Washington to Detroit Loan Deal Done

It’s finally going to be a done deal for the Big Three in Detroit to get some bailout money to save millions of Automaker jobs. Believe it or not it was a loan deal worked out by the White House and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi! I’m still in shock that President Bush cleared his house shopping schedule to find a compromise deal with the Speaker of the House. Over at CBS News they have this to say on it…

CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier reports that significant progress came Friday night, when Democrats from both the House and Senate agreed to bail out the struggling General Motors, Chrysler and Ford with federal funds.

Several officials say the White House and congressional Democrats have agreed on $15 billion in loans, which is less than half of what the car chiefs were seeking.

They say the breakthrough came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bowed to a demand by President Bush that any aid come from a fund that had been intended to help Detroit produce more fuel-efficient cars.

Pelosi said the House would consider legislation next week to provide "short-term and limited assistance" to the U.S. auto industry. - CBS News

I have to say that I knew that this deal was going to come sooner or later. Matter of fact anyone that follows the automotive industry knew it too. GM, Ford, and Chrysler were going to get a bailout loan, it was just a question as to how much each would actually get that was an unknown fact. The federal government could not let the big three fail or go into bankruptcy because of the ripple effect it would eventually expose. You know that $700 billion they have in bailout cash for the banking industry, that bailout cash would have been just a drop in the bucket if Ford, GM, and Chrysler filed for bankruptcy.

I propose the following hypothetical scenario. All three automakers file bankruptcy protection. If you are a supplier to any of them then you do not get paid for any outstanding invoices and thus you can not keep paying your suppliers for continuing orders so your company is forced to file bankruptcy. Suppliers feel the pinch hard and can not pay their suppliers for raw materials so they are forced to file bankruptcy. And the cycle continues down the food chain. The layoffs from all of the suppliers to the Big Three would dwarf all of the layoffs from the Big Three. Lastly, not all of the suppliers are in Detroit.

I think it is fair to say that this bailout will save more jobs than the $700 billion in bailout cash that the banks received a free pass on. I believe it was the Steel Workers President that summed this controversy up best; “If you shower before work you get a bailout, if you shower after working all day, you don’t.”

In the long haul objective, steps are being taken in the right direction to put the brakes on the economies collapse. Baby steps, but they are still steps.

Papamoka

The Seven Houses of McCain

John McCain was asked how many houses he has and he had to defer the question to a staffer? The fact that the Senator from Arizona could not answer that question played right into the “Richer than God” playbook for his opponent from Illinois in pegging John McCain’s enormous wealth to the common people of America. John McCain can play the common man role well but the hundred plus million fortune and too many houses to keep track of fact blew his covert cover. Before all of you pundits get your hair riled up, most likely all of the houses are in his wife’s name but the simple ground rules are that she is the wife of John McCain and thus they share a common mega fortune. Oh, and seven plus houses if you count all the buildings on the McCain aka compound in Arizona.

Over at CBS News and You Tube they have this to say on the latest McCain outrage…

Video Link



I used to own just one house. I had an investment property during that ownership but sold it off during tough times. Umm, are these properties that the McCain family owns investment properties or just places to crash for the mega rich and wealthy? Take your private jet, to which McCain owns, and just drop in for a weekend? My investment property was a three decker in Worcester. We rented the apartments out for what the market could bare and with both of us working fulltime jobs we could not keep up with the needs of the investment. My WIFE and I sold it off a couple of years after we bought it for a small profit and that was the end of our real-estate investment speculation. I honestly don’t think John and Cindy McCain are renting out many of their properties so the fact of being a hundred millionaire is square on the lapels of Johnny the “Maverick” McCain.

Just don’t tell anyone that he has so many houses that he can’t keep track of them all. How he comes off telling people that the economy is sound when foreclosures are going through the roof, to which I have had real life experience with, tells anyone with a straight face that he is one of us is a freaking joke!

Then you have the fact that the top contender for John McCain’s Vice President choice is none other than a man with a fortune estimated at close to one half billion dollars? Financed his own campaign for President to the tune of over $45,000,000 and recently ate the debt aka donation from his own checking account. How many houses does Mitt Romney have? That would be something for the Main Stream Media to look into. Start with Utah and work east…

The only way John McCain would lose his home is if he lost the damn keys to the front door. His back up is six other homes to sleep in. What’s yours?

Other folks talking about this issue:

My hat’s off to Panama John McCain for having the guts to run for the highest office in the land despite being on the losing end of an unwinnable battle against gravity and mortality. Some shameful folks are insinuating this only proves the Distinguished Gentleman From Arizona Panama has lost his mind….

We’ll see how “funny” you all think it is when the day (God forbid) comes when YOU forget how many mansions, plush homes — whatever — YOU own. - Gun Toting Liberal

And of course Politico with their follow up post here...

Papamoka