Max, that's some funny sh!t right there.

Not only is Imaty's IQ's 12 points shallower I'm calling bull**** on his boast that he gives more away in charity than Robert makes too.

(01-25-2012 03:06 PM)Max Power Wrote:  

Quote:Only a partisan hack would actually either had actually paid back their loans. GM paid back their loan with another loan they took out from...wait for it.. the Government. It did not use earnings to pay back the loan, though you and Obama would love for people to believe they did. When you combine that with the fact that the government still owns a huge portion of both companies in the form of common stock, you realize that no such payback has actually occurred.

What the hell does it matter which account it was paid out of? GM posted a $6 billion profit in 2010, and you're complaining because the loan repayment was from an account held by the Treasury in escrow? So if they left that escrow account alone and paid it directly out of their profits that would have made a world of a difference to you? Who's the partisan hack here? Talk about a technicality.

Most of the rest of the government's TARP funds were converted into stock in the new company. So it's not a matter of "paying back" that money. It's a matter of the new company's performance being good enough to recoup the investment or even make a profit. That new company is seeing rising profits and market share, which obviously directly benefits the government now. The loans are paid back, and most of the rest is in the form of a government investment which by all accounts appears to be paying off, and then some. Where's the problem here again?

Quote:What's your basis for this? Of course, what happened was not a true Chapter 11. Obama cronyism allowed unions to jump in line in front of creditors.

What's my basis for what? And how is it not a "true Chapter 11?" Because there was an asset sale and most of the creditors voluntarily agreed to convert their debt into stock? Hey, if it weren't for Obama's "cronyism" there would have been Chapter 7 liquidation and by most estimates all the creditors would have been worse off. Chapter 7 liquidation very rarely gets even a nickel on the dollar. At least now they own shares of a profitable company.

Quote:...as if that were the only factor. Union and pension obligations (among other things) were a major part of their demise. From looking at their financial statements, that's indisputable.

It was pretty much far and away the main factor. Bush's decision to launch wars all over the Middle East helped skyrocket oil prices so Joe American couldn't afford his Hummers and Ford F150s and had to buy tiny fuel efficient cars from Japan. That's how you turn a net operating loss of $6 billion into a net operating loss of $80 billion. Not by the continuing trickle of factory workers retiring.

Quote:Given your hatred of religious people it's no shock you take issue with this.

The nerve of republicans. Believing that they should be able to decide what to do with the money they earn.

Perhaps you missed it, but that 16% Romney paid was in addition to his taxes. Democrats want to take more money from people because, as you have put it, people are selfish and need to be told who their money should go to.

Someone once said you give a liberal enough time they'll tell you who they really are. Thank you for having that ring true in your above post. People simply can't be trusted with what they earn. So the government must take care of it.

I don't care what Romney does with his money after taxes. If he didn't have to pay taxes though (as Newt is proposing by cutting capital gains to zero), you can bet he'd give more money to the Mormon church and little to poor minorities. This illustrates how we can't simply count on private giving to address the problems in society.

Yes, conservatives are selfish, as this Psychology Today article explains below. It's not that they're evil, but rather that they're less evolved (and about 12 IQ points less intelligent). The concept of liberalism and utilizing the resources of a vast society for the benefit of all, regardless of who they are or your relation to them, is a very novel one, while tribalism and selfishness is a tale as old as time. (cue the Beauty and the Beast music)

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-...servatives

Quote:It is difficult to define a whole school of political ideology precisely, but one may reasonably define liberalism (as opposed to conservatism) in the contemporary United States as the genuine concern for the welfare of genetically unrelated others and the willingness to contribute larger proportions of private resources for the welfare of such others. In the modern political and economic context, this willingness usually translates into paying higher proportions of individual incomes in taxes toward the government and its social welfare programs. Liberals usually support such social welfare programs and higher taxes to finance them, and conservatives usually oppose them.

Defined as such, liberalism is evolutionarily novel. Humans (like other species) are evolutionarily designed to be altruistic toward their genetic kin, their friends and allies, and members of their deme (a group of intermarrying individuals) or ethnic group. They are not designed to be altruistic toward an indefinite number of complete strangers whom they are not likely ever to meet or interact with. This is largely because our ancestors lived in a small band of 50-150 genetically related individuals, and large cities and nations with thousands and millions of people are themselves evolutionarily novel.

The examination of the 10-volume compendium The Encyclopedia of World Cultures, which describes all human cultures known to anthropology (more than 1,500) in great detail, as well as extensive primary ethnographies of traditional societies, reveals that liberalism as defined above is absent in these traditional cultures. While sharing of resources, especially food, is quite common and often mandatory among hunter-gatherer tribes, and while trade with neighboring tribes often takes place, there is no evidence that people in contemporary hunter-gatherer bands freely share resources with members of other tribes.

