THSCC Forums

Sounds like Shultz being railroaded into being the THSCC Secretary to me.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

You have to be more specific than that.

"Mr President, if you guys elect me Secretary again, I won't go to the meetings, and you won't have any meeting minutes. I promise."



--Karl, who is IBTL once again...

Apparently you don't even have to line up at the trough any more. The trough could be coming to you if your skin color is proper.

http://www.carefreeway.com/2009/01/and- ... egins.html

Wanna get rid of road congestion and have good roads? Pay for it.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2 ... uest-post/
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2 ... -part-two/

I actually do believe the government CAN help with SOME amount of spending on the RIGHT things. Sadly, we'll probably have too much spending on the wrong things (including racist government policies that continue) and will get no help. Especially after the special interests get their percentage. Hey to the unions!


--Donnie

Lol, THEN you'd be in trouble. The entire country would collapse, since we would shut down the federal government and fire ourselves.

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Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

Donnie-

reboot your server (I'm getting DNS errors for carefreeway)

Edit: Solved by Chuck. Not sure why the side doesn't work here.

UNFREAKINBELIEVABLE.

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2002 MCS, 2003 MCS Track Rat, 2003 Generic White Yukon, 2003 BMWk1200rs, 1973 CB350F, 02 996. 08 Cayenne Turbo
http://www.clinehallagency.com

Working fine here. This is the video he was referring to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opxuUj6v ... egins.html

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Current stable:
2019 BMW M2 Competition slicktop 6MT
2011 BMW M3 sedan slicktop 6MT
2007 BMW 328i wagon (slushbox for now)
1975 CanAm 125MX2

Do nothing. But it takes a brave politician to do that.

Whatever you do, don't bail out failed companies. Deregulation works well, provided there are consequences to risky behavior, in this case failure. If you let the bad companies fail, the good companies that have managed themselves well will pick up the slack and fill in the market.

If you tax the good companies to bail out the bad ones, all you're doing is holding back recovery by supporting bad business models. By doing nothing instead, the government would support the good business models by not taxing the heck out of them to boost their failed competitors.

And don't spend money for the sake of spending it. All that does is increase taxes in the private sector, and shift private sector jobs to the public sector, boosting the latter at the expense of the former. Which of those is better at handling money?

The government wants banks to lend, but right now they can get better rates borrowing from the government than each other. Even if banks wanted to lend, who would borrow from them when the government offers a better deal? And since reckless lending got us into this mess, why do they think reckless lending will solve it?

As for spending vs. saving, well the government wants consumers to spend to drive the economy. That ignores the fact that saved money boosts the money supply by fractional reserve lending -- you can spend $1, or you can stick it in a savings account so the bank can lend $3 to someone else to spend. Which will boost the economy more?

I'm not against public spending. Some of these projects have been necessary for years, I'm all for them. But the time to do it is when the economy was prospering and the tax base expanding, not when it costs a fortune in deficit spending. A bad economy doesn't suddenly make a bad project worth doing.


Oh, and that should be 3 economic schools: you forgot Austrian.

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Martyn Wheeler
AXing Kit's '05 Mazda 3, #29 HStock
(when The Gonzo Symphonic allows)

I'm politically primarily a libertarian and believe in free markets. However, I don't think I want to try to live through the pain the resultant free market correction would bring upon this country and globally. If 70% of our economy is related to consumer spending, how much of that is credit based? If that evaporates what are we left with? I don't know for certain, but I'm quite sure its a good bit more than a 5% pull back in GDP, most likely several times more. I'm philosophically opposed to corporate bailouts and saving those who have made bad decisions, but I've also seen how those big domino setups fall down. We are riding a couple decade long artificial asset bubble spurred primarily by cheap/easy money that is on a much more grand scale and more pervasive than the one that led to the great depression.

