Smith & Wesson lessons for GM

The Big “O” and Congress would do the entire country a big favor by taking an extended vacation, at least six months, from uttering or releasing any comments or policy for public consumption. This might assure that whatever said one day or week would not be countermanned when no thought of possible consequences had been considered regarding the original comment.

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The government may seek to ease General Motors into what it calls a
“controlled” bankruptcy, somewhere between a prepackaged bankruptcy and
court chaos, by persuading at least some creditors to agree to a plan
that would cleave the company into two pieces, The New York Times’s
Michael J. de la Merced and Jonathan D. Glater reported, citing people
briefed on the matter.

Instead of signing on every creditor as is typically required in
prepackaged deals, administration officials are using as leverage the
promise of taxpayer financing. The effort is a new role for the
government, which has not pushed companies into bankruptcy in the past
as much as it has stepped in when all else fails.

G.M.’s new chief executive, Fritz Henderson, also said that the
pressure from the government pushed the automaker closer to bankruptcy.
“By no later than June 1, if we’re not able to accomplish this outside
bankruptcy, we’ll be in bankruptcy,” he said at a news conference in
Detroit on Tuesday.

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Under intense political pressure, the board that sets accounting rules
in the United States will meet on Thursday to complete changes in
accounting rules that are aimed at reducing the losses banks have been
forced to report as the values of their mortgage-backed securities
crumbled

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A state judge in Connecticut has slapped a temporary asset freeze on
the managers of three large hedge funds that invested their clients’
money with Bernard L. Madoff, who has pleaded guilty to operating a
vast Ponzi scheme.

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Idearc, a publisher of yellow-page directories, filed for bankruptcy
reorganization on Tuesday and said it had reached a tentative agreement
with its main lenders to reduce its debt substantially.

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Remember “The Rat” – a giant Godzilla-like creature that stalked the Georgia TV-scape nearly 10 years ago? The monster – a guy in a rat suit – starred in the darnedest political commercial Georgia had ever seen. The rat gobbled up everything in sight. He even ate the Capitol. The year was 2002.

Georgia Democrats were aghast. Depicting Georgia’s then-governor, Roy E. Barnes, as a marauding rodent seemed, well, somehow disrespectful. Perhaps it was, but it worked. Sonny Perdue won the governor’s mansion and led the first Republican takeover of Georgia government since the end of Reconstruction.

GOP strategist Dan McLagan was responsible for the rat idea, which was equal parts comedy, tragedy and inspiration.

When gallant Republicans finally vanquished “Rat Roy” at the end of the commercial, a deep voice intoned:

“There’s a new day dawning in Georgia. The doors to the governor’s office will be flung open to the people. New ideas will be encouraged and rapidly implemented. Schools will flourish; traffic diminish. As businesses are unleashed to grow jobs, and, as Georgia recovers, new employers will flood the state.”

The rat lied, but the people believed him anyway. Unemployment skyrocketed and so did home foreclosures. Traffic didn’t diminish. It exploded. Developers went bankrupt. The state was caught up in the worst drought in centuries – a drought for which most governmental jurisdictions were totally unprepared.

Gov. Sonny Perdue, who went to China twice, has received much of the blame for the Decade of the Rat. Singling out Sonny may be unfair. A loser elephant in the White House and a mostly brain-dead congressional delegation contributed to our mess. Come to think of it, Mother Nature jumped in, too.

So here we are, near the end of the decade and political campaigns are revving up again. Dan McLagan, the father of the rat, reportedly is on his way back to Georgia to help Republicans, possibly gubernatorial contender Karen Handel.

McLagan is said to be traveling this way in the company of the rat. The rat’s Dr. Frankenstein badly needs a win.

In November, Democrat Kay Hagan of North Carolina whacked noted GOP incumbent Elizabeth Dole in the Senate election. McLagan, Sen. Dole’s chief adviser and hatchet man, claimed Hagan was godless when, in fact, she was Presbyterian. McLagan should have used the rat. The Presbyterian beat the socks off the Inquisition’s McLagan and his candidate.

