FROM 2012 INTO 2013 POLITICS THREAD

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Sheesh, Cranberry, this is simple. You bring some very informative and credible information to the discussion, but you can't win this argument because it can't be won. Neither you, nor I, nor Romney, nor Joe Schmoe can KNOW what would have happened absent a government-led rescue. Romney could be wrong, but he could be right, too. We simply can't know it.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

For the win!

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Here it's instructive to look at his time at Bain, which offers the clue that a lot of top managers and the buyout firm would have made tons of cash and workers would have been left with nothing. He was, after all, proposing the exact kind of deal that made him famous.

It used to be PITY THE POOR BONDHOLDERS!!!!! (Where's Ragu?) Now it's that these bondholders would have gotten together to run an automotive company instead of sold it off as scrap for whatever cents they could get on the dollar. That goes against everything in corporate America the last two decades. But yeah, let's guess they would have done that.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

So if no private investors were willing to make such an investment, what does that tell us about the viability of such an investment?

I don't mind government intervention. I do find it a little silly to cry scoreboard on government intervention while ignoring the costs. There's always an opportunity cost.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

And even then, we need Romney to get re-elected so we can build the extra 10,000 square feet onto our 80,000 square-foot home. And you'll be fired if we can't do that.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

In the case of the auto bailout, $25 billion. That's a pretty low amount for the amount of carnage it prevented. And if private investors weren't interested, maybe it just says private investors were wrong. Or that they're operating in a system that values the next three months over the next 20 years.

But I don't think the general debate has been about the amount. I think the general debate has been about the principle. And "no government intervention" is an academic winner that doesn't always work in the real world.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Dick Cheney just laughed.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Got that from Kos, right?

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

I've never read a single word of his Web site. Never even been there.

You can either stay in the game or romp around with one-liners. You've been beaten so thoroughly on the "I won" critique that I suspect you're still looking for your mouthpiece.

There are lots of good arguments out there to make on the Koch Brothers' brand of nasty. The "how dare you!" tack ain't one of them.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Come on, that's a b.s. play. Their political adviser didn't use that word to describe their effort. He/she used that to describe the scene that was going to emerge if they got involved politically. There's a difference. It's as if someone said, "If you do this, it's going to get ugly" and you interpret that as "You doing this would be ugly."

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Yeah, I get it. Good philanthropists aren't your type.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Might be worth a thought to wonder if what David Koch gives to this

www.zimbio.com/pictures/Gw_yi4ATD99/New+York+City+Ballet+School+American+Ballet/4C8KKhNsDZH/Julia+Koch

makes up for this:

sierraclub.typepad.com/compass/2011/07/koch-brothers-tar-sands.html