So, can all the bail outs actually work? Potentially, lets hope so, I've got my fingers crossed. I believe that Keynesian economics can work in the short term to soften the fall and aid recovery, but they have to followed up after recovery with responsible budgeting for a long term sound economy. Where will it leave us on the other side? Hopefully something like Japan the past 15 years and we learn our lesson and approach things more responsibly afterward, but that is probably just a pipe dream. Looking at history it is abundantly obvious that asset bubbles never ever end well, we have to stop fooling ourselves into thinking we have invented some "new economy" where that is no longer the case.

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'07, '08, '11 Autocross VP
'06, '10 Mike Dishman Cup
'21 MX5, '13 Corvette GS, '92 Corvette 383 c.i. 413whp/390wtq, '03 Expedition

wow that really sounds bad when you listen to it in that context. i know i am going to regret this but what the hell.

it may be that Reich is simply trying to say the money should go to HUB certified contractors in a greater proportion than what is the accepted norm today. i assume these projects will be bid work, no? i don't know how it works in roads and bridges (Ryan?) but in public building construction a certain percentage of the trades need to be minority / women owned. the private sector is not far behind.

Glaxo, for one, has even gone to using HUB contractors that sub work from only minority owned crews.

minority hiring quotas are nothing new folks. the State Police in PA started quota hiring in the '70s. test scores were adjusted for minority admission.




-or- it could be that Reich is going to drive thru the projects and pluck people off the sidewalk for bridge and highway duty. ala The Grapes of Wrath. if something doesn't break soon, a large number of white construction workers will be standing on those same sidewalks.


i did notice that this bill includes a large number of Defense Department initiatives. don't they already have their own MASSIVE budget?

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BenchWarmer Motorsports

another one of those damn LeMons heads

just another Chump

we are an Autocross Club Dammit............

I really am trying to stay out of this as it is my belief that this is eventually going to turn into a shouting match, but since we are on page three and nobody has called anyone any names, I will try to have some hope...



I am of the opinion that China is the largest Laissez-faire/Invisible Hand/Capitalist economy in the world right now. However I don’t think many will agree with me. They pretty much have zero regulation or if there is regulation it’s not enforced, so it’s very much “Invisible Hand”. So go ahead and produce tainted milk. It’s not a good thing to do and eventually market forces will self correct. So you kill a few and make thousands sick along the way. Invisible hand does work (as China is getting a handle on its food issues due to market forces). Problem is it is painful. Not just regular painful, but painful with a capital “P”.

Also the concept of “failure” does not work to help prevent bad things from happening. Those who start, run and grow businesses are risk takers. People will always think they can “get away with it” (risk taker mentality). So they will do stuff that logically they shouldn’t do and eventually crash and burn instead of seeing the error of their ways and correcting course.



This is pretty much how I feel. Part of me really wants the US domestic auto industry to completely tank and self correct. However, I also don't want to play that fast and loose with my livelihood. Lets see, option #1 may be a quick and very painful correction (may loose my job, my house, etc. but sacrifices have to be made) or option #2 may prolong the recovery, but may also keep the pain level down (but I am going to have to pay for it long into the future). I am sorry, but I am picking option #2 time and time again. Maybe if I had no family and not much to loose personally it might be a fun experiment to see how well #1 works. Frankly it's just the most risky option.

My opinion is that the problem with leaving this 100% to market forces is that it's slow to react. It reacts once the disaster has happened. It’s like building a robot car that drives around at night with no headlights. Sometimes it runs off the road and crashes into a tree and kills the occupants. But it’s strong enough to backup and keep going. In theory there are plenty of new occupants who want to ride along for the next ride. I guess the polar opposite would be public transportation in which you get on and the driver tells you where to get off. The bus might be slow smelly and may not even drop you off in the right place.

My personal opinion is that we should trust market forces over the short time horizon, but don’t rely upon it for stability and long term guidance. Typical shareholders in stock X care about short term fluctuations and not long term health of the company. That is where regulation and oversight come into play. So a bit of a guiding hand might help the invisible hand do its work a bit more effectively over the long haul. And with the oversight of a guiding hand comes transparency so that you can know what the motives are behind the guiding hand.

