Comments about ‘Showdown looming in Congress of automaker rescue’

Richard Shelby is from Alabama which has more Non "big three" manufacturing plants than any other state, but he is right. the "big three are dinsaurs that are incapable of modernizing anything. They build garbage, and don't seem to care. Let them die.

Put another nail in the Republican party coffin...........go ahead.

We can help the Chinese build a few auto plants and give them some tax breaks to help with sales.

Those Chinese Capitalists need some help from the Republican party in stabilizing their economy thru opening new markets.

Ms. Polosi:

I doesn't matter how much money the Congress pours into Detroit if the public won't buy their substandard product. Duh!

You don't vote for us REPUBLICANS, we don't vote for you WORKERS.

WORKERS won't forget that REPUBLICAN MANTRA.

Michigan and Ohio are battlefield states. Once automakers fail so do the companies automakers buy from. There will be fewer airbags needed. This is a mere 32 billion dollars. We get a massive infusion of Americans without jobs or health care. Whose going to pay for unemployment and ER visits? If all these Americans aren't working, they are shopping and purchasing. More jobs are cost. Government costs rise as tax revenues plummet. We could hit 20% unemployment by next summer.

You know what would happen if the big three go down. Either they will declare chapter 11 bankruptcy and reorganize and renegotiate contracts or....other companies will come in, pick up the assets, do it right and make a success of it. This bailout is nothing more than a bailout of the unions. The companies have caved into unreasonable contracts in which some individuals, who don't even do any work, are being paid.

The autoworkers' unions are appealing to the Democrats to come in and save them from having to agree to some more reasonable terms.

The time has come for these companies to learn to compete and become better managers. The time has also come for unions to be more reasonable and more productive.

I applaud those senators who oppose this bailout. If the Democrats bail these guys out, it will dog them for decades. It's a really stupid thing to do.

Why should we continue to support automakers who continue to make defective, expensive, and designed-to-immediately obsolesce gashogs? They have not responded well to the demands for higher mileage, and have shown a tendency to even hinder the production of models that use less fuel.

Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, puts his distaste for Democratic calls to bailout Detroit in blunt terms. The financial straits that the Big Three find themselves is not the product of our current economic downturn, but instead is the legacy of the uncompetitive structure of its manufacturing and labor force. The financial situation facing the Big Three is not a national problem, but their problem. I do not support the use of U.S taxpayer dollars to reward the mismanagement of Detroit-based auto manufacturers in such a way that allows them to continue and compound their ongoing mistakes. Such opposition in the Senate could prove fatal since any senator can put a hold on legislation they do not support, and any bill needs 60 votes to overcome the cloture hurdle.

I agree with metric wrench. We get a better product from Toyota and Honda. These manufacturers can pick up the slack because they will sell more vehicles.

There are planty of other manufacturers that will be there to pick up the slack and none are fom China. The Chinese aren't ready to compete in this market yet. Honda, Toyota, Nissan, BMW and others are already here building cars in the U.S. and they can take up the slack after the sloppy three go away. Don't beleive all the hype about mass economic collapse in their absence.

It would be a lot cheaper in the long run to just give the $50 billion to the workers who will lose their jobs than continue to allow these cash burning companies to continue to exist and burden the taxpayers with their subsidy demands indefinitely.

Buy some Korean, Japanese or German Cars.....even built in the good ole USA........American workers can line the pockets of the Foreign owners while working for subsistance wages.
We have the Saturn being built by GM on the Toyota business and manufacturing model by US workers........count the Saturns on the road.
Supposedly we told Detroit we wanted SUV's.....they built the guzzlers. Now we want 35mpg let them build the cars.
Buy the darned product. As far as the Chinese.....before the collapse they had plans and were shopping for a building site....don't know if those plans have changed.
Darn it DEMAND AMERICAN MADE.....plain and simple.

Ok 12:50 pm says "Darn it DEMAND AMERICAN MADE.....plain and simple." My Ford F250 was made in Canada, and my Subaru Legacy was made in Indiana, so what are you talking about? Buy a Ford Fusion made in Mexico, or a Honda Accord made in Ohio. That Accord is designed by Americans for Americans and built by Americans, including the engine. Waving a flag doesn't sell cars, especially when the cars are junk and aren't even built under the flag that is being waved.

Rewarding failure- especially that of management and no longer feasible union contracts- is unsustainable.

