Government owned everything=socialism.
Goodbye american experiment in democracy.
Hello socialist president Obama.

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If GM goes bankrupt, it will send the US economy into a tailspin, terrify investors and cause a stock market crash. The U.S. would likely go into a depression by December.

By the way, I like Obama and I hardly think he would turn the U.S. into Communist China. (I somehow doubt you'll lose your freedom of speech or religion under any President.) I just hope he keeps the bailouts small. The U.S. needs to lose this fat before it will get better.

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@ J M C 3

Stripping regulation and letting market run free = corruption, greed, CEOs walking away with millions leaving the economy in shambles

What you call socialism i call Regulation.

Regulation=strict rules to protect comsumers and hard worker taxpayers who don't have the luxury of wading out a crisis and footing them with the bill when companies crash.

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@Luigiian:
Send the US economy into a stock market crash?
I don't think we need GM for that...the dow just outdid the 1987 crash nicely.
GM collapsing would make things worse (since it's a part of the Dow and is responsible for a big part of today's collapse), but it's too late for it to cause a crash.

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OK, everyone go back to your happy place. Stay in denial about the fact that beaurocracy is easy to create and impossible to destroy.

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All above.

I am not advocating a Gov't takeover and the market should be allowed to deal with GM. The bondholders, stockholders should all get wiped out and the assets should be auctioned off. Let the unions deal with Wagoner and Lutz.
Rality is the unions have incredible sway in DC, the industry has a powerful lobby and they are American symbols of "ingenuity" and "Prosperity" to some people. To some people cars are more important than education and health care

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GM and Ford go down - it' will mark the end of the US as a superpower. That's it, that's the end of the U.S.A, it's already not much different from Mexico. There is no more industry anymore left - just shell companies acting like proxies between real industrial world and the biggest world debtors - US consumers. Just keep outsourcing, folks, the waterfall is close and you can't climb back.

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Volk no one is cheering bankruptcy. It will be bad for shareholders pension funds and taxpayers. The model as it exists is no longer viable. To save jobs the gov't will have to backstop the pensions and health care guarantees at least for a little while.
The US invented the modern automobile industry and I am confident that in the future we can leverage out world class Universities to create new industries.

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Volk ny pogodi...remember this mess started with our government intentionally creating the housing bubble which by and large created the horrible mess that we are in today. Virus has spread worldwide, and US is the culprit.

It wasn't the free market which did this. Government set rates way too low, encouraged lax lending standards and then guaranteed the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac owned mortgages. Guaranteed! See, in free market, greed is offset by fear. Government took the fear away. If rates were kept reasonable, if lenders were held directly responsible for loans they gave out, then this would have never happened. We'd have had proper guidelines on mortgages, where only qualified people would have been able to buy a house.

But no government stepped it, destroyed the savers, by saying that, "hey there is no need to save, just take out a mortgage on a house, it will forever appreciate over time, meaning you'll be able to buy anything and everything you want!"

To blame free market is idiotic. Yes transparency is needed, but not more regulation. Safety nets always encourage more irresponsible behavior.

As for GM and Ford, well like I said a year ago. Chrysler is going to be sold off to Chinese (although good luck finding a bank willing to finance that deal), GM is a huge question mark, and Ford looks like it is in best shape.

GM made a monumental mistake by not aligning itself with Renault & Nissan. So Kirk Kerkorian & Jerry York did know better. And some goofballs on here were so against it. Second thoughts?

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Nice partisan talking point Noidor but the gov't didn't create mortage backed securities, they didn't create the rating agencies that gave them triple A ratings (even thought they didn't understand them) and the gov't didn't create the credit default swaps.

These were all inventions of the 'smartest guys in the room' on Wall Street. You can cling to your 'free market' religion all you want. But it doesn't change the facts of the situation, no matter how badly it interferes with your world view.

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Socialism is the people's (worker's) control over the means of production and distrubtion. This according to Webster Dictionairy. So yes Democratic (or variant) Goverment Regulation does equal Socialism in my book (which is a good thing). People need to QUIT thinking Socialism = Communism. As a Dictatorship without Freedom of Speech is not Democratic. You can have freedom of speech, competition, and still have socialist tendencies. In fact some form of Socialism will be required for continued American sustainability.

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LJKelley, and the rest of you who think that Socialism is fair and necessary...