In any event, the 2010 statewide elections ought to be dandy. My current GOP primary favorite for governor is Handel, if she doesn’t get carried away by McLagan and one of his oddball schemes.

Because ex-Gov. Roy Barnes is keeping mum on his plans, I’ll sit on my Democratic forecasts for a while.

The current era is not over ’til it’s over. Though the General Assembly gave big business everything it wanted this year, there’s still work to be done. The legislative session is supposed to adjourn at the end of the week. Don’t count on it.

The budget – even with a heavy dose of pep pills from the federal stimulus package – is still in dire straits, with deficits in Medicaid and other entitlement programs.

House leaders say a special session of the General Assembly almost certainly will be necessary to untangle the spending bills.

Perhaps House Speaker Glenn Richardson should call in McLagan and the rat for consultation. After all, the rat had the right answer back in 2002. He just promised the moon, and the suckers believed every word he squeaked.

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Grading Wooten: Today’s soup was Very Dry, with but a zest of Irony. What Wooten is saying here is that liberals feel entitled to always look for the union label, the zero-deductible health care policy, or the scientific theory in the classrooms. Wooten is asserting that liberals always look past the fish bumper sticker and only see the soccer ball, and base all their derision of the Right on the demoralizing concept of christian fifty-somethings going full spandex. Wooten is insisting that free government cheese cant ever be as good as Velveeta.

Where Wooten’s argument breaks down: His premis,e about a laize faire producing quality automobiles or sound companies, is bankrupt. Yes, it’s a form of circular logic, in that his conclusion, that laissez-faire is always a sound policy for our economy is in his premise, that any government interference is a catastrophe.

Wooten, you have consistently concealed your ability to advance a discussion without relying on false premises. You’ve perpetually presented unsound arguments.

Lets examine your career closer, Wooten: So you dreamed of someday getting away from the farm and being a writer, and you made it all the way to the AJC! Well, congratulations! Too bad you read to me like a pulp rube, with your ill chosen gerunds in overly-contradictory compound sentences complete with matching past participle decay and indirect object dangling. Do you think you can persuade me with your poorly-constructed tirades? Bookman tried to persuade me once, and I flamed his twitter with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Sszvffivfffivfivfivfiv!!

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I wish we had a Covernor like Sara, Sonny has been a disaster. Why is it that a man who does not have the will power to keep his zipper up gets the honor to speak at a major Republican meeting?

Sarah Palin continues to have a rocky post-election season in the nation’s capital.

Congressional Republicans are replacing their party’s former vice presidential nominee as the headliner of their big spring fundraising dinner with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich after the Alaska governor vacillated publicly about the appearance, sources familiar with the situation said Tuesday.

Gingrich, still popular with the conservative base, will be the keynote speaker for the annual Senate-House GOP dinner, which will be held on June 8 at the Washington Convention Center, hosted by National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (R-Texas) and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas).

Palin’s withdrawal is her latest public stumble since Election Day 2008 and the latest evidence of miscommunication between her Washington-based political action committee and her gubernatorial staff in Alaska. The decision by national Republicans to pull the plug on Palin — a significant draw — also reflects the GOP establishment’s growing unease with the Alaska governor.

“The Governor never confirmed her attendance at the event. She was honored to receive the invitation and asked to confirm her attendance at the end of the legislative session,” said Meghan Stapleton, a spokeswoman for SarahPAC. “Governor Palin is thrilled to hear that Newt Gingrich will address the audience as the governor continues to focus on Alaska.”

However, the fact that Palin was never completely confirmed as a speaker was precisely the problem, according to sources familiar with the deliberations about who would speak at the dinner.
Palin’s office was not immediately available for comment on the decision by the two committees.

Palin was never completely confirmed as a speaker — which was precisely the problem, according to sources familiar with the deliberations about who would speak at the dinner

The NRSC and the NRCC were under the distinct impression that Palin would headline the annual fundraising dinner. The committees went so far as to issue a joint press release trumpeting her appearance and national news outlets quickly noted her prime speaking engagement. Palin’s PAC indicated to the committees that she would attend.

