After totally botching the investment of George W. Bush’s $700 billion bailout of “Wall Street,” U.S Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson addressed a dubiously-titled “Captains of Industry” conference in New York yesterday to argue in favor of spending $14 billion of that money on Detroit’s “Big Three” automakers.
Amazingly, Chrysler, GM and Ford are facing financial difficulties as a result of consistently producing inferior automobiles at excessive prices – and now they want U.S. taxpayers who had the audacity to purchase better cars at lower prices to subsidize their ongoing incompetence.
Anyway, here’s Paulson’s latest (and most curious) rationale for giving them what they want. From Bloomberg:
“If the right outcome is reorganization or bankruptcy, then isn’t it better to get there through an orderly process where every effort is made to avoid it, and if it can’t be avoided, everyone’s prepared for it?”
Wait, hold up there for a minute … let’s pull out our handy-dandy bureaucratic translator to see what baldy actually said.
And here it is:
These three companies are beyond saving but f*ck it, let’s spend $14 billion on them anyway.
President Bush’s spokeswoman Dana Perino – who is not a Captain of Industry but has better hair than Paulson – agreed with that approach, saying that spending the $14 billion (or some denomination of billions of dollars) would enable these automotive dinosaurs to have a “soft landing.”
In other news, actual dinosaurs are probably wondering where their “soft landing” was 65 million years ago when a different sort of asteroid collided with the earth.
Guess they should have unionized …
By Ben December 19, 2008 at 10:59 am
The Bush Administration is hands down the worst administration we have ever had. I sincerely believe that a drunken monkey with a decision dart board could have done a better job, statistically speaking. Has anyone done a side-by-side comparison to see how bailout money correlates with campaign contributions. I’m not a fan of bailouts and it seems that Washington is arbitrarily deciding who it helps. Reason says that Democrats would favor unions over management in Detroit and the vice versa — creating a lack of contributions for Democrats by Detroit management, making a democratic congress less likely to support a failing foe. Banking institutions generally give based on the who is going to win, rather than a particular person’s policy.
By Clapping Fetus December 19, 2008 at 11:03 am
That’s what we get for putting a guy in charge of Treasury that doesn’t even believe germs cause disease.
By liz December 20, 2008 at 10:24 am
Return to Social Security a minute people… the Trust Fund “TRUSTEE” positions created in 1984 to provide more oversight to the huge amount of monies in these REAL funds, were left vacant all year ( 2008).
I have proof of three accounts left in pay from the Greenwood SC SSA office for more than twenty years in one case, more than fifteen in another.
Does anyone else think that the funds may have been put back after having been lost in AIG??? American Insurance Group????
Couple that with American Universal ‘s Part D program holding a large amount of fraudulent subsidized accounts.
The word American keeps popping up mysteriously and I don’t believe it is an accident.
A REAL INVESTIGATION< would prove I am incorrect but my investigations at the FBI and Secret Service were STOPPED by Politicians………
I’m not kidding when I say I believe the 700 billion bailed out the stolen SSA and Medicare Trust Funds.
listen to me people………