Auto industry sinking fast...others to come?

To say that the domestic car industry is on life support would be an understatement.
In your opinion, what other US industries may follow as the economy worsens?
TMT

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All the industries that have unions.

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They are all in trouble. There are only three manufacturing industries that have any glimmer of life: medical, firearms, and defense. All three are in the administration's crosshairs. As a result very few companies in those industries are making investments in capacity or hiring.
Why should anyone be surprised? There was zip in the stimulus package for manufacturers and according to the administration's own numbers the giant deficit spending of the stimulus "plan" has only made the economy worse. Read - http://otrans.3cdn.net/45593e8ecbd339d074_l3m6bt1te.pdf
The economy is in worse shape now than Obama predicted where it would be if we did nothing. So they were wrong, or they lied, or they miscalculated. Pick whatever excuse you want, none makes me feel like they are qualified to reform health care or energy.
Likewise, the people that have money are keeping it on the sidelines. This administration has done nothing to make them feel any better about investing.
On the bright side the media's love affair with Obama might be coming to a close. The White House Press Corp has taken to laughing openly at Robert Gibbs attempts to spin the latest bungle. Who knows? Maybe there can be a little debate before the next $9 trillion is pissed away.

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Doesn't look like it Dan.
JC

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Sad but true. I was at PMTS last week. It was dismal. I expected it to be awful but it exceeded my expectations by a wide margin. Very scary.
I didn't get the attendance figures but it was easily down 50% or more if I had to make a guess.

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Is there anyone that is not laughing at Gibbs trying to say that Joe Biden did not mean thatt he would recommend that his family not get on an airplane or in a subway. That Joe really meant that if his family had the flu, that they should not get on an airplane. Laughter was my immediate reaction.
It was just funny to see them try to say that Joe meant something entirely different. Just funny how they thought a statement from them would change reality.
Dan

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"When I heard Biden's comments I laughed too...because it was exactly what I had told my own family members about taking mass transportation where they are currently visiting. And I can assure you that advice came from having a very good grasp on what is going on in the H1N1 virus situation which is changing hourly."
Blah Blah Blah
This is what Gibbs should have said in chastizing Biden.
Discretion is known as the better part of valour for a reason you know. There is only one answer when a woman asks a man if her dress makes her ass look fat. That answer is NO, of course not, and it's the truth. It is not, however, the whole truth. The whole truth is that the woman's ass looks fat because it's a fat ass and the result of eating like a pig, stuffing her face with ten thousand calories a day. The dress is irrelevant.
One answer is survivable. The other might get a response that is less than friendly, sort of like the one Biden gave.
JC

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I'm pretty average and the "piggy sniffles" don't have me wetting the bed.
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I laughed too. The most powerful nation in the world has a brain damaged stroke victim who obviously has some sort of drinking issue as its #2.
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It's the flu for crying out loud. Get a grip.
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And the smartest guys in the room have made the economy worse than their own projections of what would happen if we did NOTHING.
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Tony Snow was a much better human being than Gibbs could ever hope to be.

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Psychic too, eh?
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Compassion for whom? For Obama making the economy worse or for people with the flu?
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Thanks for the sanctimony. But if I remember correctly you started the thread and cross posted it outside your sandbox.