Do you want me to decide how you should spend your money? Better yet, I'll take your money, or send you to jail, then I'll spend your money in a much better way than you can. I'll also tell your business, or your employer's business how to run.

Not because I know better how to run a business, or that I have ever run a business before, but merely because I say so, and I have power over you.

Socialism isn't the peoples control of the means of production, that is what MARX called communism. In reality communism is the GOVERNMENT'S control of the means of ALL production, claiming it facetiously in the name of the people. Socialism is government regulation of business, with the illusion of private property with large government control over what you can and cannot do with it.

Either one subjugates the people to the state. Both of them result in various states of someone else living your life for you, and controlling what you do, say, and ultimately, what you even think, by whatever means they can. The nanny state always becomes the police state, in order to enforce the policies of the powerful.

If you don't want ME to control you and your business, then why on earth would you want Washington DC, Moscow, Havanna, Beijing, or Tehran doing it? Tyranny is tyranny, and it cannot co-exist with freedom.

If you believe socialism and communism breed freedom, then you are not free, even now, and you have no idea what freedom means. Freedom includes the freedom to FAIL. It is essential to the moral hazard of risk, and the existence of reward for that risk. Socialism and Communism go to various extents to eliminate risk, and thus eliminate reward, and quash freedom.

I don't want Ford, GM, Chrysler, or any corporation to go out of business, but if they refuse to self-evaluate, and take the steps necessary to remain viable, they need to clear the scene, and make room for someone else who can make that business viable, and be successful at it. THAT is freedom, and the reward for taking risks, and it is antithetical to Socialist control, or Communist restriction.

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RedLineTire, you don't understand that government created the moral hazard. They were at the source of the problem, yes ratings, MBS, and wall street are also to blame, but as I said above they merely took advantage of the situation which government ALLOWED to happen.

Not only that, but gov't looked the other way while this was happening. Look, back in 2005 cracks were beginning to show when investors noticed that subprime AAA rated MBS portfolios were risk-layered and not what lenders claimed they were.

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"In 2000, due to a re-assessment of the housing market by HUD, anti-predatory lending rules were put into place that disallowed risky, high-cost loans from being credited toward affordable housing goals. In 2004, these rules were dropped and high-risk loans were again counted toward affordable housing goals"

Who removed this rule? Non-other than Bushie-Wushie administration.

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@ LJ Kelly If u want to know what real socialism is, read Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell and tell me what you think.

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You guys don't get it... but enjoy economic crash after crash. Free Market by strict definition means only market forces exist and not government regulation or intervention. Any regulation implements people's control and socialism. I'm not talking communism or marxism, and yes the people would have more control in a properly implement democratic system (of which the US is not 100% democratic with its winner takes all elections).

To further prove my viewpoint is the current economic crash which is the result of Business that could even decide to wait for long term profits but wanted risky profits now, because that all stock holders really want is the stock up now. The decrease of socialistic regulation allowed them to continue and they are still bending rules to give people loans and it is not purely a subprime issue. My BF works in mortgage. So what we need sadly is strict regulation on the banking industry telling them how to do their jobs, because their greed won't let them think for themselves. Which I think oddly, most Americans support securing a better economic system then one were capatalism and greed lead to crashes.

Everyday you have comments on here saying that we can't let GM or Ford fail as it would destroy the economy. We propping them up is Socialism. Now I think their products suck and they should die, but I understand they need to die slowly to protect jobs or change their cars. Now here in America we won't force them to redesign, or prove quality. We will just hand over blind money with little to not regulation (excpet CAFE that is hurting them at such a greatly timed point). So the point is Socialism has never been implemented in a proper democratic way were every vote counts. You know like in the Israeli Parliament where if Party A gets only 6% of the vote they still get 6% of the seats, and aren't a 'looser'.

And 1984 is way more about taking away the freedoms such as speech and becoming big brother. I'm not advocating that at all. I have read Animal Farm as well which touches on Communism, not socialism in how there is NO democracy which lead to a superior class and no real change for the working class. True Socialism is about equality, because honestly most of the time the work of a baker is just as important to society as a scientist. Cuz you won't be a scientist long without food. And equality will make happy workers that will create better products.

The point is we have never seen a true implementation of Socialism, and the close we have come is Scandinavia, but it is still watered down (was truest in the 70s) They have a high standard of life and people that are very happy. Deregulation is changing that, and a move away from Socialism and towards greed (or economic growth) (i've seen it first hand) has lead to the 'bankruptcy' or Iceland.

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