The Broken Clock

[filkertom]

That would be Pat Buchanan, a very smart man I very much don't like. Loathe, in fact. He supports a number of viewpoints I consider frickin' evil. And thus I really hate it when I think he's right, which every once in awhile I do. Like today:

What are Republicans thinking of, pulling the plug, at Christmas, on GM, risking swift death for the greatest manufacturing company in American history, a strategic asset and pillar of the U.S. economy?

The $14 billion loan to the Big Three that Republican senators filibustered to death is just 2 percent of the $700 billion the Senate voted to bail out Wall Street. Having gone along with bailouts of Bear Stearns, AIG, Fannie, Freddie and CitiGroup, why refuse a reprieve to an industry upon which millions of the best blue-collar jobs in America depend?...

Be it BMW, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Mitsubishi or Hyundai, the South has become a sanctuary for foreign assembly plants, for which Southern states have been paying subsidies.

Fine.

But why this “Let-them-eat-cake!” coldness toward U.S. auto companies? General Motors employs more workers than all these foreign plants combined. And, unlike Mitsubishi, General Motors didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor....

Do the Republicans not yet understand how they lost the New Majority coalition that gave them three landslides and five victories in six presidential races from 1968 to 1988? Do they not know why the Reagan Democrats in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan are going home?

The Republican Party gave their jobs away!

How? By telling U.S. manufacturers they could shut plants here, get rid of their U.S. workers, build factories in Mexico, Asia or China, and ship their products back, free of charge.

Republican globalists gave U.S. manufacturers every incentive to go abroad and take their jobs with them, the jobs of Middle America....

The bombing-Pearl-Harbor line is a cheap shot, but, yeah.

Thanks to John Cole at Balloon Juice for the heads-up.

Comments

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Probably because the majority of those good ol'honest Blue collar workers actually voted Democrat and Obama. Just the once you know, but now they're paying for that with their jobs.

Yes, I think they could be that petty and vindictive, why not, it's not their jobs on the line.

[jasperjones22.livejournal.com]

I would almost agree with everything that he says except the part about Pearl Harbor...by that logic than BMW is as evil because it was a company that produced airplane parts for it's own country while in war...wait..isn't that what most nationalist companies do?

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

and ignoring the fact that several of those companies didn't even exist until after the war, unlike BMW.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Like I said: a cheap shot. A good line, but a cheap shot. Remember that Pat understands populism much better than many of his contemporaries, which is why he's so dangerous -- he can couch things in language people understand on a visceral level, which is a real problem since [a] that often bypasses logic, reason, and facts and [b] his ideology is pretty vile.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Cheap, mean spirited, inaccurate and totally in character...

[fredhuggins.livejournal.com]

If Mitsubishi bombed Pearl Harbor, does that mean GM got paranoid and had every Mitsubishi unfairly impounded?

[thealien.livejournal.com]

I think the situations are slightly different. Mitsubishi probably wasn't used here just because they were a Japanese company at the time. It was Mitsubishi who made planes that performed the attack on Pearl Harbor.

That being said, I think it was an entirely inappropriate statement.

[fredhuggins.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but would you blame Mitsubishi for making a car that a drunk driver uses to kill a child?

[thealien.livejournal.com]

No.

Though there are indeed people who would blame the makers of weapons for those weapons causing harm...but not me.

I just think that blaming GM for the internment is different than blaming Mitsubishi for Pearl Harbor. Both are wrong, but they are different.

[partiallyclips.livejournal.com]

I did that joke before Pat Buchanan made it cool. Wait, what?

Wow, was that really 5 years ago? Man...

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

Other than the Pearl Harbor line, I can't find anything else to disagree with.

OMG, the sky is falling! :P

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Meh, even a blind pig finds the occasional acorn.

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

Trufax.

[batyatoon]

... Don't pigs find acorns by scent?

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Dammit. I hate it when he's right.

Although, he's only partly right. Part of the problem is that UAW is just as sociopathic as GM is. GM's charter is to maximize shareholder value.... at the expense of the customer. UAW's charter is to maximize member salaries and benefits (and thus union dues)... at the expense of GM... and ultimately at the expense of jobs GM is able to fund.

Why did Nissan et al build in the South? (which, btw, provides jobs for Southerners? Most of that money stays here... ) Because UAW had no clout there. And there was a time in Rutherford County, TN, when if they found out you were pro-union, they'd run you out of town on a rail. Folks there *like* their Japanese management. Or did when I was a lad; haven't checked recently.

So truthfully it's a plague on both their houses.... Buchanan only has half the story. But the half he does have, he's right about... and it's really FUNNY to see him lowering the boom on the GOP.