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Grow the economy. Government largesse doesn't do that. Never has, never will.
Short term it would have been smarter to put money directly in the hands of consumers. The mortgage mess still hasn't been dealt with effectively, and some incentive is needed to spur investment.
If I were going to make a bet on whether the private sector or the government would pull the economy out of recession, my money would go to the private sector. But not in the form of welfare to bankrupt conglomerates. They don't create jobs nor do they do much innovating.
Longer term it would be best for the country to invest in sectors that create value. The ones that take anything from ideas to raw materials and turn them into products that consumers around the world want to buy. Manufacturing, agriculture, software, etc. Not only do we lag behind in education for industrial occupations such as engineering, but those occupations and trades are looked down upon. It's a social problem as much as anything.
I would also reform immigration. Population growth fuels economic growth and vice versa. We are in a position to be more selective when it comes to immigration. We should become a "brain drain" instead of a welfare nanny to a failed, corrupt country.
Tax reform would be on the list too. The current tax system with loopholes for special interests has to go. We need to bring corporate taxes in line with other industrial nations to be competitive. The IRS and the income tax needs to go too. We need a simpler, more equitable tax system.
Our import taxes and trade policies should be like a mirror. If your country imposes heavy duties and restrictions on US made goods, then the US will do the same to you. Simple. Fuck the WTO if they don't like it.
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Utter nonsense. Manufacturing was sold out long before Bush, although he's culpable in that he didn't do zip to fix the situation.
Get you myopic head out of your ass and look up who granted China "Most Favored Nation" trading status, who signed NAFTA, and which party recieves the most money from the banking and insurance indistries.
Face it. Both parties have lost sight of who they serve. They are both corrupt. It's time to vote every incumbant candidate out of office.
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I live where the current crop of ass clowns come from. There will be no airing of ideas. You really don't understand the machine politics in Illinois and how utterly contemptable guys like Emanuel and Axelrod are.

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They stiil aren't spending.
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There is no evidence of that. In fact the outlook is for hyperinflation when the government just prints up more funny money to cover the spending.
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Paying off debt puts money back into the banks. The money belongs to the people that earn it. They are better equipped to decide how to spend it than Obama is.
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The unemployment figures don't bear that out. In fact the numbers are worse than Obama's own projection of what would happen had we done nothing.
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I didn't give him a free pass or did you foget that in your zeal to continue to blame him?
You also forget that Bush inherited a recession too along with the tech bubble and telecom collapse. Not to mention the terror attacks on 9-11.
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Again you'll need to cite where I claimed Bush didn't screw up the economy. Otherwise I have no idea where you are getting this from.

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TMT is a Leftard..and as such...MUST blame Bush for Obamassiahs fuckups.
Gunner

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Gomer is such a rightard that he has to blame all fuckups on Obama no matter who is responsible for them. He also holds Bush harmless for the trouble we're in now. Talk about an idiot!
Hawke

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Sounds like a Texan living in Cali Fornia

or about Sun, 03 May 2009 03:32:21 -0700 did write/type or cause to appear in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
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    Dang it, I keep telling you, Elvis is not dead! He just changed his name to Karl Rove. There was no George W. Bush, that's just a solid- light hologram run by Amy Carter.     Barak Obama is the Democrats response to what they thought Ronald Reagan was: an actor who looked good, remember his lines and tell good stories. Unfortunately Barak can't remember his lines and needs a teleprompter to keep him on script. But he does ;look Presidential. Just like President Warren T. Harding.
cheers pyotr - pyotr filipivich We will drink no whiskey before its nine. It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

or about Mon, 04 May 2009 15:47:07 -0700 did write/type or cause to appear in alt.machines.cnc the following:
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    Could be, but I'm not one to make character judgments based upon a man's skin tone.
    What I had in mind was the story that Harding was chosen to be run for President because he "looked" presidential. Which he did. Unfortunately, the Harding administration was marked by corruption, the most famous being the Teapot Dome Scandal, a case of someone selling off oil leases on what was the Strategic Oil Reserve of it's day. Yep, more corrupt politicos selling off Navy supplies for their own enrichment.
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- pyotr filipivich We will drink no whiskey before its nine. It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

Who is to blame??
1. the CEO's and board of directors. Many years of bad decisions.
2. the dealerships that sell the cars. Clueless salesmen and management that just wants to screw customers out of every dollar when they sell you a car and when you have it serviced.
Thank You, Randy
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On Wed, 6 May 2009 09:22:52 -0700 (PDT), Too_Many_Tools
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Partly true.....
we bought what they offered, no one would have bought a Hummer if GM did not spend billions on Hummer dealerships and manufacturing plants.
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They made the decision to put most of their eggs in the gas hog market, never thinking that oil might hit $150 a barrel and gas would be $4+ a gallon.
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Thank You, Randy
Remove 333 from email address to reply.