Because all members of a hunter-gatherer tribe are genetic kin or at the very least friends and allies for life, sharing resources among them does not qualify as an expression of liberalism as defined above. Given its absence in the contemporary hunter-gatherer tribes, which are often used as modern-day analogs of our ancestral life, it may be reasonable to infer that sharing of resources with total strangers that one has never met or is not likely ever to meet – that is, liberalism – was not part of our ancestral life. Liberalism may therefore be evolutionarily novel, and the Hypothesis would predict that more intelligent individuals are more likely than less intelligent individuals to espouse liberalism as a value.

Analyses of large representative samples, from both the United States and the United Kingdom, confirm this prediction. In both countries, more intelligent children are more likely to grow up to be liberals than less intelligent children. For example, among the American sample, those who identify themselves as “very liberal” in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 106.4, whereas those who identify themselves as “very conservative” in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 94.8.

Even though past studies show that women are more liberal than men, and blacks are more liberal than whites, the effect of childhood intelligence on adult political ideology is twice as large as the effect of either sex or race. So it appears that, as the Hypothesis predicts, more intelligent individuals are more likely to espouse the value of liberalism than less intelligent individuals, possibly because liberalism is evolutionarily novel and conservatism is evolutionarily familiar.

The primary means that citizens of capitalist democracies contribute their private resources for the welfare of the genetically unrelated others is paying taxes to the government for its social welfare programs. The fact that conservatives have been shown to give more money to charities than liberals is not inconsistent with the prediction from the Hypothesis; in fact, it supports the prediction. Individuals can normally choose and select the beneficiaries of their charity donations. For example, they can choose to give money to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti, because they want to help them, but not to give money to the victims of the earthquake in Chile, because they don’t want to help them. In contrast, citizens do not have any control over whom the money they pay in taxes benefit. They cannot individually choose to pay taxes to fund Medicare, because they want to help elderly white people, but not AFDC, because they don’t want to help poor black single mothers. This may precisely be why conservatives choose to give more money to individual charities of their choice while opposing higher taxes.

Incidentally, this finding substantiates one of the persistent complaints among conservatives. Conservatives often complain that liberals control the media or the show business or the academia or some other social institutions. The Hypothesis explains why conservatives are correct in their complaints. Liberals do control the media, or the show business, or the academia, among other institutions, because, apart from a few areas in life (such as business) where countervailing circumstances may prevail, liberals control all institutions. They control the institutions because liberals are on average more intelligent than conservatives and thus they are more likely to attain the highest status in any area of (evolutionarily novel) modern life.

History proves people can't be trusted with what they earn. The welfare state was created because private sector voluntary contributions couldn't take care of all hunger, sickness and homelessness.

WOW...I hope you never again claim you're not a socialist.

(01-25-2012 03:21 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Not only is Imaty's IQ's 12 points shallower I'm calling bull**** on his boast that he gives more away in charity than Robert makes too.

Aren't you a teacher? I definitely pay more in taxes than you earn...hurts doesn't it.

Calling bull**** there too.

Max Power Wrote:I don't care what Romney does with his money after taxes. If he didn't have to pay taxes though (as Newt is proposing by cutting capital gains to zero), you can bet he'd give more money to the Mormon church and little to poor minorities. This illustrates how we can't simply count on private giving to address the problems in society.

You are truly a pathetic and pitiful person. YOU are the one who keeps injecting race into everything.

When my family wrote a check at Christmas to the Northern Illinois Food Bank, I didn't write in the memo line "for whites only." I didn't do it when we dropped off donations for the Fox Valley Crisis Pregnancy Center. And, we wouldn't want Romney to donate to his church because I am sure they do nothing to feed the hungry or clothe the poor. Nothing.

Are you so shallow and racial that you project your insecurities and shortcomings onto everyone else?

Max Power Wrote:History proves people can't be trusted with what they earn. The welfare state was created because private sector voluntary contributions couldn't take care of all hunger, sickness and homelessness.

History proves that, eh?

I guess I missed the part where the "welfare state" isn't run by "people." That must be that leap that makes the state smarter, more efficient, and more responsive than the individual.

You want to spend everyone else's money on your pet causes and then pat yourself on the back. I'm sure you drive a nice car. Why? Why aren't you driving a cheap car, so you could give the difference in price to the welfare state, voluntarily? I imagine you live in a nice place too. Why not a cheap, crappy place and give the rest away? Oh, right. Because that means personal sacrifice, instead of just chirping away on a message board about how the ambiguous rich should be doing more.

Your two probono cases a year don't count. Give until it hurts. And, you don't. Hypocrite.

(01-25-2012 03:33 PM)GeorgeBorkFan Wrote:  

Max Power Wrote:I don't care what Romney does with his money after taxes. If he didn't have to pay taxes though (as Newt is proposing by cutting capital gains to zero), you can bet he'd give more money to the Mormon church and little to poor minorities. This illustrates how we can't simply count on private giving to address the problems in society.

You are truly a pathetic and pitiful person. YOU are the one who keeps injecting race into everything.

When my family wrote a check at Christmas to the Northern Illinois Food Bank, I didn't write in the memo line "for whites only." I didn't do it when we dropped off donations for the Fox Valley Crisis Pregnancy Center. And, we wouldn't want Romney to donate to his church because I am sure they do nothing to feed the hungry or clothe the poor. Nothing.

