Hello everyone,Today USA Today Business section Swedish government rejects GM’s plea for funding,saying it was up to GM to save the brand,I think SAAB is on the way out.Maybe a clue as to how our Federal government should play the situation.
My socialism question, Is it a socialistic action for the Alaskan State Government to present it’s state residents with “oil profit” money? Some of the conservative (suprisingly) commentators are saying so,myself I never really understood why Alaska gives money to residents but still takes Fed. money.
Alaskans benefit from resources naturally occurring in their state, just as Nevada residents pay no state income taxes thanks to the stupidity of all of us that gamble there. More power to both of them. Does GM deserve to go down the tubes? Yes. Can the country afford for this to happen? No. This is sound Keyensian economics. Keynes had more brains in his big toe than the sub-moronic gasbag Limbaugh has in his entire bloated body.
Who Said Anything About Limbaugh?
I consider it a Socialist action because every single penny taken from an oil company is just a cost that is being passed on to someone else down the line.
It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul.
I think the Swedish government is doing the right thing by refusing to bail GM out on the SAAB issue. My feelings are the same about Wall Street bailouts, Big Three bailouts, bank bailouts, and even down to smaller issues like state and local tax money being used to subsidize a business. The latter happens far too often.
Stepping in and helping with infrastruture (roads, water/sewer lines, etc) I don’t have a problem with. Coughing up millions for “extras” is pure garbage.
SAAB may fail in the U.S. but may remain viable in other parts of the world if SAAB actually buys the auto division back. SAAB (Swedish Aircraft Co.) will likely continue to do well with their truck, aircraft, and electronics divisions.
(Just an FYI. While SAAB is out of it now, some years back they actually produced and used desktop PCs before PCs were even popular. They used SAAB computers to operate their parts distribution warehouses.)
Quite a few years ago, my bank (City Federal Savings) used a state-of-the-art Saab computer system, utilizing both a Saab mainframe and Saab terminals. It was really advanced for the time. Unfortunately City Federal was one of the many S & Ls that went down the tubes in the Reagan Administration’s S & L collapse.
Gentlemen/Ladies, we’re rushing headlong onto socialism whether we the taxpayers like it or not. The feds have nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, taken controlling interest in all the nations major financial institutions (even forcing some to aquire others for pennies on the dollar), are seeking fed control (and possibly controlling interest) over the nation’s auto industry, will by holding the pursestrings control state and local government capital and oerating expendatures (and thus the trades that rely on their projects) to a far greater degree than they currently do, and via their nationalization of Fannie and Freddie along with their controlling interests in the banks will control the mortgage market nation wide.
We’re talking ultimately trillions. All ultimately to be paid for by the taxpayers.
Never have so many rushed so fast to spend so much to achieve so little.
If we’re to become socialist anyway, wouldn’t it be nice if we did it in the manner of England, spending the money to provide healthcare and needed social services and security free of charge to everyone?
Many thanks to Ben Bernankey and Henry Paulson.
If GM spins Saab off and it nears bankruptcy, the Swedish government will step in. But not until then.
DataSaab ?
Another IT blast from the past, if I remember correctly this was all based on SAAB’s avionics computer technology and was originally called SARA. This may sound strange but not unusual - Perkin Elmer’s miniframe architecture was derived from the Space Shuttle flight simulator which they initially designed for NASA.
PE also wrote the definitive Fortran 77 manual, an amazingly comprehensive and accurate document of several thousand pages delivered in several huge ring binders - a lesson in technical documentation, I wish I still had a copy.
DataSaab got itself spun off, sold off merged through Erikkson and now belongs to Fujitsu I believe.
Totally off topic. Sorry.
Let’s face it. SAAB cars are not particularly desirable, overly expensive, and generally crappy…that is why they don’t sell. Customers got to make the decision. Let em go belly up. Failure generates rebirth. The Alaskans are smarter than most, they decided to negotiate with the companies that want to deplete the resources within the state, rather than sit by and watch the rest of us use oil in Alaska and not have any benefit from it. Alaskans pay Federal taxes and are entitled to some benefit from it, just as every state does…many states get lots more returned to them then others, depending on the politics of the situation. You couldn’t give me a SAAB.
So how many SAABs have you owned?
One thing for sure, Limbaugh doesn’t mind if we Rush to judge him.
A thng I like about Saabs is that the old ones seem to disappear. There are a lot of old Volvos (I can’t spell that without laughing) parked in the front yard around here. They move once in May and then they stay.
GM couldn’t figure out how to use Saab except as an engine supplier. On the good side, the company may continue to exist until they find out what a car body should look like.
