Thread: Another Constitutional Crisis

Interesting that if you look at the history of our last hundred years you may not see things repeating word for word but you do see similarities. I lot of the thing that they are now saying about our current president and his administration, they also said about FDR. Let's just hope that their last years in office don't leave us lead down the same path.

If it were true that Obama were really breaking laws left right and center, then the Republicans who control Congress would be crowing about it left, right and center. If there were any real, substantive evidence of the kinds of pervasive lawlessness and unconstitutional behavior you write about, the Republican majority would already have charges of impeachment written and under active debate in their Judiciary committee at the least, if not under full consideration by the House or passed on to the Senate by now. We know that Republicans are not shy about using their power to impeach for even the most inconsequential violations of the law, and they've been using the full power of their various oversight committees to look for anything they might use for that at least since they've gained the majority, and many Republicans have been using the resources of their own offices to look since before even then. If there is one thing Republicans are united about right now, it's that they want to beat Obama, any way they can. If they had even a shred of some credible evidence they could do that with, they'd be doing it right now.

As for "stealing" GM and Chrysler, they bought their shares at better than fair market value, I believe, and extended several loans. If they hadn't, those companies would have gone bankrupt, their assets broken up and sold off, and there would be no new Chevys on the road today. They did, and as a result, GM and Chrysler were able to pay off the loans, buy back the stock and posted profits for the first time in years, and have plans to increase employment. Several tens of thousands of jobs were saved directly, and at least a million more indirectly. Would it have been better to let them go bankrupt, to let all those people lose their jobs, no matter how temporarily?

I don't care about your ideology. I don't care whether you believe that central planning is the most effective way to distribute resources or free market allocation is the most effective way. What I care about are results. GM and Chrysler being saved from bankruptcy, and all those jobs being saved, is a good thing. It's also a good thing that the investment groups and banks that manage American's IRAs and retirement investment accounts didn't have to swallow the 75-90% losses they were projecting as a result of no intervention in the crash and instead only managed to lose 30-50%. That's still a hell of a hit, but when the house of cards of speculative economic gambling finally crashes, American's private retirement accounts shouldn't bear the brunt of the losses, and without those interventions, that's what would have happened. And you can't really blame Obama for it anyway, because he wasn't even in office when the bank bailout passed. Bush signed off on that Law.

In terms of results, Presidents could do a lot worse than the real, tangible good done by FDR. People given jobs that had been out of work for years, parks, roads and buildings built, rural areas electrified. The elderly no longer dying in squallid poor-houses or camps on the outskirts of towns and cities or alleys inside those towns and cities. Kids vaccinated. Plus, he led the nation in beating the Nazis, so that's always good.

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

If it were true that Obama were really breaking laws left right and center, then the Republicans who control Congress would be crowing about it left, right and center. If there were any real, substantive evidence of the kinds of pervasive lawlessness and unconstitutional behavior you write about, the Republican majority would already have charges of impeachment written and under active debate in their Judiciary committee at the least, if not under full consideration by the House or passed on to the Senate by now. We know that Republicans are not shy about using their power to impeach for even the most inconsequential violations of the law, and they've been using the full power of their various oversight committees to look for anything they might use for that at least since they've gained the majority, and many Republicans have been using the resources of their own offices to look since before even then. If there is one thing Republicans are united about right now, it's that they want to beat Obama, any way they can. If they had even a shred of some credible evidence they could do that with, they'd be doing it right now.

As for "stealing" GM and Chrysler, they bought their shares at better than fair market value, I believe, and extended several loans. If they hadn't, those companies would have gone bankrupt, their assets broken up and sold off, and there would be no new Chevys on the road today. They did, and as a result, GM and Chrysler were able to pay off the loans, buy back the stock and posted profits for the first time in years, and have plans to increase employment. Several tens of thousands of jobs were saved directly, and at least a million more indirectly. Would it have been better to let them go bankrupt, to let all those people lose their jobs, no matter how temporarily?

I don't care about your ideology. I don't care whether you believe that central planning is the most effective way to distribute resources or free market allocation is the most effective way. What I care about are results. GM and Chrysler being saved from bankruptcy, and all those jobs being saved, is a good thing. It's also a good thing that the investment groups and banks that manage American's IRAs and retirement investment accounts didn't have to swallow the 75-90% losses they were projecting as a result of no intervention in the crash and instead only managed to lose 30-50%. That's still a hell of a hit, but when the house of cards of speculative economic gambling finally crashes, American's private retirement accounts shouldn't bear the brunt of the losses, and without those interventions, that's what would have happened. And you can't really blame Obama for it anyway, because he wasn't even in office when the bank bailout passed. Bush signed off on that Law.

In terms of results, Presidents could do a lot worse than the real, tangible good done by FDR. People given jobs that had been out of work for years, parks, roads and buildings built, rural areas electrified. The elderly no longer dying in squallid poor-houses or camps on the outskirts of towns and cities or alleys inside those towns and cities. Kids vaccinated. Plus, he led the nation in beating the Nazis, so that's always good.

They did complain about the appointments, and then did nothing. They did complain about the Czars, and then did nothing.

GM was owned by investors. GM had creditors. They were forced to take 10%. They had a right to liquidate or down size GM. They were blocked. Large blocks of shares were given to the UNIONS. You say you only care about results. That's the problem. Nobody cares about the LAW. Those creditors were cheated and the money was used to prop a company that should have been restructured. That's the way the market works.

Instead we have Government Motors making Electric Cars that no one wants and you and I are subsidizing those cars to the tune of $40,000 to $250,000 per car depending on who you believe. A crash causes them to catch on fire.

Yeah, the results are great.

The people those investors had hired to run GM and Chrysler asked the Government to do it. The law is created to achieve results. I care about the law, but my care for the law involves two priorities, first that it is effective and fair, and then that it is enforceable and followed. I never forget that the law is written by human beings with their own private motives and their own inherent limitations. And GM was restructured. That's what the government buyout allowed them to do. If you owned shares in GM and Chrysler prior to the government purchase, and still own them now, you have made money on your investment. As opposed to having lost it all in a bankruptcy. So I don't see where the theft is. The results I care about are direct and have an immediate impact on people's lives. I care about the machinists and car sales-men and parts-sellers who still have jobs. I care about retirement investments that have maintained their value because one of the assets they invested in did not fail. I care about the American made cars that are still being designed and put on the road. These are the direct, specific benefits to people's real lives that occurred as a result of the buyout. What direct, specific benefits would have occurred if we had done what you suggest, and allowed share prices to plummet to zero, real assets seized and sold off in bankruptcy court, factories, dealerships and parts suppliers closed? Who's gonna benefit from that, exactly how, and why do they deserve it?