Countdown: Michael Moore on the Auto Bailout - 'We're Gonna Own Your Ass'

[Hissyspit]

Run time: 00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNGdgx7Z6Zc   Posted on YouTube: December 04, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: December 04, 2008 By DU Member: Hissyspit Views on DU: 5053

 
MSNBC Countdown w/ KEITH OLBERMANN - Dec. 3, 2008: Keith talks to Michael Moore about the proposed bailout of the auto industry and how it should be handled.

More on Mike's plan to save the Big 3 at http://www.michaelmoore.com

[Fridays Child]

1. Moore is dead on.

I only hope that Obama's new economic team was tuned in to Keith, tonight.

[Bushknew]

2. Michael Moore has too much common sense for Washington.

Handing that money to those CEO’s is assbackwards.

[donco6]

3. That convinced me: No Bailout . . . BUYOUT.

We can sink 3 billion into the stocks of those companies and become the major shareholders.

[harun]

38. Yep, spend 3 billion and own their ass.

[Libertas1776]

4. Moore is right on the money...

and GM and the other automakers should rebuild the mass transit system in this country that they helped to destroy. Streetcar lines and railroads once crisscrossed this country, they were the main sources of transportation. In the late 30s and 40s, companies like GM purchased Streetcar lines across the nation, let them fall into disrepair and paved the way for their GM gas powered buses and cars by the 50s and 60s.
BRING BACK THE STREETCARS AND LIGHT RAIL!

[hendo]

7. the american spirit

of not wanting to be tied down to public transportation, of being able to go wherever we want whenever we want is what killed public transportation.

[SemperEadem]

25. that's not necessarily true

it was the bill of goods sold to the american public about their need to go wherever and whenever. Once they convinced the public that this is what they wanted, the public then fell into line and GM made obscene profit from it.

[proud progressive]

28. FORGET IT!

we have become the most paranoid, selfish people on earth. ride with other strangers? nooooooo!!!!
care about the environment? not if it means giving up anything. give up our fatburgers? ha!!!

take public transportation when i can just jump in my car w/ my ac, my leather seats, my power-everything, my gps that tells me what i already know, my cell-phone, my 5 million watt cd player?PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION? forget it!

[hendo]

34. Exactly NT

[Sherman A1]

12. Precisely

I thought I was the only here that was old enough to remember the streetcars!


:hi:

[SemperEadem]

24. I remember them

a line ran behind my house.

I think Moore is right on track.

[populistdriven]

5. DIGG it here!

http://digg.com/business_finance/Michael_Moore_to_Big_3

[54anickel]

29. Only 14 Diggs? Come on! n/t

[hendo]

6. The big 3 have three major problems

1) they make cars that no one is wants, which MM correctly addressed

2) they blame their current position on labor dollars rather than the massive amounts of finished goods inventory that they have on hand.

3) they want more money than their companies are even worth (again MM pointed that out)


The big 3 need to push for vertical integration of their processes. Suppliers should be on-site like they are in the new Ford plant in Brazil. They need to streamline their processes so that they can respond to actual customer demand in a timely fashion. Only then can they run an effective business and not have to carry hundreds of millions of dollars worth of inventory. Hundred of millions of dollars of cars that people don't is just waste.

[ksimons]

8. Lexus vs Jaguar

I remember when Lexus was formed from Toyota - to go on to become the highest quality, best rated luxury car in the market. It cost them 400 million dollars to develop the company at the time. Whereas Ford went and bought Jaguar for 2 billion dollars and thought that was a better way to get into the high end luxury market. Ultimate FAIL

The greed, lack of integrity and basic disconnect ALL the heads of the auto companies possess is what killed the auto industry, with the not-so-tacit permission of their regional Senate and Congressional colleagues who gave them plenty of rope to hang themselves.

To throw ANY billions-of-dollars after bad money without rethinking the entire industry would be a complete error. I hope they nationalize the companies and kick the entire top 15 percent of the executives out and replace them with returning Iraq military officers. They'd do a million times better job, be loyal to their mission, and know when and how to get things moving again. Leadership does not take the practical 'know how' of the business - that is done by the engineers, the designers, the people on the line. Leadership is about properly managing ANY company, no matter what the product.

Let's take this thing over and do it right!

[RyanEb]

9. Amen

Amen

[Rhiannon12866]

10. K&R. Michael Moore's got it...

Too bad nobody's listening, except for us...:-(

[drm604]

11. K&R

We should own their asses.