Wait... wasn't he *part* of the one-world globalization movement a while back??

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Some 15-20 years ago, yeah. But by 1998, when he wrote The Great Betrayal: How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed to the Gods of the Global Economy, he was damn near isolationist.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

UAW had already agreed to major givebacks. What the Senate R's demanded was giving up all distinctions between union and non-union plants immediately.

That, for all intents and purposes was an attempt to bust the union. It would never have any credibility after that.

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

Why did Nissan et al build in the South? (which, btw, provides jobs for Southerners? Most of that money stays here... ) Because UAW had no clout there. And there was a time in Rutherford County, TN, when if they found out you were pro-union, they'd run you out of town on a rail. Folks there *like* their Japanese management. Or did when I was a lad; haven't checked recently.

I live all of 10 miles from the Nissan plant. Last I heard nobody there wants the UAW, but I haven't checked lately. Hell, when they downsized recently they were offering $125,000 early buyout packages.

It's not just cars though. When I worked for Pepsi union was very much a bad word down here. Oddly enough, we got better benefits on the non-union side than the union members up north.

Me, I lost any union sympathies I had when a friend of mine was sent to cover a sales route during a strike in another state. One of those bastards didn't like it and cut his brake lines. He wasn't hurt, but only from pure dumb luck.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

As usual, Pat's oversimplifying things drastically.
1) Foreign auto companies operating plants here aren't paying union shop wages, but they're also paying good wages to their employees. Their workers aren't hurting in this economy, partly because of
2) Foreign auto companies (and we'll include Toyota and Nissan even though they're effectively more tied to the US market than are any of the Big Three from Detroit) read the changing market and invested in fuel-efficient cars rather than trying to force oversized, gas-guzzling SUVs down consumer throats. They read the market, they produce cost-effective vehicles, and their merchandise is nowhere near as shoddy as that put out by Detroit. Their cars are a better buy, so they've stayed stronger in the market.
3) Bailouts for companies that lay off workers and close plants while paying huge bonuses and offering golden parachutes to their executive class? Why, so they can go on lining fat cat pockets while laying off more workers? For that matter,
4) Bailing out the people affected is more cost-effective and easier to control than is keeping afloat a derelict industry, and I'm not just talking about the automotive here. Capitalism lets a failing business die, trusting to market forces to regulate things. If there's a need and no company to serve it, a company will rise to serve that market.

Last I knew, Republicans believed in a free market, believed in deregulation. Look what deregulation has gotten us. Look what airline bailouts over the last two decades have gotten us: airlines that keep jacking up the fares and yet offer less service, less safety, decaying fleets, and less jobs. No, can't agree with Pat at all on this one. He's part of the same machine that made all this possible.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

No doubt. However:

1. The biggest problem with US-based company costs is the combination of health care costs and legacy costs, i.e., pensions and health care for retirees. Part of the reason the foreign automakers have been able to get a leg up is that, at least in the plants in their home countries, the government helps to cover their health care costs. We don't have that advantage.
2. That would be the biggest mistake the US automakers made, definitely. Cheap gas for so damn long basically lulled everyone into thinking we'd always have dinosaur remnants to power our Hummers. Or somethin'.
3. I think every one of these companies getting bailed out should have as the first condition that their CEOs get dumped on the street with, at most, cab fare home. They fucked things up, get 'em the hell out. There comes a point past which "experience" and "knowledge of the business" no longer work as reasons to keep thieves and morons in the process, and we're certainly way past it.
4. Bailing out the people directly would be great. I think that's the way the bank bailout should be handled: It's characterized as the banks being terrified to give credit, because they might lose their assets, and so they've been given money with which to loosen up credit... but they're holding on to it instead of lending it. Gee, wonder why. Because the motherfuckers in charge never think in terms of, y'know, lower and middle-class people who might need help, it never occurred to any of them that if the money had been used to pay off the ridiculous amount of consumer debt we have in this country, the banks would have still got the money, just after we used it for a few minutes, and we'd all be in much better shape. But that one's probably just me.
   
   Besides, the problem isn't just that: it's the manufacturing base. We need those jobs, we need skilled people in them, not only for economics but because if there's some kind of an emergency such as a war -- oh, wait, we're currently in two -- we need to be able to make the hardware for it. We need to make the hardware for infrastructure. The utilities need hardware made here. Etc.

The Glorious Free Market has failed utterly. But that's the only trick they know, and they'll keep at it until they've scraped every last coin.

And, yeah, Pat's been one of the enablers of the situation. Which, to me, doesn't mean what he's saying isn't right. Obviously, YMMV.

