxy of our representatives. Congress consented for us, that's exactly what their job is in the legal system.

The US is not a direct democracy and never will be.

exactly, to continue the surgeon example, we've given Congress the decision making capacity for us by electing them much like authorizing a Dr to take whatever steps necessary to save a life in the event something routine goes wrong.

There's no perfect solutions to this mess, but something does have to be done and those in charge of our largest enterprises have generally proven their greed or ignorance without the capacity to sustain the business and move it forward.

The surgeon model is still faulty. Yes, if you come into the hospital without a medical directive or DNR/DNI order from a physician, if you try to poop out on us then we will shock you, pump you full of drugs, compress the hell out of your chest, intubate you, and generally do the best we can to keep you alive. That's the job of the medical docs and anesthesiologists. A surgeon, even in most emergent circumstances, still has to attempt to gain consent from the patient or a patient representative. Surgeons, and to a lesser extent, medical docs, don't just have carte blanche over your body once you are admitted to a hospital.

[sdcopp 1]

Think of the government's role more as a surgeon here: the patient has a lethal infection in both hands and can have the hands removed to definitely save the patient's life, or nothing can be done but observe the patient who might pull through on their own with a high possibility of irrepairable damage to other body parts or die. If you're the surgeon, what do you do?

You advise. Excepting a couple extreme conditions, that's all you do at first. A surgery like that, barring those few extreme circumstances, requires the patient's expressly signed consent.

And in a republic, we advise by proxy of our representatives. Congress consented for us, that's exactly what their job is in the legal system.

The US is not a direct democracy and never will be.

exactly, to continue the surgeon example, we've given Congress the decision making capacity for us by electing them much like authorizing a Dr to take whatever steps necessary to save a life in the event something routine goes wrong.

There's no perfect solutions to this mess, but something does have to be done and those in charge of our largest enterprises have generally proven their greed or ignorance without the capacity to sustain the business and move it forward.

The surgeon model is still faulty. Yes, if you come into the hospital without a medical directive or DNR/DNI order from a physician, if you try to poop out on us then we will shock you, pump you full of drugs, compress the hell out of your chest, intubate you, and generally do the best we can to keep you alive. That's the job of the medical docs and anesthesiologists. A surgeon, even in most emergent circumstances, still has to attempt to gain consent from the patient or a patient representative. Surgeons, and to a lesser extent, medical docs, don't just have carte blanche over your body once you are admitted to a hospital.

you're deflecting from the underlying point made though

[chippa13 1844]

You wanna argue that it's not the government's role? Fine. But keep in mind what the alternative is. And keep in mind that the only way we could get out of the great depression was massive government spending. And before you get on the "it was really WWII" thing, keep in mind that the effect on the economy would have been the same if they built all the ships and planes and sunk them immediately. The war just gave FDR and excuse to spend much much more then he would ever have the political backing for without it.

Actually, it was the changeover from wartime to peacetime manufacturing that made the US prosperous once again. Excessive government spending just to put money out there is just a bandaid on an axe wound.

[chippa13 1844]

Anyone else find it comical to give an iPod to the Queen? Plus, legend has it that it contains a Barack "Best of....." so to speak of some of his speeches.

[JR Boucicaut 3802]

Anyone else find it comical to give an iPod to the Queen? Plus, legend has it that it contains a Barack "Best of....." so to speak of some of his speeches.

Bullshit. Reports are that it was photos and videos of her 2007 visit to the US and show tunes.

[mack 44]

The queen's a 'mo.

[rmnyi 0]

I'm not normally one to get into this sort of talk but this:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20625.html

should scare the ever living crap out of anyone, obama supporter or not...

Why should that scare me? The government is giving GM a shit ton of money, don't they have the right to make sure the company has competent management?

In fact, I would support the administration to ask more executives to step down from the various corporations we're bailing out. How does it make sense to just say, "Here's some money, but you don't have to make any management changes to make sure the people who got your companies in this mess won't get in this mess again."

The US government is investing $26 billion in GM. I think they have the right to protect their investment by hiring somebody that they have confidence in.

Obama said he will make sure GM is making efficient cars. That's great but when they don't sell, does GM get another bail out? Can we then fire Obama? For the record, Rick Wagoner knows the auto business and removing him doesn't protect our investment, in fact it may have done the opposite. Rick was the sacrificial lamb. It is the administrations way of sending a warning to other CEO's, and not just aimed at corporations that recvd bailout money.

For the record, I did not vote for Obama and I did believe that he could be good for this country but I don't think growing gov't and embracing socialism is the way.

[chippa13 1844]

Anyone else find it comical to give an iPod to the Queen? Plus, legend has it that it contains a Barack "Best of....." so to speak of some of his speeches.

Bullshit. Reports are that it was photos and videos of her 2007 visit to the US and show tunes.

Hence the "legend has it". I think SNL could have some fun with the Queen and her iPod.

Edit: Perhaps not a legend.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/20...does-one-g.html

Uploaded onto the iPod:

Photos from the Queen's 2007 White House State Visit

Photos from the Queen's 2007 Jamestown, Va., Visit

Photos from the Queen's 2007 Richmond, Va., Visit

Video from the Queen's 1957 Jamestown Visit

Video from the Queen's 2007 Jamestown Visit

Video from the Queen's 2007 Richmond Visit

Photos from President Obama's Inauguration

Audio of then-state senator Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and

Audio of President Obama 2009 Inauguration Address

[JR Boucicaut 3802]

Okay, I stand corrected. All of the reports I saw was her stuff.

[chippa13 1844]

I was skeptical when I heard it on the radio this morning so I didn't put too much faith in the report until I found that blog entry.

I can picture the skit now with the Queen sitting on her thrown nodding emphatically and screaming out like she's at a church revival from the Depression days.

[skeeter14 0]

I was skeptical when I heard it on the radio this morning so I didn't put too much faith in the report until I found that blog entry.

I can picture the skit now with the Queen sitting on her thrown nodding emphatically and screaming out like she's at a church revival from the Depression days.

and from what I heard, she gave them a pic of herself? I'm going on 3rd hand knowledge on that one...but if true.........wow

[cxo 0]

That's exactly what she gave them. It's customary, apparently.

[cptjeff 0]

I was skeptical when I heard it on the radio this morning so I didn't put too much faith in the report until I found that blog entry.

I can picture the skit now with the Queen sitting on her thrown nodding emphatically and screaming out like she's at a church revival from the Depression days.

and from what I heard, she gave them a pic of herself? I'm going on 3rd hand knowledge on that one...but if true.........wow

Signed.

[chk hrd 164]

don't forget about Mrs. O "possibly putting her hands on the Queen". The press was ragging about that.

[JR Boucicaut 3802]

don't forget about Mrs. O "possibly putting her hands on the Queen". The press was ragging about that.

Apparently the Queen touched her back first, something that was rare according to Buckingham Palace officials.

[RadioGaGa 162]

I heard from a British media person today that the rules about not touching the Queen only applies to her subjects. So, a Canadian, Austrailian, Brit...can't...but US Americans are not subjects of Her Majesty....so it's 'much ado about nothing'

[TBLfan 25]

Queenie probably was just checking out her ghetto booty.

[cptjeff 0]

Queenie probably was just checking out her ghetto booty.

Is it bad that I laughed?

[RecLeagueHero 0]

I heard they gave the prime minister a 20 dollar gift certificate to Pope Eye's and a Kung Fu movie.

[JR Boucicaut 3802]

What the hell is Pope Eye's?

Let me guess, watermelon too?

Love how people throw out racial stereotype jokes on a board where the admin is black...