Are you so shallow and racial that you project your insecurities and shortcomings onto everyone else?

Max Power Wrote:History proves people can't be trusted with what they earn. The welfare state was created because private sector voluntary contributions couldn't take care of all hunger, sickness and homelessness.

History proves that, eh?

I guess I missed the part where the "welfare state" isn't run by "people." That must be that leap that makes the state smarter, more efficient, and more responsive than the individual.

You want to spend everyone else's money on your pet causes and then pat yourself on the back. I'm sure you drive a nice car. Why? Why aren't you driving a cheap car, so you could give the difference in price to the welfare state, voluntarily? I imagine you live in a nice place too. Why not a cheap, crappy place and give the rest away? Oh, right. Because that means personal sacrifice, instead of just chirping away on a message board about how the ambiguous rich should be doing more.

Your two probono cases a year don't count. Give until it hurts. And, you don't. Hypocrite.

Being pious is a liberal hallmark.

Max Power Wrote:

Quote:What's your basis for this? Of course, what happened was not a true Chapter 11. Obama cronyism allowed unions to jump in line in front of creditors.

What's my basis for what? And how is it not a "true Chapter 11?" Because there was an asset sale and most of the creditors voluntarily agreed to convert their debt into stock? Hey, if it weren't for Obama's "cronyism" there would have been Chapter 7 liquidation and by most estimates all the creditors would have been worse off. Chapter 7 liquidation very rarely gets even a nickel on the dollar. At least now they own shares of a profitable company.

Your basis for saying no one else would have bought the assets. If you made an A in bankruptcy class in law school, you should know the priorities of a Chapter 11 filing, and what GM went through didn't fit. The UAW got a sweetheart deal while the creditors got screwed.

Max Power Wrote:

Quote:...as if that were the only factor. Union and pension obligations (among other things) were a major part of their demise. From looking at their financial statements, that's indisputable.

It was pretty much far and away the main factor. Bush's decision to launch wars all over the Middle East helped skyrocket oil prices so Joe American couldn't afford his Hummers and Ford F150s and had to buy tiny fuel efficient cars from Japan. That's how you turn a net operating loss of $6 billion into a net operating loss of $80 billion. Not by the continuing trickle of factory workers retiring.

No, it wasn't. Fuel prices had been expected to rise through the 2000s before Bush's wars began. If what you said was true, then how did Toyota, Honda, etc. know to shift their manufacturing towards more fuel efficient vehicles ahead of time? Toyota had been making big bucks on their trucks and SUVs just like Ford, GM, and Chrysler. Go compare the profit/loss per unit for those car companies that are heavily unionized vs. those that aren't.

(01-25-2012 02:30 PM)miko33 Wrote:  

(01-25-2012 11:42 AM)Max Power Wrote:  I got an A in Bankruptcy in law school so I think I know how bankruptcy works. Robert's basically right. Thousands of jobs would have been lost and communities would have collapsed. If GM and Chrysler went under at that moment in time it very well could have sunk us into a depression.

Miko is right that there are different types of bankruptcy, but it astounds me that he thinks Chapter 7 liquidation would not have been a complete disaster to our economy. Liquidation (selling the assets off piece by piece to various vultures to pay the creditors) would made those jobs disappear. The argument that the capital will be put to better use because the invisible hand of the free market knows best how to allocate resources is naive at best. Selling all the assets isn't going to carry those jobs with it. Even if it were true, that process would have taken years to see this awesome productivity realized. Foreign car manufacturers would have bought some of the plants, maybe, and used them to assemble their own cars here, but the void in the market would have been filled with millions of imports, and the money from the sales would have flowed back overseas.

Chapter 11 reorganization would not have been possible if the US government didn't step in. No one else would have bought the assets. The GOP plan to just let Chapter 7 take its course would have been disastrous and economists were estimating it would measurably shrink the GDP. We can't let an entire American industry collapse because they're slow to adapt to fuel efficiency.

Of course, two years later, GM and Chrysler have paid back their loans and are turning profits, and GM is now the largest car manufacturer in the world. And I hate to sound like a partisan hack, but all no thanks to Republicans.

Point 1: True, the economy would have taken a larger hit up front. However, it would likely be significantly futher ahead today if those assets that are in the hands of incompetent fools would have been allowed to fall into the hands of those who could competently extract value out of those assets. You say that GM and Chrysler were running these assets efficiently. Wrong, they were not. Their workforces are grossly overpaid compared to the other auto manufacturers, and their labor forces were not willing to work with GM and Chrysler in order to bring their wages, healthcare and pensions in line with their competitors. Do you seriously think that management and labor at both of these companies deserves to keep these companies afloat? Greed from both sides plus mismanagement ran both companies into the ground. Based on this alone, these assets should have passed over to more deserving people. Also, those loans WERE NOT PAID BACK IN FULL. Getting a second gov't loan to pay off the first gov't loan is a sleight of hand trick that we are still paying for today.

