VP Biden Visits Detroit Auto Show And Takes Credit For The Industry Come Back

009, your headlines leave ALOT to be desired in respectful "journalism", if that's what you call it.

Anyway, maybe you missed the following from the article:
"Ford CEO Alan Mulally has repeatedly said the entire U.S. auto sector could have collapsed if General Motors and Chrysler hadn’t received government bailouts"
"Mayor Mike Duggan praised Biden as the “fiercest advocate” for the auto industry in the White House in 2009. Half of President Barack Obama's key economic advisers were opposed to rescuing Chrysler in March 2009, but Obama ultimately agreed to extend support."


At least OTHERS will give credit where credit is due.

He took credit for the entire industry by bailing out only two.

There still is a large community of analysts that say if one had fallen the rest of the industry would have picked up the slack and the recovery would have been quicker.

Painful yes but self healing.

I don't think that's quite true 009. Maybe there are analysts in fringe economics who say that, but not in the mainstream. Ford wouldn't have wanted to see its competitors bailed out unless it was certain that their collapse would have brought down the industry.

c'mon now, we all know if Obama signs something into law, it automatically makes it bad.

...like when he implemented the Romney-Dole-Heritage-Foundation Care Act.

What an incendiary headline.

Next please

How about this for a headline: "Tax-Payers Go Deeper in Debt to Put US Auto Industry on Life-Support for a Few Years"

This isn't the first time, folks. Remember Chrysler at the previous bailouts? We did it again, going deeper in debt so that union workers can keep collecting their entitlements, and Detroit execs can continue to live in their mansions. Meanwhile, guys like Biden, the Federal Government, and others think they did a great job at "saving" the auto industry...by robbing Peter to pay Paul, as they say.

If a company can't run profitably, then it doesn't deserve to exist. That's capitalism. Communism ensured jobs for the proles, and only cares that quotas are met.

Biden is the funniest clown in politics.
UAW bailout more like it.
Chrysler is now owned by Fiat after all the taxpayer infused $$$ and investors/lenders were undercut.

Yes, the industry was in cardiac arrest and the billions of government dollars kept it from going flat line.

But the real reason the industry is back isn't because of the bailout. It's because ... for the first time in decades... the automakers are building GREAT products that the public is responding to in a big way.

It isn't rocket science.

i agree that the products have improved immensely. but what was the life support that allowed transitioned them to this point?

That's what they said about Chrysler after the first bailout. Lee Iacocca was credited for creating that Chrysler-revitalizing vehicle, the K-car. At the time, this was a widely held belief.

Save this thread for future reference so when Detroit goes bust yet again, you can come up with the reasons why you’re still right, and why bailouts were (and continue to be) a good idea.

If a building is on fire, we put out the fire.

We don't sit around and ponder the long term possibilities of whether another fire might occur some day while people are burning to death inside.

AFTER the fire is out, we reflect on how to prevent further fires. We make appropriate changes to building and fire codes.

This most recent bailout doesn't preclude us from future bailouts. But it saved millions from dying in a burning building.

It is infinitely more productive to contemplate how we as a society prevent future catastrophe. But anyone with even a Kindergarten understanding of economics, and the general world around them should understand that the solution doesn't start with standing by, and watching vital industry burn to the ground.

Legacy costs and artificially depressed gas prices led to the bailouts.

Let's focus future discussion on these aspects.

The government can have credit for the bailout. Like flipping a house.

All you RWers, the main thing that happened was the US Govt extended credit to the auto industry that the private banking industry REFUSED to provide them during the downturn caused by the housing collapse. The whole economy had nearly imploded at that point. Ford didn't need the credit b/c they had an existing agreement. Otherwise, they would have been in the same boat. And Ford's cars are still junky, as evidenced by very recent quality ratings. The point is, if credit hadn't been re-established, a HUGE portion of the roughly 2 million jobs tied to the auto industry. The lack of spending by all those people tied to the auto industry would have put this consumer spending-driven economy right in the toilet. Of course, it takes someone willing to look a little deeper than the Fox News headline and talking points to actually realize something like this.

Rather than post incendiary crap, constantly blaming Obama and the unions for capitalistic screwups, Crony capitalism? Yes, that's plainly evident throughout the banking industry... a bunch of self-serving leeches. Try a little journalistic integrity for a change.

Uncle Tom.

Biden is an IDIOT. Obama is an idiot. GM is far from "saved" by all accounts. Ford saved itself. Fiat saved Chrysler.

Econ101, US Auto industry was in decline for decades and the recession just accelerated the inevitable. Just like every other industry, companies come and go, and what remains is much better off. The parts that were worth saving would have survived and jobs would have moved to others that know what they are doing.

My bet Chrysler will return to long term decline within 5 years. Now that they are fully foreign owned, their loyal base will diminish with Fiat models failing to get sufficient market share. Dodge will be gone in 2 years.

The sooner Buick and GMC are put to pasture (US market) the better for GM.