[MzYvonne]

13. Well Alright Michael Moore

They can file for bankruptcy. The government can bailout the workers and retirees

[OwnedByFerrets]

17. Did you even watch the vid??

[applejuice]

14. I just pray that they have the balls to do something big like this.

My head tells me no they won't, but my heart as a little hope.

Moore is totally right in my opinion. I have been saying to hubby "Why the HELL would they give them all that money!?" It's almost like a sick joke. Just go look around the rustbelt - they don't give a flying f*&^% about the "American Workers", they have just bled those companies dry with no regard for their workers at all. It has all been about how much tey can make for themselves, screw everyone else.

I have had a soft spot for Michael more ever since "Roger and Me". I was just a kid when I saw it, but felt like he was a kindered spirit - a lefty from an industrial area that was decimated in the 80's. Even as a kid I was a lefty. I once told my Reagan Loving first grade teacher Reagan was a big fat liar. (I was pretty hard core ;) !)

[mascarax]

43. What was the teacher's response?

<<I once told my Reagan Loving first grade teacher Reagan was a big fat liar.>>

I agree, of course.

[applejuice]

46. She got angry and told me not to say "disrrespectful things" about

the Commander in Chief.

I got the feeling she didn't like me very much after that.

I had a little problem filtering my words when I was a kid...

[comtec]

15. KnR for home viewing too long for work

[OwnedByFerrets]

16. Nails it, but too much common sense for Washington

[MrsBrady]

18. K&R and rated it over at you tube so it can pick up some views n/t

[rhett o rick]

19. rec. Agree with Michael. To get the auto industry we need to get more Americans working

and producing not SERVING. No more bail outs to wall street.

[Margaux]

20. Break down the Big 3 into smaller entities

We are saying they are too big to fail and the job loss would be catastrophic. If we invest, the Big 3 should be disbanded into smaller entities. Instead of continually trying to fix product lines and support them when they are failing, why not make each major product line (Chevy, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Hummer, Saturn, and so on for Ford and Chrysler as well) individual companies with their own stock. If they want to share manufacturing facilities and so on, they build contracts and business agreements, like VW and Porsche do today. If they fail, reorganize, re-negotiate union contracts, - they do so depending on whether they can continue to do business, get investment as well as continued stockholder confidence in their smaller company.

It makes the Big 3 the US 15 automakers (or there about) and now they will be small enough to fail if they are not profitable. Workers and execs will have a stake in making these companies profitable and competitive. There will be no bigger org to pick them up or carry them through the rough patches. To give partners and workers confidence, you can give a guarantee to current union workers partners, that even if they go with a Hummer, or Saturn, which have their difficulties, if that particular entity fails in the next five years, they can apply at any other US automaker and they would have to be hired before other applicants, and or new partners.

[muntrv]

26. Saturn would agree with that proposal. Today's NY Times has an article

about Saturn going by the wayside. Were it a stand alone company, it would do better. People were buying Saturns instead of imports in the 90s, but GM brass insisted on investing in the other lines.

[RiverStone]

21. Moore did a great job --- the bailout is ridiculus!!!!

K&R

[sandyj999]

22. Michael Moore knows exactly what he is talking about as usual. n/t

[stubtoe]

23. Yep.

nt

[proud progressive]

27. moore is dead-on right!

[EnviroBat]

30. Moore knows his shit.

The man is dead on about this subject. I don't want a dime of my tax money going to these assholes unless they are going to do something to move this country into the future. And we all know damn well that anything they get, they'll piss away.

FIRE ALL EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT OF FORD, CHRYSLER, AND GM!

[90-percent]

31. Why persecute one group of fat cats

Why persecute one group of fat cats and lavish billion dollar US Taxpayer checks for the other? Do not all these smartest people in the room know anything about manufacturings role in the prosperity of a nation?

To put it in perspective, the $35 billion dollars they're begging for is approximately what sixteen weeks weeks of the Iraq War costs the same taxpayers.

Isn't that about the same duration as the average college semester?

The rich and powerful of this country should be hunted down with torches and lynched in the town square all over the country over this. I don't see much hope for our new leadership prosecuting them for all their crimes. This will come from the bottom up, if we are all to practice the good citizenship these times demand of us to save our Country and set it back in the right direction of hope for a better future.

The greed of these people is having more impact on more of us than our two concurrent and record breakingly long Wars!