Point 2: Do you really want to stake out the position that the free market does not work effectively in building a strong economy? It's actually naive to believe that a group of people believe that they are smart enough to allocate resources more efficiently than the market. It simply does not pan out. The Soviet Union failed, the PRC failed until they decided to allow capitalism to take root in their country, and the attempts by the U.S. gov't to allocate resources to engineer outcomes has failed too (Solyndra and a slew of other "green" companies for example).

Point 3: The size of a company does not indicate that it is a healthy company. If you can't see that GM is still on shaky ground, then you are even more naive than I thought. At least Chrysler is now off the U.S. gov't hands and is now Fiat's problem. But both companies still owe us taxpayers money. We'll be lucky if we ever see this money.

The economy would have taken a larger hit at a time we could least afford a hit. The GDP was shrinking at a negative 7% rate. That's something we hadn't seen since WWII ended. Throwing the collapse of an entire industry on top of that could have spiraled us into a depression.

You don't know that the asset buyers in a Chapter 7 liquidation would have been any more competent. Those assets could be purchased to build someone else's failing business, and years down the road that capital is going through the same cycle again.

The car manufacturers put together a credible plan to get government support and it's working.

You think GM autoworkers are grossly overpaid; I think some non-union bumble**** in a "right to work" state getting paid $9/hr to screw bolts for a Japanese car company making billions is underpaid, let's just agree to disagree. GM was doing fine staying afloat before the oil crisis hit.

Again, so what if they used TARP money given to them and held in escrow to pay back the $6 billion loan? They were able to do so because they make $6 billion in profits in 2010. If they left the escrow account alone and just paid the profits directly it would have made no difference and you wouldn't be whining.

I'm not anti-market, and I don't believe in state control of all the means of production and a planned economy, but a completely unregulated free market is no good either. Government intervention is beneficial on occasion, such as here to save a homegrown industry that was on the verge of death.

I don't see where I said the size of a company indicates its health. A $6 billion profit the first year out of bankruptcy is an indication of health. Profits look to be even higher last year. Apparently if we hang onto this stock, we can see the money and then some.

(01-25-2012 03:06 PM)Max Power Wrote:  What the hell does it matter which account it was paid out of? GM posted a $6 billion profit in 2010, and you're complaining because the loan repayment was from an account held by the Treasury in escrow? So if they left that escrow account alone and paid it directly out of their profits that would have made a world of a difference to you? Who's the partisan hack here? Talk about a technicality.

OMG you are a fuggin IDIOT!!! They were loaned tax payer dollars. They turned around and paid back one loan with ANOTHER FUGGIN LOAN OF TAX PAYER MONEY!!! Are you honestly this stupid? It's like you paying off one of your credit cards by shifting the balance to another one. You're not any less in debt moron, it's just a question of who you now owe it to. A technicality? Pretty damn big one idiot.

Quote:The loans are paid back, and most of the rest is in the form of a government investment which by all accounts appears to be paying off, and then some. Where's the problem here again?

The stupidity of you boggles the mind. I call BS that you made an A in anything in your life. Hell I question if you really did go to law school as you claim. One thing is for damn sure you sure don't know jack sh!t about accounting. Or basic math for that matter.

Quote:I don't care what Romney does with his money after taxes. If he didn't have to pay taxes though (as Newt is proposing by cutting capital gains to zero), you can bet he'd give more money to the Mormon church and little to poor minorities. This illustrates how we can't simply count on private giving to address the problems in society.

Wow, just....wow.

Quote:Yes, conservatives are selfish,

Conservatives give more than Liberals

Quote:In 2006, independently-registered researcher and author Arthur Brooks tackled the issue of political ideology as it pertains to giving. According to a 2006 ABC News piece by John Stossel and Kristina Kendall, Brooks’ research has shown that conservatives donate about 30 percent more than do liberals. Interestingly, on average, conservatives earn less than liberals.

Brooks also claims that financial donations aren’t the only difference at hand. When it comes to an issue as random as blood donations, conservatives are about 17 percent more likely than their liberal counterparts to donate blood! But, that’s not all. In 2008, George Will covered some of Brooks’ other findings. As it turns out, in 2004, George W. Bush carried 24 out of 25 of the states in which charitable giving exceeded the national average. According to Will,

“In the 10 reddest states, in which Bush got more than 60 percent majorities, the average percentage of personal income donated to charity was 3.5. Residents of the bluest states, which gave Bush less than 40 percent, donated just 1.9 percent.”

Try again fool.

Quote:History proves people can't be trusted with what they earn.

And there you have the liberal world view summed up for all to see. Well done Max.

My favorite part was the story about how he was the first one off the helo and up the stairs after bin Laden, as he boldly pushed aside the barriers of partisanship.

(01-25-2012 04:33 PM)T-Monay820 Wrote:  My favorite part was the story about how he was the first one off the helo and up the stairs after bin Laden, as he boldly pushed aside the barriers of partisanship.

Sitting next to Biden in the comfort of the White House situation room is a lot more dangerous than you think.

