Car industry - GM has made their first payment on the bailout funds and plans to announce, next year, a timetable for the IPO of the "new" GM which will result in the government selling it's share of the company.

Health care system - the "public option" didn't make it so private insurance companies will still be able to make money off of you until you need chemotherapy - then they can drop you like a radioactive rock.

Banks - almost all have repaid their TARP funds and the government was about to sell their stake in Citigroup.

Insurance - ?

Student Loans - when I was in school in the 1970s, it was publicly managed. Now, with my duaghters, except for federal filing that keeps information in one place (FAFSA) it's all administered by private banks - and is MUCH more expensive.

The facts just do NOT support your constant clarion calls of government takeovers. The government came in and bailed out firms - and it's a decent debate as to whether or not they should have been let to fail - and they are now getting out. No matter how much you state to the contrary, it just doesn't change reality.

Where is the word that the administration will hold on to GM? to Bank of America? to Citigroup? ..and they wouldn't even TOUCH Chrysler!

I guess we have a different opinion and a different point of view then. I was just speaking to news items I've been hearing.

I worked in the student loan industry and I know what the feds did to destroy our company... and others just like it.

You don't think we have the largest intrusion by the federal government into the private sector? Good on you then. I hope you're right, I'm still looking for the withdrawal time table.

All I see is more regulation, control and takeovers and still hundreds of thousands of jobs being lost.

I don't recall seeing anything in the Constitution where it gives the federal government the power to fire CEO's, take over companies, regulate pay, make deals with unions, screw over private bond holders of corporations, force companies out of business or force feed healthcare then have the IRS fine you if you choose not to participate.

It all good.... to some.

Understandable. My contention is that there's a lot of "chicken little" going around that gets fanned by "news" organizations who's FIRST LOYALTY is to their ADVERTISERS and they do whatever it takes to gring the eyeballs to the screen - regardless of the consequences.

The viewers are not the customers. The viewers are the PRODUCT that Fox, CNN, etc, are SELLING to the advertisers. It's been this way ever since "News" at the Big 3 networks became a part of the entertainment division where, historically, it had been it's own separate division.

Now, you mentioned "government intrusion" - THERE I *agree* with you. The government IS sticking it's fingers into more pies than it ever has before - that's undeniable. But the leaders aren't STUPID. Corrupt? Yes (how much is debateable), but not stupid. They know what permanent government ownership means - it means killing the goose that laid the golden egg and Adam Smith spins like a lathe in his grave while the ghost of Thomas Jefferson weeps.

If I put my tinfoil hat on, I can easily see, as far as PRACTICALITY goes, the goverment increasing regulation to wring out every last cent it can. The government seems to be moving from (to use a sports analogy) being just the referee to being the league comissioner and referre so they can change the rules when they see fit.

As for the "hundreds of thousands of jobs" being lost, I hate to say this but many of them are jobs that never should have been created in the first place - or were long past their due date to expire. We complain about lazy auto workers getting paid $40/hr to put the left door handle on a Chevy, and then complain when Toyota eats our lunch by increasing efficiency with robots and merit pay. We vote for cheap goods from first Japan, then Korea and now China with our wallets. Those auto-worker jobs should have been gone long ago. We never needed so many MBAs to swindle us out of our 401K accounts - and I worked for Putnam Investments when one of those "front-running" scandals broke (where brokers sell shares for their favored customers when a stock start dropping so that the 'regular' investors sell afterwards and eat more of the losses).

The Federal Government has done a lot with the "interstate commerce" clause - and that's where it gets the power to choose whether to bail a company out (GM) or let it flounder (Chrysler). There's that whole "promote the general welfare" bit as well. And, quite frankly, I *do* believe the government has the right to say "if you want our bailout help, you have to play by our rules".

Having come from the automation industry I speak with first hand knowledge of the opportunities auto companies (among MANY others) that always had the opportunity to auto mate their factories just as the Japanese did. However, between the unions and the company's short term profit greed, the monies were never allocated to save those jobs in the first place.

There were studies done to promote the facts that as American industry automated itself to an efficiency as good or better than the foreign companies, their volumes could in fact go up, hence saving (the saving of jobs) but not 100%. Due to the increased demand the increased demand for automation industry products, software and services would have created new job opportunities.

Under these differing scenarios America's manufacturing base would not have been shipped over seas. So you say the foreign companies build a better product. Yes, the did and do. It is the automation that allows the better product to be built at a lessor cost.....enough to cover shipping to the USA and still make a handsome profit.

No mystery what so ever in the job loss cause. The United States manufacturing companies DID NOT INVEST IN THE AUTOMATION OF THEIR INDUSTRY.

It is a proven fact that companies with the newest manufacturing base with maximized automation, software and services are the survivors. I personally witnessed automation assembly lines in Japan where there were robots assembling robots....not science fiction. Jobs being created by making what was not made before, more efficiently than any where else in the world. The building, the running, the computing, the servicing needs to be done by .....PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!
The improved manufacturing base efficiency begets more jobs and more efficiencies.