Re: Bailing out people

[baronet.livejournal.com]

it never occurred to any of them that if the money had been used to pay off the ridiculous amount of consumer debt we have in this country, the banks would have still got the money, just after we used it for a few minutes, and we'd all be in much better shape.

The difference is whether the taxpayer expects to get paid back eventually. If the government gave each mortgage-holder a share of the 700 billion as a gift, then the mortgage-holder could use that to lower their total debt, but the taxpayer would never see that money again. If the government loaned each mortgage-holder their share of the 700 billion, and set up repayment terms, then the mortgage-holder could use that money to pay off their debt, but they would just be trading one debt for another (albeit at hopefully better terms).

So, the argument goes, it is better to make loans (or buy bond-like assets from) the banks, and let them do their job of figuring out who can be loaned how much under what terms.

Even if setting up those new government loans would be annoying, I personally think it would have been better than what we got. For instance, it would have been harder to funnel vast piles of cash to cronies.

Re: Bailing out people

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Except if you use taxpayer funds to help keep people in their homes then we won't be spending money on all the new homeless people. That would be even more money we'd never see again. By helping people who were put over a barrel by the mortgage companies, we're helping ourselves.

[skemono.livejournal.com]

The Glorious Free Market has failed utterly. But that's the only trick they know, and they'll keep at it until they've scraped every last coin.
This is exactly why it rankles me when the Republicans say that they can't give the auto industry a bailout because then "they won't learn anything from their mistakes." They're still clinging to a failed and bankrupt ideology themselves! Bah.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Yes, let's look at what deregulation has gotten us: shoddy unsafe products, misleading advertising, CEOs that make more than they deserve, these golden parachutes you complained about in point 3, corporate irresponsibility, pollution, etc. The purpose of a business is to make money and if a business can make more money by shirking their responsibilities to their workers and the rest of us, then they will do it. Regulations are there to make sure they don't shirk and accept responsibility for their actions. The republican deregulation has prevented this and helped create this economic mess we find ourselves in.

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

I don't agree with him either, but I'm against the Big Three bailout for the same reason I was against the financial industry bailout -- keeping a corrupt, failing industry on taxpayer-funded life support is stupid.

If anyone wants to try to convince me that the Big Three bailout is a good idea, you're also going to have to come up with a better argument than "The Republicans are just doing this to bust the UAW," because the Big Three are serial corporate criminals, and keeping them on taxpayer-funded life support to keep the unions going is like subsidising the Mafia to make sure the police have something to do.

Am I the only person on the left who actually remembers what unions' purpose is supposed to be?

I also remember that this is not the first time the Big Three has run into this sort of trouble or made the sort of "Chee, nice economy youse got here, be a shame if somethin wuz ta happen ta it..." threats; I have a dossier of lawsuits and antitrust motions on them that comprises hundreds of articles; and I've spent the last three or four years doing research into how General Motors was in large part responsible for demolishing large parts of the rail-based transportation infrastructure in North America (see in particular the antitrust action against EMD in 1961); and I know they've had myriad opportunities to reorganise, restructure, and reinvent themselves to make themselves competitive, and their response is usually to spend more money on manufacturing consent and buying legislative cooperation, and none on improving their business practices or, god forbid, their products...

...and so I figure they owe us far more than we owe them.

[jasperjones22.livejournal.com]

Personally I like the idea of survival of the fittest...let the companies that can make sound economic decisions survive..that way we can get the best product from the people who have the best vision for the company...what a concept.

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

The problem with this is that there are so many other industries tied to the auto industry that if the Big 3 fall we're likely to see an economic collapse the likes of which hasn't been seen since the depression.

3 million people suddenly finding themselves out of work is a very, very bad thing.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

If the big three go down, so do their suppliers.
These suppliers also make parts for the transplant companies. A plastics company in Mishawaka. A brakes manufacturer in Cincinnati. A sheet-metal stamping plant in Twinsburg...

The logistics people, like me, lose their jobs too. Not to mention a lot of dealerships and repair shops. I deliver to 9 dealers. The smallest employs 4 people. The largest, 26. That's about 125 people, counting me, on just one route. The GM Service Parts Operation has over 200 routes, just out of Jackson MS alone.

Let them fail is the easy out. There are too many ramifications to such a failure to say it lightly.

[marahsk.livejournal.com]

Not just the suppliers, or even *their* suppliers; all those out-of-work auto-workers and suppliers won't be spending the money they no longer have at businesses who will then have to lay off their people...the cascade is frightening.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

In time it will even trickle down to the fast food industry. There will be less low income jobs, because people won't eat out as much, and more people with decent education seeking to fill them.

[marahsk.livejournal.com]

Yup. Which effects their suppliers, etc.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

And leads to increased crime.