(01-25-2012 03:50 PM)Max Power Wrote:  

(01-25-2012 02:30 PM)miko33 Wrote:  

(01-25-2012 11:42 AM)Max Power Wrote:  I got an A in Bankruptcy in law school so I think I know how bankruptcy works. Robert's basically right. Thousands of jobs would have been lost and communities would have collapsed. If GM and Chrysler went under at that moment in time it very well could have sunk us into a depression.

Miko is right that there are different types of bankruptcy, but it astounds me that he thinks Chapter 7 liquidation would not have been a complete disaster to our economy. Liquidation (selling the assets off piece by piece to various vultures to pay the creditors) would made those jobs disappear. The argument that the capital will be put to better use because the invisible hand of the free market knows best how to allocate resources is naive at best. Selling all the assets isn't going to carry those jobs with it. Even if it were true, that process would have taken years to see this awesome productivity realized. Foreign car manufacturers would have bought some of the plants, maybe, and used them to assemble their own cars here, but the void in the market would have been filled with millions of imports, and the money from the sales would have flowed back overseas.

Chapter 11 reorganization would not have been possible if the US government didn't step in. No one else would have bought the assets. The GOP plan to just let Chapter 7 take its course would have been disastrous and economists were estimating it would measurably shrink the GDP. We can't let an entire American industry collapse because they're slow to adapt to fuel efficiency.

Of course, two years later, GM and Chrysler have paid back their loans and are turning profits, and GM is now the largest car manufacturer in the world. And I hate to sound like a partisan hack, but all no thanks to Republicans.

Point 1: True, the economy would have taken a larger hit up front. However, it would likely be significantly futher ahead today if those assets that are in the hands of incompetent fools would have been allowed to fall into the hands of those who could competently extract value out of those assets. You say that GM and Chrysler were running these assets efficiently. Wrong, they were not. Their workforces are grossly overpaid compared to the other auto manufacturers, and their labor forces were not willing to work with GM and Chrysler in order to bring their wages, healthcare and pensions in line with their competitors. Do you seriously think that management and labor at both of these companies deserves to keep these companies afloat? Greed from both sides plus mismanagement ran both companies into the ground. Based on this alone, these assets should have passed over to more deserving people. Also, those loans WERE NOT PAID BACK IN FULL. Getting a second gov't loan to pay off the first gov't loan is a sleight of hand trick that we are still paying for today.

Point 2: Do you really want to stake out the position that the free market does not work effectively in building a strong economy? It's actually naive to believe that a group of people believe that they are smart enough to allocate resources more efficiently than the market. It simply does not pan out. The Soviet Union failed, the PRC failed until they decided to allow capitalism to take root in their country, and the attempts by the U.S. gov't to allocate resources to engineer outcomes has failed too (Solyndra and a slew of other "green" companies for example).

Point 3: The size of a company does not indicate that it is a healthy company. If you can't see that GM is still on shaky ground, then you are even more naive than I thought. At least Chrysler is now off the U.S. gov't hands and is now Fiat's problem. But both companies still owe us taxpayers money. We'll be lucky if we ever see this money.

The economy would have taken a larger hit at a time we could least afford a hit. The GDP was shrinking at a negative 7% rate. That's something we hadn't seen since WWII ended. Throwing the collapse of an entire industry on top of that could have spiraled us into a depression.

You don't know that the asset buyers in a Chapter 7 liquidation would have been any more competent. Those assets could be purchased to build someone else's failing business, and years down the road that capital is going through the same cycle again.

The car manufacturers put together a credible plan to get government support and it's working.

You think GM autoworkers are grossly overpaid; I think some non-union bumble**** in a "right to work" state getting paid $9/hr to screw bolts for a Japanese car company making billions is underpaid, let's just agree to disagree. GM was doing fine staying afloat before the oil crisis hit.
Again, so what if they used TARP money given to them and held in escrow to pay back the $6 billion loan? They were able to do so because they make $6 billion in profits in 2010. If they left the escrow account alone and just paid the profits directly it would have made no difference and you wouldn't be whining.

I'm not anti-market, and I don't believe in state control of all the means of production and a planned economy, but a completely unregulated free market is no good either. Government intervention is beneficial on occasion, such as here to save a homegrown industry that was on the verge of death.

I don't see where I said the size of a company indicates its health. A $6 billion profit the first year out of bankruptcy is an indication of health. Profits look to be even higher last year. Apparently if we hang onto this stock, we can see the money and then some.

First, the entire industry was NOT collapsing. GM and Chrysler were collapsing. However, Ford did not take any TARP or bailout money and weathered the storm. Now they are clearly the best U.S. based automotive company and it's not close anymore. Ford is approaching Toyota and Honda levels because it realized that it needed an actual plan that was centered around private equity and upgrading its product offerings. Contrast that to GM's solution where it took gov't money to satisfy its immediate debts and was allowed to transfer its "bad" debt to a shell company. GM did not do nearly as much to enhance its product offerings because it did not have nearly as much incentive to do so because of the gov't bailout. The VOLT is far from an attractive, upgraded product offering and it's failing miserably in the market place.

