Democrats urge federal stake in big auto companies

WASHINGTON – Congressional Democrats are pushing legislation to send $25 billion in emergency loans to the beleaguered auto industry in exchange for a government ownership stake in the Big Three car companies. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., hope for quick passage of the auto bailout during a postelection session that begins Monday. Legislation being drafted by Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Sen. Carl M. Levin, D-Mich., would dip into the $700 billion Wall Street rescue money, approved by Congress last month, for the auto aid. President Bush is cool to that idea. But the White House says he is open to helping the industry, which is buckling under poor sales, tight credit and a sputtering economy.

Ah....wonder what else our government will buy. After all they can buy whatever they want now. What's next? There seems to be no end in sight.

edit for link:

www.foxnews.com...

[edit on 12-11-2008 by David9176]

Paulson just said today the bailout is NOT for car manufactures.

Remember. He is the almighty overlord of the bailout $$$$


www.c-spanarchives.org...

[edit on 12-11-2008 by venividivici]

reply to post by venividivici

Paulson just said today the bailout is NOT for car manufactures.

Yeah, you are right but he also decided not to buy bad assets with them like he had originally planned.

Now they are saying it won't work. So i guess it's just free money to banks and insurance companies.

reply to post by venividivici


It might not do much harm as long as the Democrats and pro union sources are in charge, but if someone like Bush gets into office again you will have the employees who build the cars working for pauper wages and any car they produced I wouldn't trust. Like I said, if the Democrats stay in power it might work but the greedy Republicans are sure to get in again and ruin this country.

The Democrats could care less about the auto industry. BUT they know the end of the auto industry is the end of the unions, and they can't let that happen.

The Unions killed the American Auto industry. The Big 3 need to file for bankruptcy...reorganize...and come back Union free.

reply to post by David9176


So buying my GM 2009 puts was a wise call. Thanks!

RRConservative hit it on the head. Quite simply, unions need to be eradicated. That's why a 15,000 truck now costs 35,000 and why lineworkers can make six figures with OT. It's one reasons why I switched from years of Chevy Silverados to the Toyota Tundra.

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
but if someone like Bush gets into office again you will have the employees who build the cars working for pauper wages and any car they produced I wouldn't trust.

Cars are built by robots and CNC machines more and more. One can drink coffee and watch it weld for you nowadays. I'd trust the accuracy of that weld anyday. Nice try.

The democrats/treehuggers have been trying to get there hooks into big-auto for years.

I know there is a lot of controversy on how the democrats caused this financial crisis with the laws they sponsored.

At least big auto tried to cover them self by having large cash reserves but there are many of us that believe the economic crisis was a conspiracy by the democrats/treehuggers to bankrupt what they call unclean businesses and replace them with green businesses that they control.

Smaller takeovers of areas of the US have been happening for years.
These have been things like shutting down logging in the Pacific northwest
that cause logging mills to close and then the treehugger came in a bought up the mill-towns at fire-sale prices when the out of work mill workers had to move to find jobs.

This is how ted turner got most of his land by having environmental groups he funded bankrupt rancher and buying the land at fire-sale prices.
en.wikipedia.org...
the understanding is when ted turner dies his will gives his land to groups like Nature Conservancy to be turn into parks and wilderness.
money.cnn.com...

• Dave Foreman of the Wildlands project has said that, "Mr. Turner is working with us".

• The Wildlands project is an initiative to set aside lands as wilderness preserves without human access, surrounded by buffer zones and connected with corridors.

• The Nature Conservancy, which buys and manages land for conservation purposes, has helped the Sandhills Task Force, a coalition of ranch and environmental groups, arrange for conservation easements with private landowners.

some of you may have heard of Dave Foreman he ran the enviromental terrorist groups earth first.

The close links between Earth First! founder Dave Foreman and prominent greens is a chilling example of how important eco-terrorism is to the environmental movement. Foreman has in fact moved with ease back and forth from top-level environmental policymaking jobs to advocacy of the form of eco-terrorism called "monkeywrenching."

Foreman, who took a job at a regional chapter of Wilderness Society in the early 1970s, was its Washington representative by the end of the decade. But he lost his patience with politics and decided direct force would be more effective. In the early 1980s, Foreman co-founded Earth First!, whose slogan was "No compromise in defense of Mother Earth." In 1985, Foreman published a 350-page howto guide to eco-sabotage titled Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywtvnehing.

Foreman's book gave its readers useful instructions on how to take down power lines, disable heavy equipment, vandalize billboards, and, most infamously, "spike" trees. Tree-spiking involves driving a metal rod as deeply as possible into trees that might be logged. "Spike a few trees now and then whenever you enter an area," reads the book's dust jacket.

And readers did.

One man who found out all about treespiking was George Alexander. He was a 23year-old sawmill worker for the Louisiana-Pacific Corp., a building materials company. In 1987, Alexander was cutting a section of a redwood log with a saw when all of a sudden the saw hit a metal rod that had been placed there. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Alexander then "incurred severe face lacerations, cuts on both jugular veins and the loss of upper and lower front teeth." As Neil Hrab would later write in a report for the Capital Research Center, "Dave . Foreman's response was chilling." Foreman told the Chronicle: "It is unfortunate this worker was injured, and I wish him the best But the real destruction and injury is being, perpetrated by Louisiana-Pacific and the forest service in liquidating old-growth forests."

findarticles.com...


What this country is going to end up with is much of the government land turned into wilderness and another big chunk held by the environmental groups or rich tree huggers.

All of this will be closed to the public except if you are a member of a environmental group.

Whats left will be used for wind turbines solar plant and homes.

No hunting, no fishing, no off road vehicles no camping except in pay sites.
only treehuggers will get the permits to camp in ANY area.


the term public land will becoming a endangered species as the democrats and there treehugging friends take over.

Originally posted by RRconservative
The Democrats could care less about the auto industry. BUT they know the end of the auto industry is the end of the unions, and they can't let that happen.

The Unions killed the American Auto industry. The Big 3 need to file for bankruptcy...reorganize...and come back Union free.

Can't argue with you there, though I see the problem as two sided. The big three aren't without blame for their uncompromising steadfastness to building gas guzzling trucks and SUVs, even when gas was up to $4/gallon. Remember GM and the audacity they had with releasing a hybrid Tahoe that got 20MPG? Priced at a mere $55,000!!! Yeah - people were going to run right out and buy one of those.

But you're right about the unions - they have become thugs themselves, completely uncompromising and willing to let the companies die without giving an inch.

A guy on CNBC just made a great point. There is a long history at GM of incompetence. Remember way back in 1979 when Michael Moore made the documentary "roger and Me" 20 years later GM has the same issues it had back then.

Detroit needs to go into chapter 11 like the airlines did. Reorganization with no unions

Originally posted by RRconservative
The Democrats could care less about the auto industry. BUT they know the end of the auto industry is the end of the unions, and they can't let that happen.

The Unions killed the American Auto industry. The Big 3 need to file for bankruptcy...reorganize...and come back Union free.

This is very true. I totally agree with this statement. The unions have outpriced themselves and it's no longer feasible for them to hold all of the cards.

Desperate times call for desperate measures and bankruptcy should be the number one options. NOT government funds.