Detroit 3 win Ben Stein's money support
Ben Stein is a pretty smart guy, and impressing him usually involves showing him up on Comedy Central or showing up to your high school economics class on time. Detroit's automakers may have done neither, but Stein's in their corner just the same.In the actor/commentator's opinion, the Big 3 are part of the fabric of America, employing hard-working Americans and building cars which are, in his view, second to none. He even credits their products which "have saved [his] life many times on the freeway." Bailing out Detroit is an imperative for Stein, making the case on emotional as well as logical grounds. But the steadfast Republican who cut his teeth working in the Nixon and Ford administrations can't understand how the government of the United States can find the money to bail out a mismanaged Wall Street and finance foreign intervention – the kind he supported when it was Nixon's call – while dragging its feet on helping the Big Three "slim down, shape up, and keep making great cars and trucks". Follow the link to read his take.
[Source: Yahoo! Finance]
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Frylock350 9:29AM (1/05/2009)
@Conundrum,
That's not true. Evolution is a scientific theory that explains how organisms advance and new organisms form. Its not an origin theory and was never meant to be. Evolution says nothing about how life started, merely how it progressed from that initial starting point. Whatever theory you care to use for it, whether it be an Aquinas-like original mover, or a primordial soup, evolution doesn't care.
Conundrum 8:52PM (1/05/2009)
@Frylock
So why then does academia fight so vehemently against any mention of the terms "Creationism" or "Intelligent Design" in public schools? Even at the collegiate level?
There are numerous variants of design/designer scenarios to discuss. Who is to say that we didn't have some basic forms given by some Creative Designer which evolved into the diverse species we now have? All I'm saying is PROVE ME WRONG or allow the discussion. Or at the very least tell students the truth. "We really don't know how life started or exactly how man became what we are today, but here is what we do know." Don't send my kids home from school telling me that we came from soup with no proof! When acedemia cannot prove the source of life from soup to man and refuses to allow debate on any other hypothesis, they are being... unscientific. This is the focus of "Expelled."
Richard 3:35PM (1/04/2009)
Forgive me, I am young.
What foreign intervention did Nixon get us involved in?
I know he got us out of Viet Nam and normalized relations with the People's Republic of China.
What interventions did he get us in to?
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voodoo 4:12PM (1/04/2009)
Since you're young I would presume you'd know a little something about search engines, specifically google.
Nixon didn't necessarily "get us out of Vietnam," he implemented "vietnamization" (google it), but he also supported several large bombing campaigns "Linebacker 2 and Operation Menu" (google it).
He had some intervention with the Indo-Pakistani War (google it), but one of his most note-worthy foreign interventions was supporting Israel during the Yom Kippur War (google it) which initiated the 1973 oil crisis (google it).
Richard 7:06PM (1/04/2009)
voodoo,
Thanks man!
For future reference...
http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/
JGN 6:16PM (1/04/2009)
Ben Stein will do anything for a paycheck, or press coverage. He's absolutely shameless.
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grogs4dogs 5:18PM (1/04/2009)
Ben Stein a pretty smart guy? Try this on for size:
Weekend Edition Saturday, September 15, 2007 · In a column this week in The New York Times, actor and economist Ben Stein argues that the credit crunch and subprime market mess do not mean the sky is falling on the U.S. economy. For one thing, he says, subprime loans helped many people get into homes.
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al 4:04PM (1/04/2009)
I was going to make a joke about german cars and gas chambers to reference his quote about science and gas chambers but it made me realize how messed up Ben Stein really is. I can't even joke about what that idiot thinks.
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happy_penguin 5:43PM (1/04/2009)
Ben Stein is an idiot, but making jokes about gas chambers isn't idiotic, or in poor taste?
Mike!!ekiM 4:40PM (1/04/2009)
Academic's gave "Intelligent Design" the 10 seconds it deserved. Evolution, over extended periods of time can accomplish everything ID says it can't, and the "debate" ended.
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Conundrum 7:02PM (1/04/2009)
@Mike!!ekiM...
Excellent. I thought I was mistaken about the gaps that CANNOT be PROVEN.
Could you please direct me to the FACTUAL data that shows:
At what point did the electrified primordial soup produced proteins, DNA, RNA, etc. After all you know that it had to progress through that step acording to EVOLUTIONARY DESIGN protocol so I'm sure thier is evidence of this intermediate step somewhere in the fossil record right?
Transitional life prior to the Cambrian Explosion? you know like a partial step in development for a trilobite which is a rather advanced life form.
Precursor to insects? Why have dragon flys showed up in the beginning and remained unchanged? If they were perfect in the beginning, why would they continue to evolve into other critters like dogs while still retaining thier original form?
