Is this a new thing?

I remember a few years ago them giving MoveOn a hard time for wanting to run a political ad.

But they have the Chrysler ad this year, and that racist anti-asian one too.

... what changed?

2/7/2012 12:14:34 AM

Tebow had his anti-abortion thing last year, too.

2/7/2012 12:21:06 AM

tebow is funny.

killing unborn babies is terrible. lopping off their foreskin is a-okay though.

2/7/2012 1:16:36 AM

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

Quote :

"Eastwood registered as a Republican to vote for Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, and supported Richard Nixon's 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns. He later criticized Nixon's handling of the Vietnam War and his morality during Watergate.[254][255] He has disapproved of America's wars in Korea (1950–1953), Vietnam (1964–1973), and Iraq (2003–2011), believing that the United States should not be overly militaristic or play the role of global policeman. He considers himself too individualistic to be either right-wing or left-wing, describing himself as a "political nothing" and a "moderate" in 1974[255] and a "libertarian" in 1997.[256] Eastwood has stated that he does not see himself as conservative or "ultra-leftist."[257] At times, he has supported Democrats in California, including Representative Sam Farr in 2002, and Governor Gray Davis, whom he voted for in 1998, and hosted a $5,000 per ticket fundraiser for in 2003.[258] A self-professed "liberal on civil rights" (see the 1974 Playboy interview),[259] Eastwood has stated that he is pro-choice on abortion.[260] He has endorsed the notion of allowing gays to marry[257] and contributed to groups supporting the Equal Rights Amendment for women."

2/7/2012 2:53:23 AM

Which one was the anti-asian ad?

2/7/2012 10:02:16 AM

was it the one where they were trying to drive?

2/7/2012 10:09:17 AM

^^ http://youtu.be/TkQAalcsg5E

2/7/2012 12:18:21 PM

I don't get what was so political about the Chrysler ad. The auto bailout worked for them, is that something controversial to state in public?

Was there anyone on the right who thought so aside from Karl Rove?

[Edited on February 7, 2012 at 12:29 PM. Reason : .]

2/7/2012 12:26:32 PM

^^ holy shit i missed that ad..

One comment on the video: this is about as racist as showing blacks lining up at a welfare office.

[Edited on February 7, 2012 at 12:35 PM. Reason : some of the video comments are pretty funny.]

2/7/2012 12:33:40 PM

Quote :

"killing unborn babies is terrible. lopping off their foreskin is a-okay though."

...you don't understand the difference?

2/7/2012 1:06:59 PM

If you're going to fearmonger about the "yellow menace" at our doorstep, at least do it properly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYKAbRK_wKA

See, no racism. Just Chinese people twenty years from now laughing at the destruction of the United States of America.

2/7/2012 1:34:17 PM

There's nothing wrong with the Chrysler ad. It's not political except to people with a stick up their ass.

2/7/2012 2:45:42 PM

Had this been a Ford ad, the right would be lauding it as the trumpet to usher in Jesus' second coming...

2/7/2012 2:53:29 PM

Quote :

"There's nothing wrong with the Chrysler ad. It's not political except to people with a stick up their ass."

It's political when you live in the United States. The success of industry in today's economy is based on whether or not you can garner political favors. We truly live under corporatism. Pay your dues and get bailed out, otherwise expect to be crushed by regulations crafted by your competition.

2/7/2012 3:13:03 PM

The Chrysler ad was not political. Get off it.

2/7/2012 8:27:52 PM

I found it amusing to learn that none of the "halftime in america" ad was actually shot in detroit.

2/7/2012 8:30:39 PM

I read that they actually used shots of the Wisconsin protests only with the signs and stuff blurred out. So I guess it was a little political.

2/7/2012 9:13:36 PM

it wasnt political, it was "please dont hate us cause our terrible company got bailed out."

2/8/2012 10:54:26 AM

And how is that not political?

"We used our political influence to avoid bankruptcy, something that regular people/businesses just have to deal with. Suck it bitches!"

2/8/2012 10:58:08 AM

"Regular people" pay their bills by having jobs at auto plants and also avoided bankruptcy thanks to the bailout. You can be anti-bailouts-in-general all you want, but you can't pretend that the bailout under Bush and restructuring under Obama were simple political favors for Chrysler execs. There were very clear incentives to avoid the broad (read: Regular People) consequences of the US auto industry bottoming out completely.

[Edited on February 8, 2012 at 12:36 PM. Reason : .]

2/8/2012 12:28:41 PM

A tiny percentage did. The rest of the population paid for it.