[marahsk.livejournal.com]

Good point.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

Another one of those things Congress didn't think about I expect.

[fionn320.livejournal.com]

An article I was reading in Fortune online today stated that if even one of the Big 3 shut down for good, many parts suppliers would also go down. As you say, those supppliers also make parts for Toyota, Honda, and the rest, and it would take those companies the better part of a year or more to repair the broken links in thier supply chains.

[jeffr23.livejournal.com]

No, Pat's not a broken clock, he's a clock that runs, losing a few microseconds each year...and is inalterably set to 7 hours and 19 minutes prior to the actual time. Any time you find yourself agreeing with him,re-examine your premises, and repeat the process as necessary.

(In this particular case, the biggest error is the assumption that the choice is between economic danegeld and the companies involved vanishing into the ether instantaneously. Chapter 11 doesn't work that way.)

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

As has been repeated in several venues over and over again, Chapter 11 bankruptcy would entail debtor-in-possession loans for the day-to-day operations of the bankrupt company.

Nobody's going to loan GM or Chrysler the money, especially not in the massive amounts required for them to operate even at minimal levels.

If one of the Big 3 goes bust, it's Chapter 7 liquidation, and shutdown.

[tandw.livejournal.com]

On top of that, there's the question of all those outstanding warranties...AIUI [1], if GM files Chapter 11, and the drivetrain breaks on your GM car before 100 000 miles, you get to stand in line with the rest of the people GM owes something to. Who's going to buy a GM car with effectively no warranty?

[1] Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong; I'd rather not spread misinformation.

debtor-in-possession

[baronet.livejournal.com]

So why can't the government make the debtor-in-possession loans themselves? It would be a fairly well defined loan arrangement, with industry-normal terms. That sounds much simpler than a bailout with all of the negotiated terms and strings and concessions.

[jeffr23.livejournal.com]

If there's no hope whatsoever of the companies ever becoming viable, then there's no real point of throwing taxpayer money down the rathole to keep the party going another month or two.

If there is a significant hope of future viability, then somebody is leaving free money on the table, which isn't supposed to even be possible. But since the other credit crunch stories involve banks doing just that constantly these days, it's possible. In which case, as baronet said downthread, setting up the government or the fed as the d-i-p lender makes infinitely more sense than bailouts without reorganization.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Pat Buchanan wrote speeches for Dick Nixon, and was loyal to the man up to, through, and past the resignation.

That is all that needs to be said.

As for his on-target observations: with every election the Confederacy is taking more and more control of the Republican Party. They've lost their footholds in New England, they're losing the Rust Belt, and the Empty West is showing signs of wavering. Their last remaining strongholds are places where people are ignorant, hyper-religious, or both- and the South, alas, fits that bill perfectly.

And in the South, "union" and "Mafia" have the same definition.

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

"Pat Buchanan wrote speeches for Dick Nixon, and was loyal to the man up to, through, and past the resignation.

That is all that needs to be said."

This says volumes about his ethics*, yes, but nothing about his analysis. :P

*Or lack thereof.

[capplor.livejournal.com]

And in the South, "union" and "Mafia" have the same definition.

There is still an element of the "Red Scare" involved too.
Kentuckians were still calling Union Workers "Russians" up until, I believe, the 1980's or possibly later. & thanks to McCarthey & his ilk, Communism is still a greater bugaboo than the Mafia ever was in much of the country.

Colorado just voted down a provisions which would make Unions essentially illegal & this a "right-to-work" state (meaning that you have no rights to assistance if you aren't working) both of which are strongly supported across the Southern tier. The TV Ad which cost them the election reminded the voters of McCarthey, et al.

Brainstorming

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

So it seems obvious that whatever rescue is going to happen, will have to wait until January, when the Senate reinforcements arrive and we have a new President. Anything that happens in the meantime is squarely the fault of the Republican obstructionists. We'll just have to see how many of the 18 who are up in 2010 will get re-elected after this crap.

So, what happens if it's too late by then and the Big Three have taken their toys and gone home?

Suppose President Obama nationalized the US auto industry (since the private sector evidently doesn't want it) and put our auto workers to work making energy-efficient cars that America could be proud of? Not to mention a national light rail system? Would that be a good idea, or are there reasons I haven't thought of that catastrophic things would happen?

Re: Brainstorming

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I think it would be a fantastic idea. And it would get the foot in the door for universal single-payer health care, which we'll need in any case to make any of this truly economically viable.

There is far too much at stake here for ideology to trump for its own sake.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Right idea, wrong reasons. Buchanan is saying this because it supports his isolationism, not because he's actually put any thought into it. It's a case of the conclusion coming first and then making the analysis fit.