Others have already stated the facts I'm going to respond with, but here they are. Based on the prevailing wages and pension obligations that all automakers had in the entire world, the Big 3 were at a significant labor cost disadvantage. They were NOT doing fine even when oil costs were lower. The pension guarantees and labor costs were too great to overcome when compared to Honda, Toyota, BMW, Fiat, etc. There were more retirees receiving benefits at the Big 3 than there were workers making products. Clearly not a healthy situation.

Regarding the oil spikes, you can't be serious. Everyone, and I mean everyone, understood that the price of oil would begin to spike whether there was a gulf war or not. The Chinese economy alone was rapidly increasing its energy use. Add in India and other developing countries and we all knew that the energy supply - fossil fuels - needed to be extracted at higher rates or prices were going to take off. We all knew it, but the Big 3 had their hands tied. Why? Because they made their money off the gas guzzling SUVs and trucks. They either made razor thin profits or actually lost money on car models, depending on which brand and model we are talking about. They did not have the time to react to the energy concerns because they simply could not afford to do it based on their labor contracts and pension obligations. They were boxed in and had to continue down the path of making trucks and SUVs because there was not enough time for them to do the research and product development needed to make their car fleets more economical.

(01-25-2012 04:37 PM)miko33 Wrote:  Regarding the oil spikes, you can't be serious. Everyone, and I mean everyone, understood that the price of oil would begin to spike whether there was a gulf war or not. The Chinese economy alone was rapidly increasing its energy use. Add in India and other developing countries and we all knew that the energy supply - fossil fuels - needed to be extracted at higher rates or prices were going to take off. We all knew it, but the Big 3 had their hands tied. Why? Because they made their money off the gas guzzling SUVs and trucks. They either made razor thin profits or actually lost money on car models, depending on which brand and model we are talking about. They did not have the time to react to the energy concerns because they simply could not afford to do it based on their labor contracts and pension obligations. They were boxed in and had to continue down the path of making trucks and SUVs because there was not enough time for them to do the research and product development needed to make their car fleets more economical.

Also, the gas-guzzler loophole in CAFE standards basically incentivized U.S. automakers to continue producing more "light trucks" (pickups, SUVs, and minivans) as opposed to investing more in fuel-efficient passenger cars. Another unintended consequence of regulation.

(01-25-2012 03:33 PM)GeorgeBorkFan Wrote:  

Max Power Wrote:I don't care what Romney does with his money after taxes. If he didn't have to pay taxes though (as Newt is proposing by cutting capital gains to zero), you can bet he'd give more money to the Mormon church and little to poor minorities. This illustrates how we can't simply count on private giving to address the problems in society.

You are truly a pathetic and pitiful person. YOU are the one who keeps injecting race into everything.

When my family wrote a check at Christmas to the Northern Illinois Food Bank, I didn't write in the memo line "for whites only." I didn't do it when we dropped off donations for the Fox Valley Crisis Pregnancy Center. And, we wouldn't want Romney to donate to his church because I am sure they do nothing to feed the hungry or clothe the poor. Nothing.

Are you so shallow and racial that you project your insecurities and shortcomings onto everyone else?

Max Power Wrote:History proves people can't be trusted with what they earn. The welfare state was created because private sector voluntary contributions couldn't take care of all hunger, sickness and homelessness.

History proves that, eh?

I guess I missed the part where the "welfare state" isn't run by "people." That must be that leap that makes the state smarter, more efficient, and more responsive than the individual.

You want to spend everyone else's money on your pet causes and then pat yourself on the back. I'm sure you drive a nice car. Why? Why aren't you driving a cheap car, so you could give the difference in price to the welfare state, voluntarily? I imagine you live in a nice place too. Why not a cheap, crappy place and give the rest away? Oh, right. Because that means personal sacrifice, instead of just chirping away on a message board about how the ambiguous rich should be doing more.

Your two probono cases a year don't count. Give until it hurts. And, you don't. Hypocrite.

Society shouldn't be in the business of deciding who among the needy to help. It's not necessarily about race; that's just one example. People give to their own churches too with the selfish motive of drawing nonbelievers to the church to be indoctrinated. Certainly there are many, many people who give indiscriminately, but on the whole the giving is not equal and there is no guarantee of caring for all who need it.

Romney's church might give to the poor, that is, after they build their massive cathedrals and Joseph Smith statues and pay for their missionary trips around the world that never convert anybody smarter than Glenn Beck.

The welfare state is run by people but those people have to follow the laws in their giving by not denying benefits to those who qualify. It's illegal for the state to discriminate, but not for private charity.

Why am I a hypocrite for not eating Ramen noodles and living in a studio apartment? I'm not asking the rich to eat Ramen noodles and live in a studio apartment. My problem is not with success or luxury. I want to raise taxes a couple percentage points to the level they were under Clinton. That will still leave them plenty of money for their own nice cars and houses, and at the same time generate hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues.

