MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Dear Obamacommies,

Here's how capitalism is supposed to work:

If a company is stupid enough to pay its CEO 600 times that of the average worker while the company is disintegrating due to total lack of innovation, then the company deserves to go out of business to be replaced by a better, smarter company.

Note that the words "government" and/or "bailout" do not appear anywhere in that sentence.

To see how Obama's brand of gov't "works," please consult the ash heap of history because they have all failed or are in the process of failing.

Hey..that was my idea!

2010 Chevy Impella... (Steve Jobs Edition)

$49,000 Base Price. Lines are "really thin".. 4 Cyl engine with 95 HP, 8 Track Player, and White only

$75,000 will give it to you in Black with a CD player and a 98 HP 4 Cyl engine...

Yes, Steve has a great vision of what people want. However, without the innovative team at Apple that Steve took years to pull together, nothing would get done.

Apple is more than just one man now!

What do you have to say then about the bush admin bailing bank after bank after asshole with a shitty loan?

I haven't seen this many bailouts since the titanic... and it's all been under bush.


moron. obama isn't president yet.

Jobs would make a great car that only 5% of the market would buy...

Now if Obama would be the owner operator of a car company....

Nov 12, 08 - 10:48 am Comment from: Brian Allen

I like how one of the ads on this page is for renting a Hummer from Avis.

It seems so right.

As for "more California" in the car design, I don't think so.

Be careful what you wish for, do you remember Sir. Sinclair?
He had a great computer company responsible for the gems like ZX Spectrum, and then he went into car business, he made an electric car, C5, which was his Titanic or Ctanic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5

Nov 12, 08 - 10:51 am Comment from: qka

Nardelli is an ass. He ran Home Depot into the ground, and now he can't get Chrysler off the ground.

So you're blaming Obama for a bailout that was performed by the current Republican Admin.? You are directing blame at the wrong guy. Obama won't be president for more than 2 months yet.

Neither Bush was a true conservative.

Smaller, less intrusive federal government, not the opposite, is the way to prosperity.

Proper regulation, not over-regulation and not deregulation, is the key to success.

Bush was simply the lesser of two evils, not a true Republican. Ditto for McCain.

Obama is change and wants to take a different direction. The wrong change and the wrong direction, but whatever. It'll all work out hopefully.

Steve Jobs... the computer guy in the auto industry? I think not. Having a PC maker do any thing other than PC's is a terrible idea- it would drive the maker out of business. A PC guy can't run an auto company and design new cars people would actually buy- they would build the most expensive cars full if innovative ideas that no one would want. Next thing people would want is Steve Jobs to start making phones or something- terrible idea... Leave the PC people to PC making- Apple will never make anything people will actually buy- outside of Macs.

Re: Redistribute This... You are a bitter douchebag.

I agree that a bailout of any of these companies (banks, insurance companies, mortgage lenders, et al) is basically a bad idea. It is obvious from the news on NPR that the current administration asked for $700+ billion without a real clue or plan how to make it solve the problems. Now it seems the current administration is is poised to ask for more $$$. I do not agree that we should bail out Detroit. I say let the failed companies sink and lets all deal with whatever happens. I may lose my job any day now, and guess what? I will have to deal with it.

Obama has/had nothing to do with any of this crap. So don't blame him!! If anything, Obama seems more prepared to deal with this problem in a pragmatic way - rather than the inclusive and secretive ways of the current administration.

Great, a car that every customer needs apple's permission to modify. Ask Steve what radio we can put in it without voiding the warranty.

Simpletons: People who blame the President, any president, for the economy, when it's the congress - Democrat-controlled, by the way - that's responsible for authorizing corporate bailouts and bloated pork projects.

Only dumbass Friedman is clueless enough to write such crap. Jobs wants no part of auto manufacturing or unions.

Friedman is just a off the shelf click whore.

You're right on!!!

See how McCain showed his true colors?

And, Obama....we're in trouble. Let's hope for the best.

The "handouts" (bailouts) are going to put us in a depression. Maybe that's what the politicians are trying to do. Then, when we're deep in dog-poo, they can "present" their "new" solution that everyone will agree to because we're in so much trouble.

Michael
The Congress has been controlled by the Democrats for 2 years, not the last 8. The Senate is basically 50-50 with the jackass Lieberman voting with the Republicans on Iraq. But yes, let's not let facts get in the way of uninformed rants. Do you know what a veto is and what vote it takes to over ride it? Bush could veto anything that comes across his desk if he doesn't agree. It is all there in your 4th Grade SStudies book.

