2012 Elections in the USA

[QUOTE=Punter 127; 427789]Gee, I thought Al Qaida was taken out by Obama. [/QUOTE]


Thinking is obviously not your strong suit. Al Qaida has been severely diminished, but neither Obama nor anyone else with knowledge ever claimed that they had been eliminated. The fact is, being able to launch an attack against an Embassy located in an Arab nation with a government in flux and national security forces of dubious allegiances is quite a bit less of a task than launching a mass attack on American civilians on American soil. Their ability to do the latter is presently in serious doubt, but their ability to do the former, obviously still exists.

In any case, it remains instructive that you continue to give Ryan / Romney a pass on intentional lying, and feel the need to deflect the subject when questioned about it.

Slick Willie!

Wow! Did MSNBC screw up. MSNBC had a post 2nd debate panel of 8 'undecided' voters. You would think MSNBC would stack the deck with 8 stealth Obama supporters. Whoops, the 8 'undecided' voters became Romney supporters after the 2nd debate, and the biggest surprise, the 4 'undecided' women voters on the panel became the most adamant of the new romney supporters.

Fox News had a post 2nd debate panel of about 30 'undecided' voters who had supported Obama in 2008. Surprise, surprise, almost all of the 30 'undecided' 2008 Obama supporters are no longer in the 'undecided' column. They became Romney supporters after the 2nd debate. MSNBC could learn something from Fox news about how to select panels of 'undecided 'voters that support the view of the news service that put them on the panel.

I noticed Obama got around to the 'Romney would have let GM go bankrupt' shot during the last debate. Well Obama let GM go 'bankrupt' sort of, they went into 'Obama-ruptcy'. I believe we can all agree NO ONE was talking about liquidation of GM as a starting point for the rest of this dicussion.

First.
You must remember the purpose of bankruptcy is to free productive assets from the burden of debts which can not be repaid or refinanced. This is the purpose of Chapter 13 and 12.

Second.
At the time of GM's bankruptcy it had $20 Billion in tangible assets and another $10 Billion in intellectual properties for a total of roughly $30 Billion. GM also had underfunded the healthcare benefit trust for current and retired employees by $20 Billion and another $10 Billion in underfunded pension contributions for a total of $30 Billion owed the employee union. GM also owed the Bondholders $30 Billion. All the creditors got screwed which is what happens in bankruptcy.

Third.
What should have happened in a straight forward bankruptcy was each party, union and bondholders would have received roughly $15 Billion in cash and equity in the 'New GM'. Remember GM was worth about $30 Billion at the time it entered bankruptcy. But that's not what happened, somehow via 'Obama-ruptcy' the government injected $50 Billion dollars of taxpayer funds into the 'New GM'.250% of what the tangible assets were at the time of the filing.

Fourth.
Who got what. Bondholders received about 10% of the stock in the 'New GM' but were sequestered from selling that stock until much later. The Union received 100% of the $10 Billion due the pension which was just rolled into the 'New GM', the union healthcare trust was awarded 17. 5% of 'New GM' stock in addition to $9 Billion in preferred stock and notes in the 'New GM'. In other words the Bondholders received about 10 cents on the dollar while the union ended up with $28 Billion of the $30 Billion in claims going into bankruptcy. In addition the unions have a total lock on all GM profits for the foreseeable future.

Conclusion.
What should have happened was the union pension, the union healthcare trust and the bondholders should have taken at hit from the bankruptcy and the company should have been able to lower their labor expense from the current $56 / hour to the industry standard of $47 / hour and become a competitive and profitable company under new management. But that did not happen under 'Obama-ruptcy'. GM is still unable to earn a profit, the taxpayers have lost about 50% of the value of the $50 Billion Obama so blithely kicked in so the unions walked away with most of the company and GM is still under unsupportable pension obligations.

[QUOTE=Member #2041;427814]Thinking is obviously not your strong suit.[/quote]These type of insults are uncalled for, but they reveal the type of person you really are, and your desperation. I won't however lower myself to your level by calling you a prick or an asshole, you've done an excellent job of exposing that yourself.

[QUOTE=Member #2041;427814] Al Qaida has been severely diminished, but neither Obama nor anyone else with knowledge ever claimed that they had been eliminated. The fact is, being able to launch an attack against an Embassy located in an Arab nation with a government in flux and national security forces of dubious allegiances is quite a bit less of a task than launching a mass attack on American civilians on American soil. Their ability to do the latter is presently in serious doubt, but their ability to do the former, obviously still exists.[/quote]The Obama team may not have said Al Qaida has been eliminated, but they sure tried to imply they were no longer a threat.

Why did Obama send his United Nations ambassador onto five TV shows to claim it was all just a Muslim protest of a video that got out of hand? When did they know, what did they know, and what did they do about it?

I'm not convinced Al Qaida is unable to attack on American soil, but on this one I hope you finally got one right.

[QUOTE=Member #2041;427814]In any case, it remains instructive that you continue to give Ryan / Romney a pass on intentional lying, and feel the need to deflect the subject when questioned about it.[/QUOTE]This from the king of ignore and deflect, talk to me after you address all of the Obama / Biden untruths.