Quote:Your basis for saying no one else would have bought the assets. If you made an A in bankruptcy class in law school, you should know the priorities of a Chapter 11 filing, and what GM went through didn't fit. The UAW got a sweetheart deal while the creditors got screwed.

I say no one else would have bought the assets because no one else stepped forward to buy the assets in bankruptcy. I know what priorities are and they didn't matter. The unsecured creditors (most of them anyway) willingly agreed to exchange their debt for shares in the new GM. They did this because they didn't want to take the risk of seeing what they'd end up with after the assets were sold and everything distributed. Again, unsecured creditors usually end up with next to nothing. They could have taken that risk. Instead they agreed to go in on this new company, which is doing quite well.

Quote:No, it wasn't. Fuel prices had been expected to rise through the 2000s before Bush's wars began. If what you said was true, then how did Toyota, Honda, etc. know to shift their manufacturing towards more fuel efficient vehicles ahead of time? Toyota had been making big bucks on their trucks and SUVs just like Ford, GM, and Chrysler. Go compare the profit/loss per unit for those car companies that are heavily unionized vs. those that aren't.

I'm not saying GM didn't make a mistake. They definitely should have been more prepared to deal with the crisis like Toyota and Honda.

Quote:OMG you are a fuggin IDIOT!!! They were loaned tax payer dollars. They turned around and paid back one loan with ANOTHER FUGGIN LOAN OF TAX PAYER MONEY!!! Are you honestly this stupid? It's like you paying off one of your credit cards by shifting the balance to another one. You're not any less in debt moron, it's just a question of who you now owe it to. A technicality? Pretty damn big one idiot.

Argh. The TARP money held in escrow was given to the company two years prior from the government, and through bankruptcy the debt owed the government was voluntarily wiped clean and the assets (including, here, the money held in escrow) purchased by a majority-government-owned corporation. Like the hated unions and unsecured creditors, the government chose to have the debt it held converted into shares of the new GM. Ergo it waived its right to collect on that debt. This isn't a new line of credit, like the impression you seem to be under. There is no debt tied to the assets in that Treasury escrow account, even though it may have originated as loan funds. The funds in that account are now, after bankruptcy, simply property of the new GM.

And besides, like I said, it doesn't matter where the money to pay back the loans comes from. In other words, money is fungible. The new GM could empty its TARP account of $6 billion because it posted $6 billion in profits. If they had paid the profits directly to the government and not touched the TARP account there would have been no difference. It's not that hard of a concept.

Quote:The stupidity of you boggles the mind. I call BS that you made an A in anything in your life. Hell I question if you really did go to law school as you claim. One thing is for damn sure you sure don't know jack sh!t about accounting. Or basic math for that matter.

And you're qualified to make that judgment how?

Quote:Try again fool.

I already explained this. Conservatives are clannish (with a c, most of the time) like our cave-dwelling ancestors and want to tilt the scales and support some groups over others.

Quote:The fact that conservatives have been shown to give more money to charities than liberals is not inconsistent with the prediction from the Hypothesis; in fact, it supports the prediction. Individuals can normally choose and select the beneficiaries of their charity donations. For example, they can choose to give money to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti, because they want to help them, but not to give money to the victims of the earthquake in Chile, because they don’t want to help them. In contrast, citizens do not have any control over whom the money they pay in taxes benefit. They cannot individually choose to pay taxes to fund Medicare, because they want to help elderly white people, but not AFDC, because they don’t want to help poor black single mothers. This may precisely be why conservatives choose to give more money to individual charities of their choice while opposing higher taxes.

Quote:And there you have the real world view summed up for all to see. Well done Max.

Fixed.

You are so intellectually dishonest that it borders on offensive.

I'm embarrassed for you.

This pretty much sums it up.

Max Power Wrote:Society shouldn't be in the business of deciding who among the needy to help. It's not necessarily about race; that's just one example. People give to their own churches too with the selfish motive of drawing nonbelievers to the church to be indoctrinated. Certainly there are many, many people who give indiscriminately, but on the whole the giving is not equal and there is no guarantee of caring for all who need it.

What don't you get? "Government" not "society" currently has a definition of who is "needy." So, government does decide who gets help and who doesn't. Government decides how much someone gets. Government has some limits on the length of the help. There are all kinds of boundaries. And, government can never guarantee to "care" for anyone. Never.

Max Power Wrote:Romney's church might give to the poor, that is, after they build their massive cathedrals and Joseph Smith statues and pay for their missionary trips around the world that never convert anybody smarter than Glenn Beck.

Wow. Are you that insecure?

Max Power Wrote:The welfare state is run by people but those people have to follow the laws in their giving by not denying benefits to those who qualify. It's illegal for the state to discriminate, but not for private charity.

Who makes those "laws?" I thought it was "people." I must have missed the point where the "welfare state" is an entity like the Matrix.

The state "discriminates" in all kinds of ways. It offers preferences to people based on gender and skin color, thereby discriminating against those that aren't preferred. It "discriminates" by offering certain benefits to some and not others. (In our great state, 401ks and pensions are not taxed. It is clearly "discriminating.")