The management may do better. (They really could if Congress would lift ALL themandates and requriements placed on them!) The Unions will NEVER, EVER accept a reduction in what they have gotten, and the companies as a reuslt must either fail or be subsidized forever.

We cannot print enough oney to sustain every failed business.

What about the por buggy whip makers?
And the asbestoes manufacturing companies?

NO MORE BAILOUTS!!!!

That is exactly what I am talking about....research where the cars are built and buy american.
If you need a product look at American products first...... Buy a Subaru built in the USA but if you must but in every Ford consumer survey check the box that says you will buy an American made ford......they just might build it.
It is hard to find American made cloths in a Walmart....but American Samoa makes inexpensive textile products.
Pay a buck more for a pair of pants made here....yes they are hard to find but they are there.
Buy local first.....tell the merchant to stock American products and then buy what the person stocks.
Harley is made in the USA.....with many foreign parts. Buy Harley first but gripe about the foreign content.
No every product can not be replaced but a bit of research will help discover the American brands and buy the stuff with the highest percentage of US content.
I drive a Nissan made in Tennessee by Americans.....I'm not perfect but I would have bought a small truck from an American company at the same price if it had been available.

Govt is not in the business of being the bank for failed business....The only reason Obamacrats want to bailout Auto industry is to bailout the UAW, a union that has crippled the auto industry....you will be paying taxes for 50 years to pay for their contracts....get a clue....let them fail! BANKRUPTCY COULD HELP THEM TURN THEMSELVES AROUND....IF NOT SOMEONE WHO CAN BUILD COMPETITIVE AUTOS WILL REPLACE THEM!

We have folks from the party whose believers told us Bush would bring about smaller government and a balanced budget eight years ago expressing the vast knowlege. Like all you're mantas, they sound appealing. I have seen too many times were your logic fails miserably at seeing the complexity of issues.

You can punish some American workers that earn more than the substandard wages Utahans are accustomed to earning. Union workers have accepted wage and benefit cuts. You forgot. Your satisfaction will be on the wane, when other companies start falling like dominoes after the Automaker fail.

Did Rush or Fox bring up the Chrysler bailout: the government bailout that saved Chrysler and the government made money from? Fox is too balanced?

In a perfect economic you may be correct. In an economy, where Toyota and Honda's sells have plummeted this disruption will be much more drastic than you think. We are creating the perfect storm here.

The figure, I read, was 20,000 dealerships. That will help the commerical real estate market. Do Utahans still make airbags?

I've lost faith in anything republicans expound.

At this point who really knows. I must say though, the banks have added to the problem of car sales. They have tightened belts so tight that if you don't have a 700+ credit score, good luck getting a decent loan. People do need to realize though that there are GM sales lots, Ford and Chrysler. If the other makers don't step up and make up for the loss of the Big 3, what happens to those that sell cars for a living? The auto techs? The support staff? Someone has to be willing to step up and provide for them when we let the industry fail.

You aren't doing workers a favor by paying them substandard wages and crying because you have to provide health insurance.
Look at Detroit pay...compare it with the cost of living in Detroit....
Look people we are americans and before we help every other country pay their bills we need to help our own.
Rather than looking at the American Auto worker as some overpaid thief and try to take from him why not strive for all workers to rise to a better level.
Trickle up for all of us.
Reagan whined about the overpaid auto worker and said they were what was wrong with America.....rather than gripe about $20 bucks an hour a decent retirement and health care why not strive for those things ourselves.
Rather than invite foreign workers to this country and pay cheap labor pay Americans well enough to do the job.
We have no health care......wages are stagnant.....40% of our manufacturing base went overseas where foreign companies built products then built their lower paying factories here.
The top 1% took the profits and invested in China........China looks after its own.......how about looking after ourselves.
Spend our dollars on Americans. Build up America.

Let me see, the government wants to bail out a company that produces a product that requires gasoline to run but doesn't want to produce gasoline to run the product, or wants it at $5 per gallon so we won't use the product very much. You expect me to spend $30,000 or $40,000 on a product that I'm going to park in my driveway and only drive on Sundays because gasoline is $5 per gallon? I thought you Democrats wanted fewer cars on the road! I thought you would want them to fail so we could all walk or bike to work?!? There won't be any reasonable priced gasoline available to pump into the dang things.