Safety and Moose-proofing are great things to have, but goofy looks can put you out of business. Beauty may only be skin deep, but ugly goes right down to the bone. Those cars looked like they were designed by the government. So it would only be logical…
For serious discussion, look up or down, or just cover your eyes when you read this one.
You couldn’t give me a SAAB
It sounds like this comment was based on personal experiences with SAAB. Can you help us understand some of those concerns?
"I consider it a Socialist action because every single penny taken from an oil company is just a cost that is being passed on to someone else down the line.
It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul."
How is that different than any tax on business, is taxing a business socialism in your thoughts?
we’re rushing headlong onto socialism whether we the taxpayers like it or not
I distinguish between socialism, where businesses are nationalized on ideological grounds, and a capitalist system that’s trying to rescue large, failing businesses. In the first case, the government says, “on political/societal fairness grounds, we don’t believe that private entities should be doing _____” and take them over. In the second case, the reluctant conclusion is that the government needs to do something to rescue a business on _____ grounds. Presumably (?) they are not lying when they say that the business will be re-privatized when conditions improve. I wouldn’t call that socialism.
GM dumped them and Saab is in receivership, another term for bankruptcy.
If it wasn’t for welfare in one form or another, few people would live in Alaska. This year every citizen of that state will collect $3200 in oil royalty money. A family with 6 kids, that’s a nice check…Sarah Palin is one of the worlds biggest hypocrites. Run Sarah Run!!
Where does this money come from?? The people who live on the West Coast that are forced to use Alaskan oil pay the extra mark-up, about .20 cents a gallon more than East Coast residents pay…
The Swedish goverment did the right thing to not bail out SAAB. They could afford to see it go to bankruptcy and be bought by the Chinese or Indians, who would continue operation without a major loss of jobs. The same thing will happen to Volvo when Ford unloads it; Volvo is still solvent, but Ford needs the cash.
If GM was smaller, it would make a lot of sense to let it fail. During the Great Depression many car compnies bit the dust, but their assets were picked up by others who survived, thus rationalizing the industry. Unfortunately, GM is so big that a bankruptcy would cascade into many other failures (of good companies), and really screw up the US economy. Thus Iam a reluctant Keynesian, and favor money injected (loaned)into GM and Chrysler under the condition of a viable restructuring plan being in place.
Having said all this, the outcome is still uncertain, GM stock sunk below $2 and the US has an OVERCAPCITY of 6 million cars/year production!!! As they say, something hasd to give and the completed disappearance of Chrysler would go unnoticed.
I haven’t owned a SAAB, because of the poor references given to me by those I knew who did and by my general evaluation of cost vs. reliability vs. performance. I have owned Toyotas, Acuras, Nissans, Infinities, Mercuries, Fords, (even a couple of GM cars which rapidly fell apart and required new trannies, etc.). The ergonomics of the SAAB and the appearance are subpar. The Toyotas I have owned and the Acuras were great and reliable and less expensive and delivered much more for the buck. I just wouldn’t own a SAAB, I have many other better choices. I liked my Acura NSX the best. Drove like an Accord in the city and like an F1 on the highway and delivered 29 mpg at 80mph.
I never owned a SAAB but several Dealers I worked at sold SAAB’s (BMW and SAAB liked to hang out at the same dealer),so I have driven many SAAB’s, great cars.I would take a SAAB over a Subaru in a second.
I have owned Saabs, an '87 900 Turbo and my son had an '85 900 non turbo. Both cars went lots of miles and were solid well built cars. In the 90’s I think the quality may have slipped, and certainly GM buying Saab did not lead to a better product. I also drove a 2000 Saab as a company car for 2 years. Funny that a turbo charged car in the mid 80’s that was fast, got good mileage, handled great, and was reliable (at least for the 1st 100,000 miles) morphed into V6 gas guzzling luxury cars that lost money for GM. They have the Midas touch, everything they touch turns to junk. Oh, that kind of performance deserves a bail out. Perhaps if Saab is cut loose from GM they can find their way again. I’d hate to see Saab disappear, but the Saabs I knew are long gone anyway.
the higher gas prices in California are a combination of ridiculous environmental restrictions, special systems that must be put into CA cars, higher (much) state taxers on fuel, use of gas tax to fund things OTHER than related to car and highway use (slush fund for misappropriations). It is the lack of refineries allowed to be built because of “environmental concerns” and the unwillingness of govt to allow removal of coastal oil from CA offshore (can be done without even building a new platform through slant drilling (which China does to us in sight of the Florida coast in the Gulf. It isn’t the Alaskans, blame the ones responsible…if you are in CA that is easy…look in the mirror.