The American narrow minded short term profit mentality (loyalty to the investor and self not the industry) of of American companies spelled their respective demise.

Where were all the smooth talking, politicians.... job creators-job savers in Washington when they could have saved their states companies? jobs? Taking care of politics of course.

The solutions are simple. Do not allow short term measurements and politicians rule the direction of the company. Unfortunately that is what it is and is not likely to change.

I am glad to have lived my working life during a time in America when it was growing and protecting it's manufacturing base.

What is upsetting about our current DO NOTHING to really create jobs is that it is so easy to do IF the politics and SPECIAL INTERESTS (namely oil) are set aside.
One very simple example. Energy independence. New oil wells, new wind machines, new fracturing of trillions of barrels of oil and gas and coal, etc. If this were the pririty can you mentally extrapolate to a point where there would be a job creation swelling in this country that could eclipse our previous industrial revolution. But we are not doing it. WHY?

See cabo 35's post about fracturing in this forum.

What a shame. We the people COULD make it happen....but it is unlikely.

btk

In this regard, I agree with you completely.

Sometimes, industry conversions don't work too well. Boeing tried to morph into a new area when military orders were declining in the 1970s so they came up with the LRV - Light Rail Vehicle - and sold hundreds of them to Boston and San Francisco to replace the aging PCC (President's Conference Committee) trolleys that were built starting in the 1930s. This was an unmitigated disaster - they couldn't even make good doors (each door had over 150 moving parts that failed all too regularly).

GM is going through something similar in trying to get more 'electric' with their drivetrains and wean themselves off of the old-style drivetrains.

I'm waiting to see which President will be the first one to say "We've kept the peace in Germany since 1945 - it's time for us to come home" and save that money. Then Japan, Korea and so many other places.

Imagine what we could afford if those dollars were spent at home. We'd have our own high-speed trains and public transit systems in place that would mean driving was an OPTION more than a necessity. Then you have all the dominos associated with that (reduced pollution, more efficient use of resources, etc).

But we get corporations who's vision is limited to the next quarter's numbers. You would have thought that we learned our lessons in the 1980s when the Japanese pantsed us by taking the long-term view. And if a company DARES to sacrifice short term profits for long-term sustainability, what do they get as a reward? A shareholder lawsuit.

We should be building windmills in numbers that would make the Dutch faint. We should have long-ago approved the new nuclear plant designs and started stamping them out like the French did. We have a governor in Montana who says they have enough coal reserves to provide all our liquid fuel needs (courtesy of the Fischer-Tropsch process) for the next 100+ years. And it's not like this is new technology - it was invented in the 1920s and the South Africans used this EXCLUSIVELY for making gasoline and diesel when the world was boycotting them due to apartheid.

Look at our problems..

The Peruvians have a better retirement plan than we do.

The Brazilians converted their motoring fleet to sugar-based ethanol.

The South Africans made a modern society without benefit of buying oil from people that wanted to kill them.

The French generate almost all their electricity without a drop of oil - and run 200MPH trains with it.

And what do we get? Endless Environmental Impact Studies followed up by NIMBYs and other professional obstructionists.. I'm tired of it.

I could not agree with you more. It is time to bring our troops home from Europe, Korea and Japan. These countries can stand on their own. It's time to invest in real energy independence, and to put aside the radical enviromentalists who have stood in our way for far too long.

We can do better.

health care reform, politicians, buying and selling based on their favorite projects. And open talk of differing representatives commenting if you don't question my projects I won't question yours to keep the $$$$$.

What makes anyone think the same thing on a much bigger and wider scale takes place by those who own/control oil and their respective countries.
The reason we as a country do not pursue energy independence is that we the people are fickle about. Gas is $2.50 per gallon and that is acceptable. But just wait until it goes back to $4+ (and it will). Or worse, when the oil supply is interrupted by one of the mid east maniacs.

Remember when gas was $4 a gallon and everybody was clamoring about drilling, refining, nuclear, clean coal, wind et al? The standard answer from our wiz bang reps in Washington was it takes up to 10 years for some of those programs to take effect. So? We have done nothing and they are still 10 years out.....and we the people are fat, fickle and stupidly happy with $2.50 per gallon. As the commercials on television say....but wait.........

It is the fault of the do nothing majority...plain and simple.

btk

Well, I'm not fat fickle and stupidly happy at $2.50. Well, ok, I could stand to lose a few pounds.. Ok, maybe I change my mind from time to time.. But I'm not stupidly happy

Right now I'm driving a Camry that can get me 30MPG - which was an improvement over the car I was driving 3 years ago, a 22-25MPG Intrepid. Once the Camry is paid off, I'd like to start saving for a car akin to a Volt. Eventually I'd like to power my future plug-in hybrid with solar cells on my roof. I'm just hoping technology will continue to advance so that I *can* try to be an example.