On Wed, 6 May 2009 09:22:52 -0700 (PDT), Too_Many_Tools
-------- see:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/06/AR2009050603365.html "Overall, the financial services sector has spent $3.5 billion lobbying Congress since 1998, it said. "
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/may2009/db2009056_060012.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_news+%2B+analysis "A new study argues that the major banks owned or heavily financed the leading subprime lenders at the peak of the market
By Theo Francis Data from millions of mortgages show the big financial institutions at the center of the financial crisis were major players in the housing-market abuses that precipitated it, a new report argues.
Mining federal lending data, the May 6 report from the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington watchdog group, concluded that nearly all of the top 25 subprime mortgage lenders, responsible for roughly $1 trillion in high-interest loans from 2005 through 2007, were owned or heavily financed by major Wall Street and commercial banks.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/gc06/idUKTRE5454J820090506 "The mega-banks that funded the subprime industry were not victims of an unforeseen financial collapse," said Bill Buzenberg of the Center for Public Integrity.
"These banks were deliberate enablers that bankrolled the type of lending that's now threatening the financial system."
Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and Bank of America (BAC.N) all backed New Century Financial Corp. which originated more than $75 billion in high-cost loans between 2005 and 2007, according to the non-partisan group. The center says it specializes in investigative journalism on issues of public concern.
In all, the Congress has cleared $700 billion in taxpayer money to help stabilize markets with Goldman and Morgan Stanley receiving $10 billion each while Bank of America got a $25 billion investment.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-subprime6-2009may06,0,6489207.story
Bailed-out banks enabled subprime lending, study contends Many getting bailouts fueled the subprime mortgage market centered in California, the Center for Public Integrity says. By Tom Hamburger and Ralph Vartabedian May 6, 2009 Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington -- The major banks now collecting federal bailout money were not unwitting victims of the mortgage meltdown but instead were directly linked to the root cause of the problem: a subprime lending machine concentrated in Southern California, a new study asserts.
The banks were "enablers that bankrolled the type of lending threatening the international financial system," according to the study being released today by the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based watchdog group.
The center collected data on the top two dozen subprime lenders in an effort to paint a comprehensive picture of how each major player was linked to the banking system.
"What happened to our largest financial institutions was very much a self-inflicted wound," said the center's executive director, Bill Buzenberg. "These banks owned many of the subprime lenders and financed their lending in order to get bundles of mortgage-backed securities that they could sell, reaping enormous profits."
The report noted that investment banks Lehman Bros., Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan and Citigroup "both owned and financed subprime lenders," and that others, including Goldman Sachs & Co. and Swiss bank Credit Suisse First Boston, were major financial backers of subprime lenders.
Chutzpah: One example given of the ultimate of chutzpah is: "A boy, having just been convicted of murdering his parents, begs the judge for leniency because he is an orphan." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chutzpah
Unka' George [George McDuffee] ------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

On Wed, 6 May 2009 18:23:42 -0700 (PDT), Too_Many_Tools
<snip>
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<snip> -------- At most you get half credit for this answer.
The American people wanted to buy what they made because of the greatest propaganda effort since Joseph Goebbels founded and ran the Reich Ministry for People's Enlightenment and Propaganda. http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goebmain.htm
Only the imports and later a few of the transplants ever advertised economy, durability, safety and long-term value. The Detroit mantra was "We Build Excitement."
Detroit wanted [and wants] to build huge high-power limited life vehicles with every conceivable option [and a few inconceivable ones as well] as this is where the most profit is. So these roll over... So these burst into flames...
Yes, Detroit built what we wanted, but only after they told us what we wanted, and sold most people on the ideal of perpetual automotive debt [as in 60 and 72 month financing], as F and I [finance and insurance] generates more profit than does the manufacture.
A major danger is that the governments at all levels now have a vested interest in keeping the new car grift going, what with the excise taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, etc. they collect from new car sales.
Unka' George [George McDuffee] ------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).