And, if private charities can "discriminate," (your term), why was Catholic Charities dropped from the Illinois foster/adoption program? Oh, because they'd didn't want to work with civil unions.

Max Power Wrote:Why am I a hypocrite for not eating Ramen noodles and living in a studio apartment? I'm not asking the rich to eat Ramen noodles and live in a studio apartment. My problem is not with success or luxury. I want to raise taxes a couple percentage points to the level they were under Clinton. That will still leave them plenty of money for their own nice cars and houses, and at the same time generate hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues.

Why? Because your wealth could be used by one of the needy. Why should one person sleep on a street grate while you are drinking wine and eating your cheese if you care so much?

Your problem is envy and control. You are envious of the successful and you desire control. Yet, when you are asked to put up or shut up, your supposed care for your fellow man goes right out the window.

There is nothing magic or perfectly moral about the Clinton tax rates. They are numbers, nothing more and nothing less.

Instead of being a personal injury lawyer and making a ton of money, why not work for a non-profit at a much lesser salary and help people? Again, that requires personal sacrifice, something you support for other people, but not for you.

Elitist.

(01-25-2012 06:08 PM)Ninerfan1 Wrote:  You are so intellectually dishonest that it borders on offensive.

I'm embarrassed for you.

Why? You're the one who won't admit you don't know what you're talking about.

(01-25-2012 06:45 PM)GeorgeBorkFan Wrote:  

Max Power Wrote:Society shouldn't be in the business of deciding who among the needy to help. It's not necessarily about race; that's just one example. People give to their own churches too with the selfish motive of drawing nonbelievers to the church to be indoctrinated. Certainly there are many, many people who give indiscriminately, but on the whole the giving is not equal and there is no guarantee of caring for all who need it.

What don't you get? "Government" not "society" currently has a definition of who is "needy." So, government does decide who gets help and who doesn't. Government decides how much someone gets. Government has some limits on the length of the help. There are all kinds of boundaries. And, government can never guarantee to "care" for anyone. Never.

Max Power Wrote:Romney's church might give to the poor, that is, after they build their massive cathedrals and Joseph Smith statues and pay for their missionary trips around the world that never convert anybody smarter than Glenn Beck.

Wow. Are you that insecure?

Max Power Wrote:The welfare state is run by people but those people have to follow the laws in their giving by not denying benefits to those who qualify. It's illegal for the state to discriminate, but not for private charity.

Who makes those "laws?" I thought it was "people." I must have missed the point where the "welfare state" is an entity like the Matrix.

The state "discriminates" in all kinds of ways. It offers preferences to people based on gender and skin color, thereby discriminating against those that aren't preferred. It "discriminates" by offering certain benefits to some and not others. (In our great state, 401ks and pensions are not taxed. It is clearly "discriminating.")

And, if private charities can "discriminate," (your term), why was Catholic Charities dropped from the Illinois foster/adoption program? Oh, because they'd didn't want to work with civil unions.

Max Power Wrote:Why am I a hypocrite for not eating Ramen noodles and living in a studio apartment? I'm not asking the rich to eat Ramen noodles and live in a studio apartment. My problem is not with success or luxury. I want to raise taxes a couple percentage points to the level they were under Clinton. That will still leave them plenty of money for their own nice cars and houses, and at the same time generate hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues.

Why? Because your wealth could be used by one of the needy. Why should one person sleep on a street grate while you are drinking wine and eating your cheese if you care so much?

Your problem is envy and control. You are envious of the successful and you desire control. Yet, when you are asked to put up or shut up, your supposed care for your fellow man goes right out the window.

There is nothing magic or perfectly moral about the Clinton tax rates. They are numbers, nothing more and nothing less.

Instead of being a personal injury lawyer and making a ton of money, why not work for a non-profit at a much lesser salary and help people? Again, that requires personal sacrifice, something you support for other people, but not for you.

Elitist.

I didn't say the government has no standards. It's just that its standards aren't completely arbitrary. For instance, everyone making less than $10k qualifies for Medicaid. Not everyone living in a certain geographical area or everyone belonging to a certain faith or such.

People make the laws which are subject to our Constitution's clauses preserving equal protection and due process. Okay, some discrimination is allowed if there's a substantial state interest, and even discrimination against historically persecuted groups if it's compelling. Still a lot better than private charity which can do either.

No one was forcing Catholic Charities to do anything.


Again, all I'm asking is to raise the tax rates to address our ills on a national scale and I will gladly pay my share. I never said Clinton's rates were magical but they're acceptable to me. Actually, I did try to get a job with Prairie State Legal Services here in Peoria out of law school, which is a non-profit providing legal services for the poor. Unfortunately they weren't hiring. They're overworked and underpaid over there and the GOP has slashed its budget the past decade, though thankfully Obama pushed to limit cuts this past year (for Legal Services Corp, look it up). Anyway I went into corporate law, which was soul crushing, and now I'm in PI, but I take pro bono cases from Prairie Stte. It's a lot more rewarding than just cutting a check, believe me.