Craig, I’m positive you are right about CRAP. Blast mayyet see the light, but we shall see.

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“Craig: I supported McCain and would have liked that $5,000.00…..my insurance is $10,800/yr with Kaiser.” (Steve Rowland)

That means that with McCain it would have only being 5,800$, very good deal in fact. Plus, with McCain you would have been able to shop for the best deal in every States. Here go look and try to shop somehere else to get a better price in different States. Everybody would have won with McCain’s deal:
http://www.usa-healthinsurance.com/

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Larry: It’s Rule XIII:

http://rules.senate.gov/senaterules/rule13.php

I also read somewhere that Reid had changed his YES vote to NO just so he would have that option.

In the course of that reading I discovered that quite a few on your side of the aisle are a bit ticked off that Biden and Kerry couldn’t be bothered to show up and vote.

Let me know when the cider is ready.

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Craig: I supported McCain and would have liked that $5,000.00…..my insurance is $10,800/yr with Kaiser.

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“If you don’t support the bail out and you want to see GM competitive with Toyota, I presume that you also support a comprehensive national health care system for the US.” (Larry W.)

No I don’t. But I would have supported McCain ‘s plan to give tax cuts (5,000$) to people so they could get a personal insurance health plan. It is ridiculous to let it thru the employer. What happen when you change jobs?

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Guess Reid’s vote wasn’t so principled after all.

How about them apples Larry?

Gonna make cider?

I’m certainly not above admitting that I made a mistake, but, as the “ignorant [person]” referred to in post # 27, I’m sufficiently ignorant that I still don’t understand Norseman’s point. Maybe one of you can explain it at the level a poor, ignorant Democrat can understand. Taking it literally, there is a rule that, if you vote to cut off debate in the Senate and you lose the vote, then that means that you, personally, can’t bring the issue back for another vote? I didn’t know that.

I’ll make cider, if you’ll stipulate that it can at least be hard cider.

- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach

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blast, INRE your comment:

We get fleeced in every direction we turn. We let this government DOUBLE the national debt in the past 8 years… who is going to pay that bill? $700 Billion blank check to Bush/Paulson to give out to Wall Street Banks, oh, and whoever they want to.

Last I checked, only Congress could write legislation, and hand out the cash… and a POTUS could only say yes or no. Yes, I’m seething at Bush’s Bernanke/Paulson pick, and what they have constructed as a “cure”. But remember that Paulson started with a three page skeleton draft on the Wall Street bailout, and Congress…cheerleading done by 100% of the Dems and way too many GOPers to make me comfortable… turned it into the 600+ page piece’o'sheeeeet that it is today.

So frankly, I take exception to you passing this off totally on Bush/Paulson’s shoulders, and giving the DNC led cheerleaders in Congress a pass for what they constructed as the finale. Trust me… scum crosses the aisles. And in this case, it’s everywhere. I say if you want to know who is the most to blame for this mess to begin with, and for this crap masquerading as the cure, have a good look at our career bozos in Congress.

Larry, I’ll give credit to Harry Reid when I see something he deserves credit for. In this case, I did state that there were some cajones in the Senate afterall. But I have to know the reasons many voted no. And I’ll bet dollars to donuts that Harry Reid is just fine with giving the auto czar the power to dictate production and price.

INRE the Toyota firms losing money…. it’s a byproduct of the credit restrictions and the economy. Keep production levels up pre-economic credit crunch, and you end up with too many cars sitting on the lots. It is not because they are not streamlined for profit in P&L measures. One might also consider the increased suppliers costs for the first half of the year, which would increase suppliers’ costs to the manufacturers. In normal times, they would have just upped the price of the cars, but that couldn’t be done. That’s an extra dent in the P&L.

However this should be interesting to see if Congress… who believes the big three aren’t producing cars that Americans want to buy… notices that a company that is the front runner in hybrids (what Congress *thinks* Americans want to buy…) is losing money. Despite building those cars.

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@Norseman: Good point!

Thanks for the reminder.

Guess Reid’s vote wasn’t so principled after all.

How about them apples Larry?

Gonna make cider?

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Back up there, Sky/RAP. You’re still talking apples and kumquats here.

First of all you say Toyota denies the govt subsidies, and it’s only one guy – now at Chrysler – who insists it is true. So I’d say we haven’t got a clue if what you represent is fact.

But for grins and giggles, let’s say it is. There is a vast difference between govt subsidies of retooling (which we’ve already done for the big three) … and having an auto czar dictate to the company just what cars they will manufacture, and how much they will cost.

There is no proof – not even a hint of a suggestion – that the Japanese govt has the micro management power over Toyota or Honda, nor Germany over BMW, that this Congress is demanding here.

And you’re not the lone ranger with jobs disappearing to more profit friendly countries. Even the sound industry for film/TV had this problem back in the middle 90s. Our “outsourcing” came from many places because the unions had driven up the costs for post production. And yes… I was a union editor. After spending big bucks on the preproduction, the cast, the production and then the editing, they were looking to pinch pennies on sound and dubbing stage… the last step before duplication and distribution to theatres.

So they used small non-union houses with inexperienced personnel who worked cheap… or instead took it to Canada. I saw the writing on the wall back then, and got out early. Now most of the sound houses have been absorbed as a “department” in a larger service facility in order to package the costs and be more competitive.

So do I place a good deal of business costs on unions? Yes… right along with OSHA and the EPA. Heavy government regs and union contract demands make it very difficult for American companies to compete. It’s the same old rule… you have to spend less than you rake in. And the big three haven’t been doing this for quite some time.

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My comment is stuck in the filter. P&T.

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