But the governor’s office later said that it had not put the event on the schedule. Three people close to planning for the dinner said Palin’s aides proceeded to hem and haw about the appearance, both publicly and privately, leading the committees to decide to replace her because they were nearing a deadline to send invitations and other fundraising materials to their donors.

“After initially confirming her attendance, Governor Palin’s team informed the committees that her gubernatorial responsibilities in Alaska prevented her from committing until the end of the legislative session,” NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh said. “We completely understand and respect Governor Palin’s focus on her official state business.”

But the NRSC spokesman went out to point out that “there is obviously an enormous amount of planning that goes into this annual event. For that reason, we invited and are honored to have former Speaker Newt Gingrich join us as our speaker at the 2009 Senate-House Dinner.”

The dinner dust-up continues a now-familiar storyline for Palin. As POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin and Andy Barr reported Sunday, a seemingly unending series of public relations gaffes has Palin loyalists frustrated and worried she is diminishing her stature. And they are blaming an inner circle they say is composed of not-ready-for-primetime players.

Some of the previous incidents that have even pro-Palin Republicans fretting about the competence of the staff surrounding her:

* The infamous YouTube turkey video in November where, unbeknownst to Palin, live turkeys were slaughtered just behind her within the camera frame.

* A misfire involving the 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. There, Palin had been slated for months to appear only to back out shortly before the event, leaving bruised feelings among organizers who thought they had a firm commitment from Palin herself. A spokeswoman for Palin’s PAC contends the governor had never agreed to appear and that Palin’s camp was surprised when CPAC announced the governor would be speaking at the event.

* An interview with conservative filmmaker John Ziegler, who included Palin in his film, “Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted.” Comments by Palin about Caroline Kennedy and CBS News anchor Katie Couric contained in excerpts released by Ziegler generated tremendous controversy and prompted a Palin spokesman to blame Ziegler for blindsiding the governor.

But Ziegler told POLITICO that Palin had called him to express support in a nearly 30-minute telephone call.

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There’s a new self-help book called the, “The Ripple Effect”, about how a woman’s sex life can affect her career. The premise of the entire book is that a woman has sex for herself, and herself alone, and that any man will do, if she’s confident enough, that is, no man can make a woman feel sexy if she’s not already confident in her own sexuality.

Thank chick-movies and chick-books for the sexual revolution’s Phallic Phoenix. The entire chick-flick industry depends on sluts teaching other sluts how to be sluts. I love it! It’s still wide open out there, man! It’s raining sexually confident chicks, man! We must be in heaven man!!

Man’s best way in: STFU! Don’t say anything. There’s too many wrong answers with chicks. Just be there. Eye contact. Smiles. The occasional relevant or gently humorous comment. Hold hands. Touch shoulders. Smile. Eye contact.

Then just put your lips together and blow.

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To those Chevy fans on the school bus in south Georgia in the 1970s: HA! Ford won!

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I’ll ask any of you, if you had GM to run and you were from the government and could print money and make any law, what would YOU do with GM? It’s a pretty fun train set, if you have a taste for that kind of power.

Seriously, what would you do with it?

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Outside of fleet trucks like the Ford F-10, the top selling passenger cars in the United States have consistently been small and moderate sedans such as Toyota’s Camry and Corolla and Honda’s Civic and Accord. Not an SUV, as you drive, Mr. Wooten, nor a minivan, as I do, in the top ten. Your argument that “the Left” (and didn’t I see you inveighing against “liberals’” use of group terms to denigrate the opposing point of view? For shame!) has somehow schemed to snatch government control of General Motors in order to force the production of only small cars is specious. Small cars sell, even if they do not sell to you or to me.

General Motors has seen the trend toward small cars for decades, and has resisted it mightily. Management has ceded the small car market, but tried to use government sanctions and regulations to tilt the competitive field to favor large vehicles and disfavor foreign-made cars. Rivers of lobbying money has gone to protect anything made on a truck chassis (read: SUV) from inclusion in CAFE standards, to put off tightening those fuel economy levels despite the national importance of reducing oil dependency, to pass off ultimate pension and benefit responsibility to the taxpayer, to find exemptions, earmarks, special tax treatment and on and on. Rather than trying to produce cars that can compete in quality and price to the nationally-subsidized imports, GM has pursued a strategy of emphasizing larger vehicles that sell fewer units but realize a higher margin. They stubbornly held to this direction regardless of the market’s rejection, and have lost market share for more than a decade to producers of smaller cars.