Nov 12, 08 - 11:14 am Comment from: HMCIV

Steve-o wouldn't touch the auto industry with a 50 ft Wi-Fi radius.

Sure. Because the Republican controlled House and Senate did such a good job when they were in charge, right? And sorry, but it was Dubya who deregulated everything in sight and let the banks run themselves into the ground.

Nov 12, 08 - 11:20 am Comment from: DLMeyer

They would not have to get Jobs to RUN the company, just to be "significantly involved". As in, no new designs get approved without his say-so and involvement.
The ignorant, Right-wing Republican who started the discussion has a point - that bail-outs are not the way to go when the C-class executives are earning over 100 times what the typical worker earns while running the company into the ground. Such companies deserve to either collapse or to show their C-class executives the door. The latter was what was suggested here. Had nothing to do with Obama, with redistribution, or with a bailout.
BTW: I just read that 52% of McCain's evangelical supporters actually believe that Obama is/was a Muslim. Where did they get this idea? I can only guess it was their own information network - starting with McCain and his agents - who were telling this tale. Additionally, the American government is supposed to be separate from the religious beliefs of the participants ... so, how should this matter? Point: if your informants are willing to lie to you, and lying is frowned upon by your strongly-held religious beliefs, WHY should you listen to anything these people say? All that to say that 52% of McCain's evangelical base consists of gullible, under-educated, poorly informed fools who ought not be allowed to vote in the first place. Not because they voted for McCain, but because they were sucked in by this multi-layered lie.
To sum up: Jobs could clear out much of the dead-wood at the top of the auto industry and help Detroit build more sensible cars, but could he convince people to BUY them? THAT is where the problem is ... the American public loves their gas guzzlers and doesn't care about any silly gas problem until it hits them in their own wallet. Nobody forces someone to buy a Hummer or Lincoln Navigator to make that solo commute to work. That's a personal choice.

Innovation is a transferable process that is not limited to a particular industry. Steve Jobs, if given free reign, would trim the lines down to four models, focus the resources strategically, cut out the dead weight, and run the race against time (money running out) to get a product out the door. Remember when he said (paraphrasing here) " You know when you see a concept car and it's so cool. Then when the real car comes out three years later it sucks, and you're like 'what happened?!' That's because the engineers tell the designers it can't be done, and there's 30 compromises, and then the manufacturers say it can't be done, and there's 30 more compromises. Well, when we were designing the first iMac the people who couldn't figure out how to do it, or couldn't buy into the idea that we were design-driven, they left or were asked to leave". These principles could be brought to bear on the auto industry, especially with an eye on energy independence. However, I don't think he could overcome the unions and the labor burdens unless he started outside Detroit. Otherwise, Friedman is spot on, as usual.

So if you let GM fail, what happens in the meantime? millions of people lose their jobs and the economy falls over the cliff. There's no more capital available for that "better, smarter company" to get started, and we're left in a depression with no domestic auto industry, or any industry at all.

Good idea!

Dean Kamen.

Obama pushed for the bailouts and wants more. This is just the beginning. I don't think Bush should have bailed anyone out either. We need real conservatives in charge. Time will prove this.

Everyone seems to think that running a car company is such an easy job. It's not - it's the hardest industry to be profitable at.

Take Telsa Motors as the example. Elon Musk and his Silicon Valley braintrust was going to show Detroit how to build a better car. Well how has that turned out? Tesla doesn't even have a grasp on what their Roadster cost to build, let alone getting them out the door.

Clinton administration strikes a blow for middle America, loosens credit constraints and opens up the American dream to "minorities and low-income consumers"...
By STEVEN A. HOLMES

Published: September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

Nov 12, 08 - 11:45 am Comment from: thethirdshoe

Democrats have a majority, not a super majority.
The president and the other republicans have been able to stop any real change that the democrats have come up with.

It will still be possible for republicans to filibuster legislation.
You do know what that means, correct?

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Nov 12, 08 - 11:47 am Comment from: thethirdshoe

@Redistribute This

The majority of the country says you are wrong.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

The few times that someone actually knuckled down and decided to create a useable vehicle that was cheap to produce, cheap to run and easy on the environment, the bet cars in the world were produced.

