Comments on: Romney continues his flip flops on auto industry bailout

By: adawakeman42

adawakeman42 — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 05:00:35 +0000

Great article! Wonderful job! Thank you!

By: ebrayton

ebrayton — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 11:38:35 +0000

Um. The companies DID reorganize under the protection of the bankruptcy laws. We did follow his advice. Where he was wrong, and you are too, is in thinking that such reorganization could have been done without government financing. There was no chance that GM and Chrysler were going to be able to secure debtor-in-possession financing in the credit markets. No government loans, no managed bankruptcy, plain and simple.

By: ebrayton

ebrayton — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 11:36:44 +0000

So if he disagrees so much with what the Obama administration did, and thinks all Obama did was make sure the companies could avoid the tough decisions that they needed to make, why is he now saying that he's so optimistic about the future of those companies? Both GM and Chrysler DID reduce their costs enormously in the managed bankruptcy. They are now in a position to break even at a far lower rate of domestic auto sales than before. But there was no way they were ever going to survive any bankruptcy without government financing, no matter who was in the White House. There was no way either company was going to be able to secure the financing to go through the bankruptcy on the open market given the tight credit conditions. A bankruptcy without those government funds would have meant the liquidation of both companies — and still would have cost taxpayers at least as much as was loaned to the two companies because of the 3 million lost jobs and the government having to take over the pension systems for both companies (not to mention the further damage it would have done to property values due to a vastly increased number of foreclosures).

By: ebrayton

ebrayton — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 06:38:35 +0000

By: ebrayton

ebrayton — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 06:36:44 +0000

By: BillZ5

BillZ5 — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:52:23 +0000

Mitt has been pretty consistent on the auto industry. When he campaigned for president, he specifically said there should be no bailout. Instead, he called for increasing the nation's investment in technology research, which would benefit the Big 3. He was also way ahead of everyone else in late 2008 when he said the auto companies should be reorganized under the protection of the bankruptcy laws. If we had followed his advice then, taxpayers would have saved $50 billion that was wasted in propping up a failing enterprise.

By: dnlchisholm

dnlchisholm — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:14:55 +0000

Mitt isn't flip flopping at all. If you take all of Mitt's comments on the auto industry in context, you'll realize that Mitt hasn't changed at all. Back during the republican primary in Michigan in 2008, Mitt was complaining about the ridiculous regulations that Washington had put on the Big three that reduced their competitiveness. Then, in his piece on the auto bailouts, the NYTimes created the headline that got so much attention. If you read the article, Mitt actually wanted GM and Chrysler to use the opportunity to reduce duplications and inefficiencies and excess costs which they would've had the government let them. Instead, they avoided a lot of tough bu necessary decisions because the government bailout enabled them to. Ford not taking the bailout was the best thing that ever happened to them.