That poor decision-making and stubborn insistence has left the company bankrupt, not amorphous machinations of “the Left”. Like you, I am uncomfortable with the government making direct decisions for private industry and would greatly have preferred allowing the market to prevail and both GM and Chrysler to either radically restructure or go under. However, the social cost of the loss of jobs, both for those primary companies and for their suppliers, has been deemed to be unacceptable. As a member of the recently laid off, I can understand the reluctance to put that many more families’ support at risk. However, taxpayer funding to private industry requires that those industries to change ‘business as usual’, since business as usual drove them into the ground. Since the existing management refused to make those changes, the government, on behalf of the taxpayer, must. A ghastly option, to be sure, but better than pouring more money into the hands of people who have consistently made bad decisions.

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Wooten make fun of Smith and Wesson for and the liberals for wanting gun safety and training. Talk about not wanting to be responsible or held responsible for any problems. His argument is like saying people boycott an auto dealer for advocating Driver’s training for teenagers. I mean we should just eliviate that pesky little background check thing too. If you support that then you should have your NRA card ripped up. Hell let everyone get guns and not train them. that would just be soooo much fun watching people getting robbed and killed because they didn’t understand there was a safety feature on the gun.

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Yeah, sure, Algonquin Roundtable. Capitalism is dead. Sure. And your least favorite president killed it. Sure. And everybody who disagrees with you should be gagged and “can’t criticize” your idiotic analysis.

You bloody fool, you’ve got the sun setting upon a nightmare. You are the Ted Bundy of mixed metaphors. Like we’re really going to listen to you.

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DJ do you even know the role of government in a capitalistic system? Government should not allow the market to fail and if they BELIEVE that something will cost that then they have to intervene. The talking head gets people on the right to believe that what is going on is over-reaching but it is the governments role to right the market because as you know the market does not always correct itself. by the way if capitalism was killed by OUR favorite president how do you explian the DOW yesterday?

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GM has 20 brands of which 11 are profitable. They are Silveradoes, Tahoes, Suburbans, etc. Why? Because it is impractical to put a family of four into a Prius or a Obozoveo and travel to Grandma’s up I-85 through four states.

I blame Wagoneer, the UAW bosses, and shareholders. The UAW average worker will lose and GM is one for the history books.

Right now the Hummer is the #1 selling vehicle in Iraq among those who are capable of buying them.

The Liberals are going to stick it into the throats of every worker in this nation. I feel for you. Seriously!

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And now it seems as PRZBO is making marketing decisions for the Big 2;

‘Obama tells GM/Dodge to pull out of NASCAR at the end of the 2009 season ‘

The man is a marketing Helen Keller.

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@ Jake

I really like what you wrote. I’m pro-union, myself, but I’ll tell you that one of the dirty secrets in my trade is that schoolteachers get paid not to work. Unions, good. Union-ISM, bad.

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BTW, I really appreciate the smart, sensible comments about the auto industry and what to do with it. The remarks make so much sense, and I think I’m learning a lot. Feels good. Feels hopeful.

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Huh, jt? You really think Obama’s Kim Jong Il, that he can dictat[e] that only one brand of vehicle? WTF?

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“YOU LOST. SHUT UP”. – Tomhere

Why don’t you MAKE US, prissypants libtard?

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One of the several weird things about this f@#ed up site is that if you want to complain about, for example, the spastic server or the mystifying censorship of controversial posts or the correspondent’s inability to set things in itallics or bold face, then you have to go to the Complaints Department, below, which is a hollow shell. It simply doesnt’ work. Posts mailed there don’t post.

The AJC is such a cynical cabbal of Sophomore interns assured that they know more than anybody and are moving the Nation toward a Bright New Dawn whether we know it or not. And yet they cannot perform the simplest tasks.