[QUOTE=Sidney;427833]Industry sales volume had fallen from 16 to 11 million annual rate. Solutions were to fire top management and the board, provide sales incentives, and standardize to reduce costs[/QUOTE]I agree it was a management problem and I think the fact that Ford didn't take taxpayer money supports that thinking as well. However it's been suggested that thinking is not my strong suit. LOL

[QUOTE=Doppelganger; 427831]I.

GM is still unable to earn a profit, the taxpayers have lost about 50% of the value of the $50 Billion Obama so blithely kicked in so the unions walked away with most of the company and GM is still under unsupportable pension obligations.[/QUOTE]Of course, to be fair, taxpayers have lost nothing until the sale of the stock is actually made. I have also read that the loss currently would be $13b not $25b because some of the money was repaid in 2010. Good question for the next debate. Should the government sell its GM stock at the current $25 a share? Why talk about 2008 when we could talk about 2013? We are just Monday morning quarterbacking now.

Sidney, I agree with you the problems with GM have to do with management but also with the union labor contract, pension costs and healthcare costs. Had the bankruptcy gone according to law, management would have been changed; labor contracts / pension / healthcare would have had to be renegotiated, prior pension and healthcare costs would not have been carried over to the new company, the very concept of bankruptcy relief precludes them from being carried over. GM has many problems but one of the largest which keeps it from being a competitive company is labor costs. Other companies come here from Japan, set up shop, us non-union labor and continue to kick GM's ass.

It appears GM is headed back to bankruptcy court in the near future due to labor costs and bad management. A great example is the Chevy Volt, costs $80K to build but they sell it for $40K, another Obama 'green' gone south along with A123 batterys.

BBM, yes GM paid back a portion of the original debt but they did so WITH ANOTHER LOAN FROM UNCLE SUGAR. Sort of like transfering balance on your credit card, the debt is still there just changed the name a bit.

[QUOTE=Doppelganger;427840]A great example is the Chevy Volt, costs $80K to build[/QUOTE]Is that based on the average cost with the overhead spread over the current number of units produced (absorption cost)? Because that would way overstate it. If you price closer to marginal cost (the cost to build the next car) , sometimes you can build up a break even volume when you otherwise would not. I am not arguing for subsidies here, necessarily, but you do sometimes have to produce below absorption cost in the first few years of a product.

Sorry DH, it was $89K.

Here is the article.

[url]http://theweek.com/article/index/233140/the-chevy-volts-89000-production-cost-a-waste-of-money[/url]

[QUOTE=Doppelganger; 427843]Sorry DH, it was $89K. Here is the article.

[url]http://theweek.com/article/index/233140/the-chevy-volts-89000-production-cost-a-waste-of-money[/url][/QUOTE]Okay, so first of all, cost information particular product lines is not public information. Second of all, the information was provided to Reuters by 'industry analysts and manufacturing experts. ' Third, and most importantly, the cost figure includes development costs. It's against the accounting rules to do that. So this is a cost figure that not only includes factory depreciation (a sunk cost) and a portion of fixed manufacturing costs that aren't even traceable to the model (both of those two are required under accounting rules but are not additional costs to produce the model), and an allocation of years and years of development costs that never should have been included. In other words it is a case of a journalist making up numbers to suit his or her purpose. All this can be found by working backwards from the article to its sources. That is how you debunk non-credible statements like the 'Volt costs $89k to make.' Nonsense. The development cost was all sunk by the time you started production, so not only does it not make sense from an economic standpoint to include it, it's PROHIBITED from an accounting standpoint to include it.

So shitcan that article and ignore the point it is trying to make.

DH, development costs have to be allocated, you know this as well as I do. It appears you wish to segregate these costs and assign them to what? Somehow you think calling them 'sunk costs' makes them disappear? It also appears you wish to segregate the Volt production line from all other production lines to which both fixed and variable overhead and administrative expenses are assigned to reduce production costs to support a preconceived conclusion. This is exactly the fuzzy math that got GM in trouble to start with. You want to argue you are making a profit on a product line and ignore the development costs associated with it, as well as overhead costs assigned to all product lines? An example of your argument is say GM made a $100 Million profit on sales of the Volt but ignores the $200 Million in development costs. My friend in the real world that translates into a $100 Million LOSS. While this might be mitigated over time via a long production run, it just is not happening with the Volt.

The only thing that will make an electric vehicle a reality is a quantum leap in battery technology and the advent of a room temperature super conductor which can be produced at a financially viable cost. You folks seem to forget our electric grid will simply not handle widespread use of electric vehicles, not to mention the power plants to produce the energy which are all fossil fuel fired. Sort of a Catch 22 for the Greenies.

I hate to say it, but the greenies are living with Alice in Wonderland. The latest data has shown that there has been absolutely no global warming from 1996 to now. Since 1876, or something like that, global temperatures increased about 0.75 degrees Celsius. This increase did not occur during the last 16 years. Rather it occurred arround the turn of the century when the world was less industrialized. This emphasizes that global temperatures normally go up and down. No doubt global warming and global cooling occurs. However, man made global warming and man made global cooling is not occurring.

Anyway, it appears that greenies fixated on man made global warming have way too much time on their hands. Maybe because the greenies have nothing better to do than wait for government handouts to sustain their fragile and delicate sensibilities.