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ORIGINAL: celticlord2112

Why can't these CEOs come up with a cogent plan to restructure that provides some reasonable assurance all this money will be paid back? 

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CL, let's try asking the question a different way - how on earth did these brain-dead morons become CEOs?

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ORIGINAL: thishereboi

Maybe instead of asking the big 3 to come up with a plan for success, they should be going to the car companies that are actually successful. Ask their CEO how they do it. Just a thought.

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let's try asking the question a different way - how on earth did these brain-dead morons become CEOs?

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ORIGINAL: celticlord2112

Senate Told It May Take $75 to $125 Billion To Keep Big Three From Bankruptcy

Far from asking for way too much, it appears the Big Three may be guilty of the even more egregious sin of not asking for nearly enough.

Why can't these CEOs come up with a cogent plan to restructure that provides some reasonable assurance all this money will be paid back?  If they have, I sure haven't heard one--the general line seems to be "without this money we'll go bust and you don't dare risk that."  These aren't businesspeople looking for funding, they're junkies looking for their next fix.

I don't wish anyone to be on the unemployment line (ok, I can make an exception for Rick Wagoner and Ron Gettelfinger), but this blind-bailout nonsense is making the risk of allowing the Big Three to tank look an awful lot like the "safe" option.

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Now, he pontificates and you believe him?

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ORIGINAL: celticlord2112

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Now, he pontificates and you believe him?

To be honest, I am not certain I do or should believe him.
Agreed

However, the first time the Big Three went to Washington the price was $25Billion.  Next time around it was $34Billion.  That much is reported fact.

Agreed

Also factual is that Zandi stated his figure to Congress--accurate or not, it is a part of the testimony given on point.

Zandi is a crook. (but who on wall street is not.) Moyers interviewed 2 of his ratings experts.  To change a bundle of C---mortages to A+++ securities costs $750,000. He was one of the watchers of the gate and only watched out for his own wallet.

Regardless of Zandi's credentials or credibility (do any of the presumed "experts" really have much credibility left?), what concerns me most is not the number, but that no one--NO ONE--has anything to give any certainty to any number.

There are no experts.

These aren't bailouts; this is shoveling money in hopes that enough money will fix the "problem".  Worse, Congress seems on board with the concept, with nary a thought given to where the money is going, how it is being spent, and if in fact it is doing anything good.

Agreed.

If you or anyone can point to a clearly articulated business plan put forward by any of the Big Three (or the UAW), I would love to read it.  Hell, I'd feel better just knowing it exists, because, so far as I am aware, it doesn't.  And that is reason enough to deny them even one dime from the public trough.

The most conservative paper I know, the GR Press (backed McCain and Cliford Taylor. I can see McCain but Taylor!) said in a front page editorial (without citations) that there is no lending available for Chapter 11.  However, I do not accept their conclusion that there has to be a bailout.  But then again I know less every day.

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Maybe you know the answer to the following questions because I don't:

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Lehman made sense to me, because that is what should happen in the marketplace--you plays the game, you takes your chances, and the losers suffer the consequences.  AIG, and everything since then, however, seems to pervert that rationale--now it's play the game but there's no real risk because Uncle Sam is cosigning on everything.

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ORIGINAL: DarkSteven

CL, let's try asking the question a different way - how on earth did these brain-dead morons become CEOs?

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

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Lehman made sense to me, because that is what should happen in the marketplace--you plays the game, you takes your chances, and the losers suffer the consequences.  AIG, and everything since then, however, seems to pervert that rationale--now it's play the game but there's no real risk because Uncle Sam is cosigning on everything.

Actually, aside from the amazing cost of all this and the apparent lack of any cogent approach beyond doing something for the sake of doing something, this bothers me the most.

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ORIGINAL: celticlord2112

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Maybe you know the answer to the following questions because I don't:

Excellent questions all.  I wish I did have the answers, but I don't.

The handling of the Bear Stearns collapse I could fathom, because, based on what I read, it did seem there was a reasonable prospect that the government might actually turn a profit on the deal.  As initially presented, TARP sounded like a re-incarnation of RTC, which dealt with the savings-and-loan crisis of the 80s--and if one must have government intervention to cushion the financial impact of such a crisis, that seems to have been one of the more benign (or perhaps merely less malignant) examples in recent memory.  It has metastasized into something that seems bereft of reason or any critical thinking at all (we don't want to slam banks needing a hand so every bank has to accept some federal funds to allow the troubled ones to save face???????)

Lehman made sense to me, because that is what should happen in the marketplace--you plays the game, you takes your chances, and the losers suffer the consequences.  AIG, and everything since then, however, seems to pervert that rationale--now it's play the game but there's no real risk because Uncle Sam is cosigning on everything.

Rarely does doing nothing prove to be preferable over doing anything.  Based on the lack of anything resembling comprehension about either the nature or the magnitude of these crises, this may be one of those rare instances when doing nothing is exactly what should be done.

America to Congress:  "Don't just do something.  Stand there!"

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Although my neurotic side still has me thinking that Lehman was allowed in part to go under because Paulson was once an officer at Goldman; Lehman's competition.

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Agree.  (Although my neurotic side still has me thinking  that Lehman  was allowed  in part to go under because Paulson was once an officer at Goldman; Lehman's competition.  But, then again I am neurotic.)

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also, watch out for this: "since we've already put so much money into the auto industry, we have to keep putting money into the auto industry else we'd have wasted all that original money."

you'll hear that within six months.

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ORIGINAL: celticlord2112

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also, watch out for this: "since we've already put so much money into the auto industry, we have to keep putting money into the auto industry else we'd have wasted all that original money."

you'll hear that within six months.

I sincerely hope you are wrong.

If we do hear that logic, I hope everyone (at least everyone here) remembers the fundamental economic principle that sunk costs are gone, and that throwing good money after bad is the height of economic irrationality.