Was it definitely a lightning strike that initiated life? How can you be sure it wasn't a spark from a volcano, the ALLSPARK, or heaven forbid a GOD.
FACTS ARE FACTS AND THEORIES are debatable!
tankd0g 8:47PM (1/04/2009)
Conundrum, I don't know where you are getting this strawman argument about a lightening strike, however proteins have already been produced in a lab using the same conditions believed to exist in the"primordial soup".
the lack of transitional fossils for every create on the face of the earth is easily explained by the fact that FOSSILIZATION IS AN EXTREMELY RARE EVENT.
I know this stuff is hard to grasp, much easier to believe Jesus built us out of legos and dumped us in the desert.
Conundrum 9:41PM (1/04/2009)
@Tank...
Nope not that much harder to grasp, but it requires about the same amount of faith to believe that one day the atmospheric conditions were just right, and had just the right amount of heat and elctrical and/or volcanic input to make a compound molecule line the ones you describe. These just happened to morph into strings of DNA which just happened to spring to life in the form of a cell...oh oh oh... and this cell just happened to have the ability to reproduce itself... and after a while it combined itself with others and made a fish with eyes and all sorts of compound parts too advanced to happen any other way and... dinosaurs and...birds with feathers that came from scales...and mamals from reptiles... and
finally here we are "man" and all the rest is history. Why would anyone question all these LEAPS and not just be a good little student and keep your mouth shut in the back of the class? I want FACTS or I want OPEN debate of ALL possibilities whats wrong with that?
PS. got any facts that GOD made us out of legos?
Sea Urchin 5:21PM (1/04/2009)
Noah they got the money, you can stop putting stories in here that "OK" the bailout. But as long as you are doing these stories, how about the one where you point out how much Wagoner and Mullaly make, how about another one on how much Mullaly spend on private jet that he and his family use about 2-4 times a WEEK, same with Mark Fields. I especially want to see the one where you bring to light the fact that Wagoner makes 17+ Million Dollars a year.
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JP 5:50PM (1/04/2009)
They are CEO s that's what they get payed. You don't expect them to run a company with an $80k a year salary do you? If you must pull out how much Mullaly makes then you should also inform on how much he has helped that company. You must also show how much Bill Ford Jr. helped Ford's quality improve a lot. BTW, Mark Fields does not fly on Ford's private jets any more. He stopped doing that a while back.
Ray 5:29PM (1/04/2009)
Ben Stein is a complete and utter fool. He knows jack squat about economics. Youtube videos of him and Peter Schiff together and you'll see just how stupid this man and 99% of other 'economists' and 'experts' are. He is a laughing stock to anyone with an intelligent understanding of the way our economy, and any other world economy, works throughout the history of mankind.
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happy_penguin 5:46PM (1/04/2009)
I believe that for every correct "expert opinion", there are at least a hundred which are incorrect.
I don't have much faith in "experts". If you don't either, remember that when one states an opinion with which you agree.
EchelonBob 3:01PM (1/08/2009)
Ben is spot on about the importance of bailing out the US auto industry.
Look, you "free marketeers" out there: in today's global economy it's not just individual companies competing, but entire nations and national industries competing. American companies are up against foreign competitors that get all kinds of assistance from their governments. Foreign governments carefully scheme, calculate, and strategize governmental action to create competitive advantage and support entire industries. It works. Just look at how Korea has jumped to point of competing directly with Japan.
In a normal time, perhaps letting the US auto companies go bankrupt would be OK, because other firms would be ready to step in, acquire and make use of those assets. Today, that's not the case, most especially with American firms, who are just reeling from the catastrophic mortgage industry losses. If the Big 3 go bankrupt, their manufacturing plants, expertise, etc., will just wither away - everyone is too irrational right now to be able to take even sensible business risks. One year later, there will be no significant American auto manufacturing... and it won't come back. The cost of entry is just too great.
It's happened before, with memory chip manufacturing moving to Japan and Taiwan, and now Korea. Do we want the American auto industry to become like the British auto industry?
Echelon Bob
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john colwell 6:08PM (1/04/2009)
In my very humble opinion, Ben is completely correct. The perception that Japanese cars and some European cars are built better is completely insane. In the past Detroit has made some junk, no doubt about it. In the past five years to six years though the Big Three have been building as good or better cars in their price range. Detroit needs support. The Japanese government has been supporting their auto industry for years.
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tankd0g 8:47PM (1/04/2009)
Drive a Cobalt and get back to me. It's one redeeming feature is that it can be had much cheaper than a Civic.