-90% jimmy

[glinda]

32. Give "us" all the money to buy the "better" cars off the lot at rock bottom prices

then let them take "that" money and re-tool themselves. Personally if WE own damn near everything now, we should get something for it. I do not trust them with money as a hand out. Make them work for it by putting them in a corner and committing to keeping their workers. They have had ages to make things better. Suffer like the rest of us who face loosing our homes because our taxes, Insurance, home-payments, food costs have put us in a position to sell our homes in the Spring. That is if we can.

[jeff30997]

33. Who's gonna buy the cars?

Thanks Mike.

[valerief]

35. Moore's plan is smart, succinct, and simple, but how can the fat cats

get most of the bailout buckos into their personal Swiss bank accounts? That's all that missing and in fat cat world (CEOs and Congress), that's the most important thing.

[Mithreal]

36. How much bailout will be used for overseas manufacturing?

How many new overseas manufacturing plants are depending upon this bailout? What about Brazilian and Russian workers who need our auto manufacturing jobs? Where are they gonna find work? <sarcasm>

[Middle finga]

37. I love Michael Moore but he kind of look like a real life

Peter Griffin from family guy

[tclambert]

39. Nope, sorry, Michael is incorrect this time.

And being from Michigan, he should know better.

1) Unlike the financial companies, the car companies are NOT asking to be GIVEN a single cent. They are asking for a LOAN of less than one twentieth what the financials were given. They will be able to pay back the loan, perhaps in as little as two years.

2) The problem they are facing RIGHT NOW has nothing to do with the mistakes of the past 30 years that allowed Toyota to gain so much market share. All the car companies have suffered the past few months. Toyota's sales were down 32% in November, 26% in October. Ford actually gained 1% market share in November, though sales were down 31% from the previous November. The current economic crisis is crushing car sales, for everybody. Here's November's numbers for the Big 6:

GM - down 41% from a year ago.
Ford - down 31%
Chrysler - down 47%
Toyota - down 34%
Nissan - down 42%
Honda - down 32%

3) The American automakers, especially GM, ARE making greener cars. They've been working on this, hard, since 2005. But it takes about 5 years to bring a new car to market. They're that complicated to design, test, and put into production. The design departments for hybrids are frantically busy. The engineering consulting shops that work on hybrid designs are HIRING, while everyone else is laying off. They are currently working on the next generation of Green cars that will break our dependence on oil, foreign and domestic. You can't see it in the showroom yet, but if you know anybody who works in the auto field, and you all do, you can find out about this. Michael Moore should absolutely know this. The cars they are working on will kick the Prius' ass, and Tesla Motors' ass. (Serial hybrids instead of parallel, plug-in hybrids, and reasonably priced.)

4) Even without the greener cars, the companies will experience something of a boom as soon as the economy rebounds. Car sales amplify whatever happens in the overall economy. The financial crisis, job losses, and talk of a depression make people put off big ticket purchases. But the pent-up demand for cars is building. When President Obama's economic recovery package takes hold, you will see a surge in car sales. That's a prediction. Again, Michael Moore should know about this boom/bust cycle. It's been well known by the car companies for several decades.

5) Michael Moore, of all people, should know this one. If the American car companies go bust, the whole damn country will look like Flint did in his movie Roger and Me. "Rabbits for sale, Pets or Food." Auto sales account for 25% of retail sales. States that depend on sales tax for revenue are near bankruptcy because of decreased car sales. (Check out some of the discussion threads on Florida's budget problems.) That's how big this industry is. It is the biggest manufacturing industry in this country by far. Even bigger than weapons.

[applejuice]

41. Michael Moore DOES know...

He has seen first-hand what arrogant assholes those CEOs are, and he knows that even with a "bailout" they will freakin' abandon ALL their workers in a heartbeat if it suits their bank accounts better.

He doesn't want the companies to go bust. He simply is saying that 32 billion is too much to just GIVE them (they are only worth 3 billion right now) so if we do give them that we need to OWN THEIR ASSES because they CAN'T be trusted - especially to work in the best interest of the country. He is saying let's have somebody else run them so that they DON'T GO BUST - because from their past record we can see that they don't know what they hell they are doing.

[tclambert]

44. "let's have somebody else run them" But who?

Who can we trust? Somebody Bush would appoint? If they could hang on 'til January 20th, maybe the new smart guy president could find somebody good. But 2 of the 3 say they can't hold out that long.

[pengillian101]

45. I should have posted this here, and not a whole separate thread...

Who Killed The Electric Car?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsJAlrYjGz8

[defendandprotect]

40. Imagine: they're planning on letting 20,000-30,000 workers go---!!!

[GreenTea]

42. Michael Moore can ALWAYS be counted on to be in the face of corporations. And thank you Michael!