In cars, the classic example is the Volkswagen bug, in airplanes, the Douglas DC-3. There are many others though.

All it takes is someone willing to step outside of what has been done before and re-think the basic premises. Steve Jobs doesn't know enough about cars to be helpful, but Dean Kamen sure could do it.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

jobs doesn't have to design a car...just buy and drive the cars he and Ive recommend.

Nov 12, 08 - 11:51 am Comment from: Mr. Reeee

We need FEWER cars!
More public transportation.
More Muscle-Powered transportation!

If GM wants a bailout, in exchange force them to produce high MPG/low emission vehicles. Hybrid and 100% electric vehicles. PERIOD.

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings

No matter what bad managment, union interference, economy, or anything or anyone else has as an excuse for GM's problems, the true issue is that from a modern day design standpoint, Honda and Toyota, etc. has kicked their butts in efficiency and design and in high standards. Design is the cause...the rest of their problems are the effect of the cause.
My Grandfather, dad, and my uncle all worked in Flint, Michigans plant building Buicks years ago, so I am not completely ignorant on this issue.
Apple has proved that longterm, design and efficiency wins. Look at Dell now...price undercutting was shortterm because design went out the window. So it is for GM. No matter who they piggyback on, Honda and Toyota are uncatchable at this point in modern day DESIGN. I still see Taurus's out there where you can't tell the front from the back...revolutionary only in a reverse society.

Nov 12, 08 - 11:56 am Comment from: Tergenev

There *is* a Steve Jobs of the auto industry, and he even works in California. His name is Elon Musk and he runs Tesla Motors.

Nov 12, 08 - 11:56 am Comment from: Amazin1

So GM fails - what happens to demand for the few vehicles they use to sell? Those people just stop buying cars? Not likely. More likely if that brand of potato chip no longer exists and they want potato chips, they will go to another brand. So, in reality, it becomes a zero sum game after a period of time. A bit of OT at the remaining auto manufacturers, until they can expand facilities, and problem resolved.

Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage.

Nov 12, 08 - 11:58 am Comment from: Mr. Reeee

Pat Murphy... YES! I'd forgotten that quote and how brilliant it is.

The last motor vehicle I owned was a new 1983 GMC Jimmy, which when driving with a light foot, got about 24 mpg. Why on earth a similar vehicle, 25 years later doesn't get 40 to 50 mpg and pollutes at least half as much is beyond me.

When the 70's energy crisis hit, Japanese automakers hired more ENGINEERS, while American auto companies hired LAWYERS.

But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.

Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Nov 12, 08 - 12:03 pm Comment from: Tergenev

And to the critics of Musk, if my life depended on it, I'd count on Tesla being around in five years much more than I would GM. They're delivering, albeit a bit later than planned, a fast, fun, all electric sports car. How's that GM electric car coming? Oh yeah, the nitwits running GM killed it back in the 90s. How's THAT management decision looking these days?

During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by
46.3 per cent.

In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent.

A slim majority voted him in. Things will change back the other way.

Nov 12, 08 - 12:15 pm Comment from: WindozeKiller

@@redistribute

The bank bailouts and current credit crisis can only be laid squarely at the feet of the democrats in congress. The liberals decided that it was unfair that people who can't afford to buy a house - can't buy a house. Their answer? FORCE the lending companies to give loans to people who don't qualify. LOTS of them. The houses didn't get cheaper - quite the opposite. But they called this lame brained plan "affordable housing" for the poor.

Republicans warned congress and the president TWO YEARS in advance that this crisis was coming - plenty of time to fix it. but John Kerry, Barak Obama, and the rest of the Democrat party spun this into class warfare to beat it down and prevent the "Change" needed.

Thanks Obama. And now we have a country of idiots who fell for the media hype and elected the guy who CAUSED the problem.

Great.

Nov 12, 08 - 12:15 pm Comment from: Dialtone

Jobs already did "Cars." Next?

BTW, most hot-looking Japanese cars are designed in LA.

Nov 12, 08 - 12:20 pm Comment from: MCCFR

The bank bailouts and current credit crisis can only be laid squarely at the feet of the democrats in congress.

Crap, but carry on believing it if it makes you feel good.

Or you could ask yourself how $150 billion of exposure to sub-prime led to a global bailout that is over $1.4 trillion and increasing on a daily basis.

And you could go get yourself an education on unregulated financial markets whilst you're at it.

Dickhead.

I like farm animals.....