So threatening to withhold federal money is getting into private business, but giving it out freely is not?

I mean, the private business could always refuse the federal money and try to make do on its own, but when someone is giving you a handout they are well within their right to give certain stipulations. 

If you give a friend money to pay the rent, you're going to pissed when he blows it on coke and hookers.  This is just a way to make sure the auto companies don't blow their money on coke and hookers.

~Zoo

That's not the point.  The President has no business doing this.

Well once again, this is why federal money shouldn't be given to the auto industry in the first place.  Now it's being used as an excuse to have even more government control over business.

You may have a point, but often times when a guy says "I can't see how it can be worse," later on he ends up saying, "Oh, so that's how."

They would've tanked without it.  So does it really matter?  Either they don't exist or it's an experiment in a government run automobile industry.

Now if they start taking over food distribution...we might want to worry a bit.

~Zoo

It's hard to imagine any individual less competent (in the sense of qualified) to run a large company than BO.  He's had zero executive experience, and it shows in his floundering in trying to run the largest bureaucratic organization in the world.  I think it's all part of the obfuscation effort, though - keep the focus away from the really big stuff.  All he really cares about is getting his government growth agenda achieved.  All this other stuff is nothing but covering fire.

At least Bush had actually run a company.  Good or bad doesn't matter, at least he'd been there.

How can I complain about it? Its just an extension of the crap Bush policy which has now been taken to the next level. The Government has every right to do whatever they want with a taxpayer subsidized business.

It's not hard...I can think of quite a few people: cracked out homeless guy drenched in his own urine, crazy guy who think aliens have implanted a machine up his ass, the people currently running the companies that got us into this clusterfuck.

~Zoo

Exactly! But it does matter the US tax payer would have been a few billion dollars richer right now. These companies should never have received a dime from the government. It was said by a few here, when the auto companies first crawled to Washington, that these companies should be allowed to fail, and file chapter 11.

Some of our liberal leaning JU's didn't agree. Their concerned about the poor UAW's losing their jobs, and the impact on the economy. Well, the big stack of cash is gone, and it appears those precious jobs will be gone soon also.

This is what is supposed to occur in a capitalist society. Weak, or inefficient companies have always gone away, only to be replaced by some thing new. Did anyone help Studebaker or AMC (to name a few) when they went under? Sure some might lament their passing, but who gives a damn now? We are seeing exactly what happens when the natural order is manipulated by government.

As for Chrysler, who would have thought it possible that the government would be a force in the sale an American company to a foreign one! There is a reason why Fiats aren't commonly seen on the streets of the US, their un-reliable. Now that's just what we need Amer-Euro junk that nobody wants. Better to let Chrysler fail now, so they can reorganize and get on with business, before more folks lose money on this turkey.

So incompetence is a resume-enhancer now.

And I beg to differ about who, exactly, 'got us into this clusterfuck' - the social engineers got us 'into' this clusterfuck.  The people running the companies did what the (government-distorted) market wanted.

When he can demonstrate the Constitutionality of his Marxism mixed with Fascism, I'll be comfortable with it.

that's likely to happen when the guy who spent 8 years as moron-in-chief encouraged, aided & abetted private business to push joe the plumber (only like a real guy named joe who actually is a plumber or anything else as opposed to pretending to practice a trade) into the shitpile. 

i really oughta waste whatever time it would require to go back a couple years when yall were whining about not being able to invest your social security withholdings in the market.

my fiat 128 sports spyder (one of my first cars and my initiation into the world of do it yourself auto mechanics) was an incredible machine (wasn't its fault nor mine the seller's idiot roommate took it for a ride a couple hours before the deal was done and the timing belt broke...it was my fault the seller and i, after spending a couple weeks rebuilding the engine, weren't a lil more careful when lining up the marks so we hadda do it all over again) that started every time, looked and sounded cool and i'm sorry i wasn't able to keep it.  

my fiat 131 had much less panache, but is prolly still running well somewhere despite me driving it all kinda offroad places like dry riverbeds and up the sides of mountains outside of tahoe. 

my sister bought a pt cruiser a couple years back that lost a rear seal less than a year later and chrysler in detroit couldn't make either the dealer from whom she bought it nor the dealer where it broke down 200 miles from home do anything for her.  luckily this was before the market tanked and she sold it for nothin and bought a lexus.

i grew up in detroit and i remember when the difference between mopar, ford and gm was engineering vs cosmetics vs multi-level marketing. 

what obama shoulda done was make daimler-benz take em back only this time the germans would run the show.

into the ground.  literally.

i highly doubt he himself had the good sense to sell his stake just before it tanked.  and let's don't forget who helped him bail out in time.  i've personally witnessed several businesses fail. amazingly, none of their owners--men and women who for one reason or another found themselves on the wrong end of a balance sheet--wound up intact financially thanks to the largesse of family friends or associates.  

if he, like nearly any of the rest of us, had to do withou the benefit of family connections, i'm willing to bet the 'ranch' woulda been on the block years ago.  there's notta whole lotta ranches that remain solvent solely by clearing brush.  according to former mexican president vincente fox, w is afraid of horses. 

there's one area in which government alone can do a great deal as far as helping what's left of american industry--the kind that actually makes products--become globally competitive again, presuming those who run our government have the balls and that would be a complete reinvention of healthcare.  i'm beginning to have my doubts that obama will stop playing centrist and do what needs to be done, but if and when it happens, american businesses could be free to play on the same field as every other first world industrial power.   our national debt just might begin to turn around and the costs associated with medicare and medicaid would almost certainly be massively mitigated.  

i remember when the standard argument against universal health care was "i want to be able to choose my own doctor".  we no longer have that option anyway thanks to hmos.  how's that workin for anyone--physicians or patients?

one final thought.

anyone who feels that asshole was worth 12 mil a year has no claim to any sorta business acumen.