Need gas guzzlers to make a profit, they say-
What part of meltdown don’t these people get? They live in a dreamworld not unlike George W. Bush. Then too they are living off a government bailout, and yet they want to build gas guzzlers to make a profit. The price of gas will stay low only as long as the recession remains deep. Tell them “no,” and outlaw the production of gas guzzlers unless the buyers demonstrate a need or pay a heavy tax.
Detroit Calls Emissions Proposals Too Strict. New York Times.
In a related matter, Citibank wanted to buy a luxurious $50-million corporate jet after getting a $45-billion bailout from the government. The President stopped it.
Obama Officials Tell Citibank To Ditch Plans For $50 Million Private Jet. Huffington Post
For 2008, Wall Street gave out 18.4 billion dollars in bonuses, rewarding the worst performance in about 70 years.
Study Says 80% Of Wall Street Got 2008 Bonus. Maurna Desmond. Forbes.
The stimulus package passed the House today without a single Republican vote despite President Obama’s wining and dining the GOP and its stable of MSM columnists. I think there is going to be growing pressure for the President to move to left. That’s what FDR did after first trying to cooperate with basically the same group of interests.
Note that Idaho’s new Democratic Republican congressman, Walt Minnick, was one of 12 nominal Democrats voting against the stimulus.
Comments
From the Times story on emissions, David Doniger, climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council mounts a strong defense of tougher emission standards…or something:
Have you heard? Conservation is the hottest new fad!
Were the NRDC media people out of the office today?
The German automobile lobby moans the CO2 emission values prescribed by the European Union for the coming years are too high – especially in the light of the present economic situation, with sales having dropped by 18% over the last month. And, yes of course, they need government support to finance the development of new efficient models! Thus I claim that our cars here (even the heavy pickups and SUVs) are already far more efficient than their US counterparts, I also ask, where have their innovative high-tech development brain storm centers been the last years? Busy with other things than fuel efficiency! One example from the high end of the market: Audi became one of the forerunners for car aerodynamics, lightweight construction and fuel efficiency with and after the energy crisis of 1972 and 1979. Shortly afterwards the brand slowly but steadily developed a full range of large, sometimes even – at least by Europeans standards – monstrous models in the heavy high-performance, high-tech niche, totally disregarding fuel efficiency aspects.
This is an obvious example of how the corporate model of late and one of their strategies that plays the “fear card” work. By insiting that some necessary change or mild form of restructuring for the common good is too expensive and, therefore, not feasible due to their obscene profit margins~overtly indicating greed~they are able to “skate” for decades while the rest of us, beyond just human life-forms, suffer from their greed. This is the business world party line routine to keep trashing the environment by way of an administration that does their bidding for comfort, and a Congress who let’s them get away with it through gutted regulations designed to protect us from those very practices. All the polluters and their enablers have to do is complain about the monetary cost and they are given license to carry on which would contribute to the continuum and nothing would change. It’s all about the $$ and nothing more, if they have to pay for it, it can’t be done.
Look at the obstructionists in the House just yesterday, look at who they are and whom they actually represent. Either their individual citizen constituency demands that they change or this crap will go on indefinitely. The “kill Bill” ~as in Clinton~machine is refueled and wasting no time embarking on the campaign.
Interesting observation, Salle. By bringing back so many of the Clintonites into his Administration, Obama may have inadvertently breathed new life in the Blame It on Bill strategy that did produce results for the Republs at times, but mainly served as red meat for their own loyalists.
Bob Herbert of the NYTimes had a great op-ed piece earlier in the week; worth accessing the webpage and finding. Basically, he says Republicans are useless, clueless, and should be disregarded as obstructionists only so long as they continue to call for failed economic approaches like TAX CUTS, CORPORATE WELFARE. I think it is a wise strategy for Obama to get rid of the partisan politic mantle, but look what happened after he agreed to yank the family fund planning, put in tax cuts..Not one Republican voted for it.
Devise the bill you want, Obama, and get it passed. Repubs are just going to continue to be more polarizing as they see their messages rejected. Maybe someday moderate Republicans like Chaffee and Jim Jeffords can be the meaningful voice in a party whose symbolic leader now is Rush Limbaugh who wishes our President “to fail” miserably. A buffoon with a microphone, and this is the defacto leader of the Republicans. Sad.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/opinion/27herbert.html
Here is the link to Bob Herberts piece on Tuesday….Enjoy
You know, JimT, while I was reading that article, which caught my eye the day it was published but I didn’t get to it in the pile, it also occurred to me that all the media hype about the fake CBO report and Obama’s comment of “…I won.” were part of the plan. Nobody was covering what the Rep’s had to offer with scrutiny ~ if they even mentioned that part ~ but they were all over the response like stink on feces.
And lest we forget that the likes of Gingrich and Rove are still lurking in the shadows about the capital acting as a huddle of dark parking lot coaches…
The pattern has already presented itself, the arrogance is evident, I hope that the practice backfires in their faces. If the banks and all hose wealthy folks don’t start putting up their fair share, they may find that the rest of us are so conditioned to having nothing that we decide we can live better without them and do so… stop feeding the beast so to speak. I hope that the recovery plan is a big win for the nonwealthy, that would be most of us, and the deniers are exposed for what they are.
I guess I’ll just offer a devil’s advocacy on this:
1) Obama has NO plan in place to pay for this bailout. I’ve heard some economists are calling to increase inflation… If that’s his goal, he’ll achieve it by printing even more money than GW.
2) There is no “Stimulus” in this package. Sure, there is money going to the states to help them keep their staff, but no direct controls over the state spending.
3) There’s a whole lot of fluff in this bill, which Obama campaigned on abolishing from Washington. Instead, he’s trying to tell people that 300M worth of condoms or 1B worth of alimony chasing is “Stimulus”. These were the objections of the Republicans to the bill.
4) The last bailout didn’t work either. Throwing money at this problem isn’t going to save us. The wall street and car industry articles merely prove that American businesses haven’t learned their lessons yet. If they “need” the profit margins, why did they post record losses with them in place??
5) A lot of economists believe the recession we’re in has more to do with the deregulation that began with CLINTON, so I challenge the whole premise of the Op-ed. There’s plenty of evidence that gov’t is a bad way to dole out money. So cutting taxes rather than printing money might not be a bad way to address this situation.
God Bless Mr. Obama for nixing the Citibank jet bought with my exorbitant credit card interest (and for insult- my tax dollars). But we should have let them fall in the first place and set up a government lender for the little guys rather than a corporate soup kitchen. It’s not a Republican idea to socialize banks… fairly moderate in fact. But it failed.
I have a lot of optimism for Obama’s presidency. But I’m not impressed with this bill. I think everybody should step back from the whole “my side is better than your side” approach and embrace INDEPENDENT thinking that cuts the crap out of our politics. It exists on both sides, and the sickness and collapse begins THERE.
David, being critical of Obama does not make you a devils advocate it makes you the devil himself 😉
HEHE. Good point Tim. I’ve often been called the only environmentalist conservative anyone knows here in CT. But agree or disagree on political philosophy, I have respect for Obama as a man of integrity. Let’s see how long it lasts! 😉