TheAgitator.com
That Was Fast
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008Here’s Mitt Romney, presidential candidate, campaigning in Michigan last January:
Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts whose father was president of American Motors in the 1950s and ’60s, insisted that the auto industry can be revived and blamed Congress and Mr. McCain for ignoring Michigan’s problems.
“The question is, where is Washington?” Mr. Romney said, speaking to a gaggle of reporters across from a General Motors transmission plant near Ypsilanti, where 200 layoffs were announced this week. “Where does it stop? Is there a point at which someone says ‘enough’? Or are we going to allow the entire domestic automotive manufacturing industry to disappear?”
And here’s Mitt Romney in today’s New York Times:
IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.
Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.
Wonder what made him see the light?
He’s no longer pandering for their votes, that’s what.
I don’t see those comments as contradictory, or at least not a 180. You can say, “Where is Washington?”, and Detroit shouldn’t get a bailout at the same time. Until recently, you didn’t talk about the government in terms of receiving bailout cash. That has only been a recent phenomenom. So, I don’t think he was talking about Washington saving them with cash in the first statement, but I could be wrong.
Romney’s comments today were anecdotal and half-baked. He recalls his Dad’s efforts in 1954 to rescue AMC? Really? He was seven years old. He was in second grade. I bet he gained a lot of management insights over the meatloaf and brussel sprouts.
The Big Three are surely to blame for a lot of their problems right now, but so is the entire country, which basically continued to buy Hummers as our sons and daughters bled in Iraq. The entire country refused to own up to global warming, the real military-subsidized costs of our dependence on foreign oil, the idiocy of having tax provisions which encouraged automakers to build heavy vehicles and subsidized their ownership under dubious business purposes grounds.
Romney was, is, and shall be a putz. Now we also know that he’s a hypocrite– oh, actually we knew that after watching Dan Balz’s video on the washingtonpost.com, in which Romney pals around with him at the RNC Convention after trashing the “mainstream media.”
“…but so is the entire country, which basically continued to buy Hummers…”
Demand for huge SUVs is what kept the Big 3 alive. With their labor and legacy costs, small sedans and compacts were not profitable.
The first article mentions that Romney supports “aid to automakers to deal with the costs of health care and pensions for retirees.” Now he seems to be taking the moral hazard argument. Sounds like a contradiction to me.
The road of reality is much more clear when you’re not sitting on the stump in the thicket of election fever.
If the auto industry deserves a bailout, then there isn’t a single other industry that doesn’t deserve it also.
An auto bailout is like putting a band-aid on a ruptured aorta. Let ‘em file chapter 11 just like everyone else. At least then, maybe, some restructuring can take place.
I have heard that they can’t file Chapter 11 because due to the credit crisis they can’t get money for reorganization. I have heard that the 25 billion would be a bridge loan until more favorable labor negotiations kick in in 2010.
How much of that is just bullshit?
I didn’t write this piece, but it is the best post I have read in a long time. I am sharing it with my readers, I’m passing it along to you. It is pure mind candy. One commenter wrote:
If this were an essay on economics, it would be the best essay on economics I’ve read in a year or more.
If this were an essay on social structures, it would be the best essay on social structures I’ve read on a year or more.
If this were an essay on conservative versus reformer mindsets, it would be the best essay on *that* that I’ve read in a year or more.
In fact, it was all three of those things, and I’m frankly stunned at how excellently you’ve made so many points in such a short space.
Bravo.
http://beetlebabee.wordpress.com/2008/11/16/jane-galt-a-libertarian-view/
Dunno, but if we can figure out what it was, maybe we can start putting it in the Washington water supply.
There will be a bailout for the car companies. Rewarding failure is as American as apple pie.
I would call it rewarding greed. That has become as American as apple pie.
He isn’t running for the Whore…errr President of the United States?
I was feeling bad about my –5 score until I saw the –8 you all have given Angela. You guys are harsh.
well Ben (the other one) they are libertarians, harsh goes with the territory. They mean well though.
Angela, WTF does gay marriage have to do with the auto industry bailout? Sorry I hit yer arse with a negative cuz it seems you don’t understand the subject of the post.
Mitt is just being Mitt. A real chameleon of our world. But if you know anything about mormons, then he comes off as no surprise at all.
His observations of today are very accurate, what he was saying last Jan was possible pandering to a single plant. Probably loaded with union folk that as of this writing are probably all unemployed.
The us auto industry has made some fantastic advances/changes over the years. But they and the unions that masagged some testes in order to continue to supply workers for the plants forgot something along the way. The japs, (no disrespect intended), are coming and many others as well. They arrived and have done beyond well.
Call such a business Fu.. up! Which is exactly what it was and remains. GM owes more to past employees than any future employee could ever hope to attain.
Sad but very true, their add on costs are 2k while toyota’s are 25% of that, just to support those that worked the plants and are no longer employed.
I’ve got a friend that is retired GM employee, and he jumped through some big time hoops to preserve his retirement package with GM. One of which was relocating to the middle of the nation from the west coast when their plant was shut down. Cost him much to do that, possibly even his marriage.
Today he is not real happy, can’t blame him at all. He mentioned a recent Dr. visit that charged 87$ and he had to come up with $7 dollars out of pocket for it. Nice package, especially since he has been retired for 6 years eh?
But somebody has to pay the other 80$ don’t they?
Looking at the way, so far, the first trillion in bailout funds have been spent, I can only imagine what might be going through the minds of the congress critters today.
I can only say it’s about time they learned the word NO! The consumers of this nation have managed to shut down spending, and our congress should have done so years ago. They might be getting the hint that hot lead don’t give a crap about your position. Though preferred, we really do not need an election to enact change.
Buy lead! :)