Wonkette
Wow it’s morning so that means Barack Obama is giving televised remarks about the latest failed giant business he’s buying us for Ramadan. General Motors! “The collapse of these companies would’ve been devastating to America,” etc., yes we know, “and it would be good for American workers and American manufacturing and good for America’s economy” if, heh heh, GM didn’t have to pay all its debts. Let’s live-blog this by liveblogging, now!
11:53 AM — “I want to give you an update on that *other* failed car company, Chrysler.”
11:54 AM — But after simply relieving the doomed company of its obligations, and also finding some sucker partner company in, perhaps, Italy, Chrysler could live again!
11:54 AM — Just 31 days after filing bankruptcy, Chrysler is back! It took Edmund Andrews’ wife like sixteen years to do her two bankruptcies!
11:56 AM — But GM is a lot bigger and more doomed, etc., so it’s not going to be as easy as the Chryselr deal, because is Chrysler even in the car business?
11:57 AM — General Motors, if all goes according to Obama’s Socialist Plans, will begin selling more cars in the United States. (Weird fact: GM sells a lot of shitty cars like Pontiacs in China, because Chinese middle-class drivers, due to a comical mistranslation, think some of these GM brands are actually desirable.)
11:58 AM — “This plan will require a substantial amount of money that only the government can provide.” Hmm.
11:59 AM — Obama made a deal with Canada and Germany to make this bankruptcy happen, which is … appeasement?
12:00 PM — Ugh, we are now owners of 60% of GM.
12:01 PM — “This may give some Americans pause,” says Obama. Yeah.
12:01 PM — Because Bush/Greenspan/Paulson/Reagan destroyed America and crippled the world economy, for fun, Barack Obama tragically inherited the Great Recession, so now he has to nationalize Earth.
12:02 PM — Damn, so Barack Obama will not be choosing new factory locations for GM, and he will not be designing the new General Motors’ cars. How is that helping? People would go nuts for the Barack Obama Trans-Am!
12:02 PM — But Obama will back your warranty on your GM clunker, and maybe even perform the service himself!
12:03 PM — Hard times for the auto-industry workers, “difficult days lie ahead,” more dealers and suppliers will go under, so many more jobs to lose, but you people have to make this sacrifice, so that your children will … work in GM factories that are lost forever?
12:04 PM — No no, it’s about the Green jobs, yay! The federal fleet of cars will be GM/Chrysler space-mobiles that run on free, clean energy made from burning laid-off GM/Chrysler workers in giant “clean coal” incinerators which will be built along every interstate highway at each exit.
12:05 PM — Applause. Who is applauding? Ah they are probably Toyota & Honda executives.
Not to get all facty, but it’s the Buicks that our Chinese overlords love.
No, I don’t why either.
Is my job my credit?
Just go ahead and nationalize the whole shebang, sack the Republicans and give the rest of us big bonusses. USA, Inc…
Only GM cars I liked enough to think about buying were the Pontiac Solstice or the Saturn Sky.
Guess I’m not going to like any GM car next year.
WHO NEEDS GM AND CARS? WE’RE DRIVING FINE TOWARDS TOTAL AND UDDER SOCAILIST FASICM. MARK MY WORDS SHEEPLE, NOBAMAS THUGS WILL BE TAKING OVER OUR BANKING SYSTEM IN NO TIME.
Will Gubmint Motors be investing in jetpack technology? We were promised jetpacks, Barry.
Remember car-maker folks, you will lose your jobs to help the next generation of low-wage-making slaves, so the bankers don’t have to!
4tehlulz: Buick built a factory there. The Chicoms like Audis, too, because VW builds ‘em there as well. They may not really like ‘em all that much — it’s just so much cheaper to build them in a country where you can dump all the solvents in the river and get your coal-fired electricity at 3 cents/KWH.
I’m going to skip the obvious, racist joke about a car designed by a Black man from the South Side of Chicago, but it’s tempting. What do I look like — Tom Tancredo?
When I was a kid my dad owned some GM Airplane-y stock, which never did doodly-squat. Now I get to follow in Daddy’s footsteps!
Bring back the trolleys!
People would go nuts for the Barack Obama Trans-Am!
Bring on the Hopey Hoopties!
4tehlulz: I guessing that goofy upper middle class panache, coupled with the fact that Buicks are probably the most reliable cars in the world these days, sometimes even scoring better than Lexus, according the folks who keep track of such things. Good auto mechanics might be even harder to find in China than ‘murica.
http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2009/03/lexus-loses-reliability-crown-jaguar-buick-share-top-spot.html
(Jaguars, too. Which is completely antithetical.)
thejesusandmarycheney: Yeah, I was outraged when the Ford Fusion came out with an internal combustion engine: we were also promised atom power. Of course, cars were supposed to look cooler, too in the old Motorama shows. Bring them back, Barry, and call them Motobama. Also, fire all the PR and marketing people and you’ll save $27 Billion a year, and have better products.
Also, I’m glad Barry himself will be designing future cars, since he pretends to not be a baby boomer. So let do away with annoying boomer-bought cars such as all retro crap and those goofy youth-targeted “category defying” cars like the Honda Element which no young people bought, but which they still make because baby boomers buy.
dijetlo: It will have that sweet Obama “O” on the hood, or a hammer and sickle, or an Islamic cresent. Tell-o-prompter optional! It will also run on vegetable oil and acorns, and have no AM radio (sorry, Limbaugh fans).
“People would go nuts for the Barack Obama Trans-Am!”
A Trans-Am that rednecks would refuse to buy? I’m intrigued.
Wait. Obama was actually ON TIME for a presser? It is THE APOCALYPSE!
Could have been avoided if GM released their M1A2 Abrams-inspired SUV/tank hybrid named “RollingEventHorizon” offered in “camo” and “american flag” color schemes.
V572625694: If the alternative is something like a Chery Amulet then yeah, the average Buick looks very good indeed.
How about that cub who’s in charge of the dismantling?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/business/01deese.html
Ooooh, the Ford Executives must be spazzing about now. The government is paying to prop up their competition.
Does this mean free truck nutz with every purchase of a GM vehicle?
“This may give some Americans pause,” says Obama.
OMG! Obama’s gonna turn us all into FURRIES! What? Oh, ‘pause’…nevermind.
the japanese don’t stand a chance if we offer free trucknutz!
Still pausing….I…no, no, still pausing…this…urg…perhaps pause is safest.
Prezident Palin’s would have nationalized Arctic Cat - massive influx of snow mobiles into the economy. And appointed Secy of Transportation Todd to, um, supervise production. Also.
Zillions of Americans might actually take their cars in for maintenance if Barry would personally ’service’ them.
General Motors is people!
I love any plan that results in a large number of greedy creditors being told to suck it. When can I do the same thing with my student loans?
I love you forever for that pic title.
Dear Fellow Shareholders: How ’bout this get poor quick scheme. Throw another $30 billion at a company filing for bankruptcy. Damn! The Treasury sure is generous– Corporate Welfare is now in full tilt.
In other news, we’ve got no money for health care programs. It’s all about Wars-N-Corporations, suckkahs!
Lascauxcaveman: “Buicks are probably the most reliable cars in the world these days”
My first boss recommended that I buy a Buick. “They’re great cars,” he said. “I’ve owned 16 of them.”