Bigger bust: Obama or the official car of his administration? Washington — General Motors plug-in electric Chevrolet Volt had its worst sales month since August, as negative publicity over fire risks hurt vehicles sales in January. GM sold just 603 Volts — above its sales in January 2011, but far below GM’s best-ever sales month
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Chevy Volt Sales Continue To Tank, Sells Only 603 In January…
The Republican Study Committee has a new ad out pointing out how long it’s been since we had a budget: As the RSC put it: January 24, 2012 marks the 1,000th day without a budget from Senate Democrats. The last time they passed a budget, you had never heard of the iPad. Tiger Woods was only known for his golfing abilities. General Motors had never declared bankruptcy. You had never heard of Swine flu. And the national debt was $4 trillion smaller than it is today. And, remember that this is solely the fault of the Democrats. They refused to pass a budget in the last Congress because they thought that it would hurt them in the 2010 elections. Then, once the House flipped back to the Republicans and the Democratic Senate majority was literally decimated, the Democrats in the Senate still refused to pass a budget. The Democratic party has willfully and deliberately abrogated its primary responsibility in Congress, and they must not be permitted to think that they may freely do so without even more dire electoral consequences than the ones that they have already suffered. They must not . Moe Lane ( crosspost )
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RSC: Budget hiatus older than the iPad.
Guess again. (Fox News) — Last year wasn’t a great one for General Motors’ first production plug-in range-extended electric car. Continued negative press — not to mention post-crash-test fires and production-line upgrades — conspired to produce first-year sales figures a little lower than GM had hoped. Does that mean the Chevrolet Volt is a sales flop?
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GM Denies Official Car Of The Obama Administration A Flop…
If I understand this right, Bain Capital profited from the creative destruction of capital. It went in, found the unappreciated or hidden value in companies, restructured and/or chopped up companies, and returned the valuable parts to health. It did it across the board. And if I understand it right, attacking Bain Capital or Mitt Romney for what Bain did is unacceptable as an attack on capitalism. Now, this bit may be a bit over broad as I suspect there are things Bain did that conservative might attack, including itself taking government money in the past. But that’s the gist, right? Bain participated in capitalism, revitalized defunct companies, spun off as needed, and from the ashes of creative destruction of capital made a profit, saved or created companies, and saved or created jobs therefore let’s not attack Romney for his time there. If I have that right (and I largely agree with it), I have a question. If Mitt Romney saw, knew, profited from and participated in the creative destructive of capital, why did he advocate the government passing the troubled asset relief program (“TARP”)? Why not let the creative destruction of capital solve the problem and potentially make a profit off it? It seems to me, considering his continued involvement with Bain, though indirect, Bain and other private equity groups and others in the private sector could have handled the messiness without government involving itself, deciding some were too big to fail, and now potentially setting up a scenario where people take undue risks thinking the government will do it all over again. And if the answer is that they are different functions or what have you, then is making the comparison between what Romney did with Bain and Obama did with General Motors a comparison that can hold water? One, after all, is a private company profiting from the creative destruction of capital. The other is the government taking over a business. Just a question.
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If I understand this right, I have a question
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here . Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.] That would be the same GM who got a $15 billion bailout: The United Auto Workers union won $5,000 signing bonuses for its workers and a promise to reopen an assembly plant in Tennessee as part of its tentative new contract with General Motors, according to people briefed on the negotiations. In what is being viewed as a landmark deal, the union also preserved health care and pensions and improved profit-sharing for its roughly 48,000 members who work at G.M. ( Source .) Mickey Kaus goes into detail about how this is bad optics for GM and his points are all valid, but I worry about what kind of unfair competitive advantage that our money is giving to GM over companies that didn’t take bailout money, like Ford. After all, companies are always in competition for the best workers, in part. Which might explain why Ford put out this ad featuring an allegedly spontaneous reaction of an allegedly ordinary purchaser, where he makes the case to buy a Ford because it was not bailed out. Whether it was a spontaneous reaction or a set up, however, Ford chose that one to put out as an ad, so it’s not exactly spontaneously going out to the people. Still whether it is a cynical message on Ford’s part or not, they have a point. The best way to prevent bailouts like this, essentially allowing for the nationalization of certain industries, is to intentionally support the private industries over the ones subsidized by the government. If you make it sufficiently bad business to receive a bailout, most companies will refuse to take one in the first place. Oh, and who is this John Galt guy I keep hearing about anyway? [Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
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Good News: We Just Gave GM’s UAW Employees a Signing Bonus!