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Report: Social Security surplus gone by 2010
Higher unemployment is hurting the Social Security trust fund, which relies on contributions from workers. A Congressional Budget Office report predicts that the fund’s surplus will be eliminated by next year, 10 years ahead of previous projections. The drop-off means the U.S. has had to abandon the practice of borrowing from the fund and will now be forced to borrow from other countries.

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Do any of you understand that this blog is monitored, such that content displeasing of the newspaper’s management is culled out and killed? Do you in fact realize this? If you don’t–if you doubt me–then try it. Try posting whatever you think is the diametric opposite of the reigning libline, and just see what happens. You don’t care now, when those in control are singing your own sweet airs, but later, when things change…

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Ragnar, @@, & me: we’re all

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Well, I doh’t know the reason why Wooten is bringing up junk like Smith & Wesson to make his point. The things won’t hardly stop nothing. If you want to be the biggest and baddest in these parts you will buy a couple machine guns and a anti-tank weapon like I did. For hunting and self defense, you understand.

Anyhow, I’m mighty proud Ford will keep making the Ford F-450 pickup. Which is the closest thing to a Bradley tank you can get. Ford don’t need no guvmint handout. Us rednecks will keep the co. doing good for years to come. Let old fat people like Sister Dusty tool around in these toy cars.

But my buddy Jim Earl is a mite worryed. He bought a Silverado a couple years ago and it’s still in warranty. If something goes wrong with it does he just send the repair bill to Obama c/o of the White House if GM is in bankruptcy?

One thing’s for sure, if guvmint is in the car business anything they make will cost twice as much and start leaking oil and transmission fluid within a month. I sure wouldn’t want no guvmint bureaucrat looking under the hood and charging twice as much as a reglar mechanic and making me wait two years for a oil change.

The librul Democrats been in office less than three months and they already ruint the car business. If they take over the beer business I’ll have to find another job. It’s for sure I ain’t going to be a shiftless guvmint worker. I got pride, you know.

Have a good day everybody.

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HA HA HA……… Jim the Flip Flopper, who did say………“A clean bankruptcy would have been better for GM and for the nation.”….Now states………”Poor General Motors employees. Their company is likely to be the first victim of the government’s effort to pick industrial winners and losers.”

Hey Jim…… If say GM ran in the Black, and the company did the “Right Thing”….like make money and not loose money…….. you would be talking about what today ?

By Jim….time to go where the old horses go……Wake up smell the coffee……. I guess it is OK to bail them out selectively ?

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I get so tired of hearing how American Consumers do not want fuel efficient vehicles. Toyota and Honda have steadily been increasing their market share on the strength of these exact type of models. The truth is American manufacturers consistantly spent their R&D $’s on Trucks & SUVs. It shows in the quality of their products which are superior than that of their Japanese counterparts whithin that segment and the inferior quality in smaller vehicles. As a former non union GM employee I would gladly take the Pespi challenge against Toyota’s, Honda’s, and Nissan’s full size trucks & SUV’s, although competing against their smaller compact line was a different story altogether. I believe the UAW broke the back of the American manufacturers creating a legacy cost that forced GM, Ford, Chrysler and Dodge to continue building vehicles with higher profit margins to cover these costs. The Unions have acted like a spoiled child for too long and have now bitten off the hand that has fed them, rather well, for too long.

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The government will only sustain GM hopefully until they once again become a viable company.The following are anybody’s guess. How long will that take? Plus what will be the ultimate cost to the taxpayer?

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GM should have thought of this years ago when they were making crappy cars and paying to much for labor. Now they are making changes when they are in trouble. Sorry, it’s thier fault.

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Jim’s a doctor, dammit Churchill, not a journalist. And stop calling him bones.

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Leaving? Don’t let the door hit you on your rear-cleavage, Clyde.

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Dusty what makes you think I’m a Democrat.. I am a lifelong Republican.. too bad you don’t understand what a Republican is..

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No, no, wooten’s chickelenslops, one at a time and with spectacularly courageous anonymity, are driving this humiliating mess.

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chickenslops, I say. Dammit.

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[...] Jim Wooten on some Smith & Wesson lessons for GM. [...]

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