Regarding Carl’s original question/topic... I believe that we should be spending on infrastructure one way or another. If this ends up being the reason and it somehow helps, then great. I think it’s probably more productive than throwing money at banks.

I will volunteer my opinion regarding the US automakers. I really think that they should go into some type of slow motion controlled bankruptcy as a method to fix the things they don’t have the will power to do on their own. If we (collective country) don’t want to do that for fear of the potential outcome, then do an effective slow government mandated reorganization. Basically “bankruptcy”, but with a different name to make everyone feel good about it. However, I don’t know how that could be done legally.

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Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

Some things can't be controlled by economic forces. Those need regulation. My usual example of that is the environment, but your one of tainted milk is better.

And that's why I'm not a strict libertarian. I don't believe you can let economic forces drive pollution control.


So the ones who do it the right way succeed, and those who don't fail. That's how it's supposed to work. I don't have a problem with that. The cost of high risk is the probability of failure. The people who "invested" in Madoff despite knowing full well he was running some sort of a crooked deal deserve to lose their money. (Many investors did know he was a crook -- they just thought it was insider trading rather than a Ponzi scheme. )


The problem with that is doing the wrong thing is fast to react and the fallout lasts much longer. If you want to talk probabilities, there are a million more wrong things than right things, and the last people I trust to pick the right one are the ones with their eyes on voter approval. It's easier to convince people that doing anything is the right thing rather than doing nothing.

As Daniel Webster said, "A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures."


Completely agreed. The only way to take the pressure off the automakers and let them restructure properly is for them to go into bankruptcy. You know, the airlines have all done it, and yet planes still fly.

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Martyn Wheeler
AXing Kit's '05 Mazda 3, #29 HStock
(when The Gonzo Symphonic allows)

i just got here Richard. it is only a matter of time.

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BenchWarmer Motorsports

another one of those damn LeMons heads

just another Chump

we are an Autocross Club Dammit............

Thanks, Martin. Your comments make a lot of sense.

And Richard - sometimes I like to watch Fox "News" for the entertainment value of people yelling at each other without actually saying anything that makes sense. It's especially fun when one of the Democrats thinks his opinion is really important and that somebody's going to stop and listen at some point. Gets kindof old after a few minutes, but then I just change the channel.

Hopefully we can avoid that here, but hey, you know what? If you get offended, all you have to do is click the little box with the "x" in it at the top right corner of the screen.

One thing to add here is that while the "bailouts" look huge to the financial sector, the reality is that's all just fairly short term loan type money to keep them able to operate day to day. It's not much about "buying into" the companies or GIVING them anything, it's loans that will work to help them find other ways to finance their day to day operations and get on solid footing again. They're not necessarily needed simply due to bad management on the part of the banks...the entire economic system got caught in a failure mode that nobody believed was possible. Lesson learned.

The bailouts to the auto industry are bad for an entirely different reason. Their business models all suck from the bottom up and they were teetering on the brink of destruction at the first sight of ANY significant reduction in consumer spending. What's more, plenty of other companies in the market (that just happen to not be US based) positioned themselves to better handle that kind of thing. One major reason the US companies are having trouble doing that is the union contracts they've signed over the last thirty or so odd years. They're currently paying HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people to NOT work simply because they hired them to work in factories that have since been shut down and they have to pay them until those folks find other jobs (heh) or they re-open the factories. Guess what? Those factories probably won't re-open in those workers lifetimes and those workers certainly have no incentive to find another job!

Until the government gets the, err, gumption to put an end to the ludicrous union contracts that are helping kill the US auto industry, we'll be bailing them out till the cows come home. A democratically controlled government WILL NOT just let them go under so those union contracts vanish, and they also have shown no willingness to FORCE the unions to rework them to more manageable levels as part of a bailout. So the car industry in the US, for the foreseeable future, will be just like the airline industry. Completely government supported in some regular fashion. Great.


--Donnie