Obama’s not going to give up control of anything he’s acquired conttrol of so far, no matter how much he says he doesn’t want to run a car company or a bank.

Oh, need to add to 1) above:

… he’s from a state that not only voted against Obama in ‘08 but then voted in a Republican majority in the state house and senate.

So, seandparnell, thanks for playing, thanks for agreeing with me, and the discussion is now closed.

GM & Chrysler can lower their price to whatever they need and make up the rest via bailouts.

That amounts to subsidizing the sales of Government Motors vehicles at the expense of their competition and of the public at large.

It hasn’t been highly publicized, but Toyota and Honda, etc., have been losing money pretty quickly too. If things play out along the lines speculated on here, Ford and the foreign makes could well move their entire production ex-US. It would be a way to compete worldwide if fair competition within the US becomes impossible. What a sad day that would be.

If Lamar Alexander’s plan to distribute the GM stock to 2009 taxpayers succeeds (it won’t), it would bring some hope that we could get the Government out of GM. If not, GM will eventually just become a black hole into which our money flows.

It is true that on a day-to-day basis, dealerships cost very little to the company. It’s also be true that those poor dealerships would close of their own accord due to lack of revenue. However, state franchise laws make it nearly impossible to revoke a franchise once awarded, so Chrysler couldn’t de-list these dealerships that were causing harm to their reputation until they disappeared of their won accord. Meanwhile, they were still doing damage to their brand reputation and ultimately the bottom line. So closing BAD dealerships is a good thing for the company. However, it appears we’re not doing that and other “considerations” are more important.

Same with GM.

But it would look little different than the other way around, as it has the exact same effect. It would also be equally as corrupt, if true.

But going around trying to smash all other tall buildings so yours will become the tallest, well then dumbass, when you are done, guess what? You live in a dump.

Also, the dealers shut down…they are not as hysterical as you would expect someone who just had the goose that laid the golden eggs stolen from them. They all seem to have a stoicism to them.

And perhaps they are other wordly. Or perhaps that for all their effort they poured into their businesss, the profits were never really all that spectacular.

Their finances not all that blown, (after all they were profitable), they can now invest in a better opportunity.

Expect to see more Suzuki, Kia, Dihastus around the corner from where ever you live.

However, those dealerships are small (and a few large) businesses. They don’t want to go out of existence. What to do…?

While I agree that Ford, Toyota and Honda will all be providing us cars we want, while GM and Chrysler make the cars the White House likes, there’s another wrinkle: Most car companies in the world don’t sell in the US.

In fact, Hummer is to be sold to one of the larger Chinese automakers. Tata Motors developed the Nano, a car that costs only about $ 2,500. Even if it’s not street legal here, they sell other vehicles. There European car companies that are not selling here. Doesn’t Indonesia have one, too? I’ll have to look that up at some point…

My point is, just because GM and Chrysler end their relationship with these dealerships doesn’t mean they simply go away. These are going concerns, and they wish to remain going concerns.

Heck, forget Tata and the others. How about Subaru, Suzuki and Daewoo, which are already selling in the US but have very limited market share? This is a huge opportunity for them!

The pros and the courts may be looking for statistics to prove something impartially, but that doesn’t connect with most Americans. But when they see somebody they know, who has played by rules, worked hard, has a profitable business, contributes to the community, and especially if they’ve managed to get a reputation for being fair to their customers as well, being shut down for no just cause by The Man, that’s when they get mad and start planning to take it out on The Man. Obama’s playing the feelings game. Anecdotes connect with feelings, statistics connect (sometimes) with the brain. We’ll need the statistics eventually too, but for the moment, we need to hit him square in the empathy gut.

There’s a lot of money on the table in these decisions. I think Blago would have said, “This think is _____ golden!”

Yes, he was with GE. But I don’t think that it was ever Reagan’s GE. Not like Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, or Lee Iaccoca’s Chrysler, or even Thomas Edison’s GE. Since it’s inception, I’m sure much good has come from the company. Possibly in Regan’s time. Just not in Tesla’s day, or currently. And I don’t expect any good to come of it soon.

I love Reagan. Almost enough to use heart-shaped emoticons. I grew up and got into politics during the Reagan years. Support Reaganomics, and wish the country had kept at it. I’m waiting for his successor to emerge and put us right again. And I credit him with dealing a mortal blow to Soviet Communism. So I’m not of the Brzezinski School, no doubt fashionable in the West Wing, where his disciples again hold sway.

Getting all that on record, GE does indeed own some of television. They had an hour, in Regan’s day, now they own 24-hour news outlets. And one you mentioned above is the worst of the lot of them. Worse than CNN. Worse even than CNN International.

And since I mentioned Brzezinski, did you know this:
In addition to the man being the mentor of Obama’s entire economics team, his daughter is a television news journalist and a regular anchor on MSNBC. Brzezinski’s son was employed by the John McCain presidential campaign (I know, big surprise). His other son worked for Clinton at the NSC. That from the wiki.

Henry Ford is laughing. “You can have any color you want, as long as it is black.”

That liberal arrogance will be their downfall.

- JP

- JP