2/8/2012 12:33:14 PM

They repaid all but 1.6 billion, divided amongst the 150k or so Americans who pay taxes, that's about $10 a person. That's a pretty good price to pay for saving the domestic auto industry which is one of the few remaining manufacturing sectors in the US. Subtract from that the taxes that the (not bankrupt) Chrysler paid last year (about 150 million), and Americans can say they saved 50 thousand jobs for the price of a lunch with a coke. That's not counting all the jobs created by those employees spending their paychecks, or the jobs created at the companies that supply and distribute for Chrysler's operations.

[Edited on February 8, 2012 at 12:42 PM. Reason : .]

2/8/2012 12:38:24 PM

Quote :

"but you can't pretend that the bailout under Bush and restructuring under Obama were simple political favors for Chrysler execs"

No pretending. It was factually just that, a favor to the executives, bondholders, and mostly UAW. Depending on the equations you use, it is possible that more jobs were sacrificed by the bailouts than they saved.

^ Allow me to point you to the Treasury's latest auto bailout loss estimate:

Quote :

"Washington -The U.S. Treasury Department boosted its estimate of government losses in the $85 billion auto bailout by $170 million. In the government's latest report to Congress this month, the Treasury upped its estimate to $23.77 billion, up from $23.6 billion. Last fall, the government dramatically boosted its forecast of losses on the rescues of General Motors Co., Chrysler Group LLC and their finance units from $14 billion to $23.6 billion."

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120130/AUTO01/201300393/1148/AUTO01/Treasury-ups-auto-bailout-loss-estimate

And this estimate ignores the billions in direct subsidies and tax credits that have been given to just GM and Chrysler.

Quote :

"That's a pretty good price to pay for saving the domestic auto industry "

By domestic auto industry, do you mean Toyota, Hyundai, BMW, Ford, and Honda?

[Edited on February 8, 2012 at 12:52 PM. Reason : .,.]

2/8/2012 12:42:48 PM

That sounds like a terrible deal. 10 dollars is taken from me by force so people can keep making ugly, unreliable cars? How about nothing is taken from me and their assets are liquidated in bankruptcy proceedings?

Your half-baked justifications for the auto bailouts could be applied to any failing enterprise. By your logic, if we don't bailout every company considering bankruptcy, the jobs and factories will disappear and never come back.

Maybe the factories would have been taken over by, I don't know, Honda. Then American workers could be producing cars that are worth a shit, unlike these abominations:



[Edited on February 8, 2012 at 12:57 PM. Reason : ]

2/8/2012 12:48:37 PM

Quote :

"American workers could be producing cars that are worth a shit"

Some cars produced by american workers:

BMW X3/X5
Honda Accord
Honda Civic sedans
Acura TL
Honda Pilot
Hyundai Sonata
MB GL Class
MB M Class
Nissan Altima
Nissan Maxima
Nissan Frontier
Nissan Pathfinder
Toyota Camry
Toyota Tundra
Toyota Tacoma

Except these cars aren't built in Detroit, but places like Smyrna, TN, Lafayette, IN, and San Antonio, TX.

2/8/2012 1:11:31 PM

Quote :

"10 dollars is taken from me by force so people can keep making ugly, unreliable cars"

Apparently you think GM and Chrysler are still producing the same cars they were in the 80s Their currently offerings are quite well built and nothing to be ashamed of. In fact the only car manufacturers whose quality reputations have been taking a hit recently are Honda and Toyota. If you want to talk about the automotive industry then perhaps you should read up.

2/8/2012 1:28:05 PM

Quote :

"Your half-baked justifications for the auto bailouts could be applied to any failing enterprise."

No, just to manufacturing ones, really. An economy can't grow on a strictly internal service economy. Even among manufacturing, auto makers are an especially significant chunk of the sector.

Quote :

"By your logic, if we don't bailout every company considering bankruptcy, the jobs and factories will disappear and never come back."

Jobs and factories don't come back if demand doesn't come back. Demand doesn't "come back" when the economy is hemorrhaging entire industries (and the jobs that come with them) to foreign markets.

Quote :

"Maybe the factories would have been taken over by, I don't know, Honda. Then American workers could be producing cars that are worth a shit, unlike these abominations:"

They already have 2 in America and the rest (almost two dozen) are overseas in Asia, Oceania, and South America. Why would Honda be interested in Chrysler's (then) outdated factories? To sell cars in America where demand was dropping like a lead weight? They were worried enough about demand matching their current output, taking on additional productive capacity wasn't the first thing on their minds.

So how many years would they have to wait for demand to pick up again? Years, if not a decade or more. It'd be a pretty huge investment to upgrade and repurpose those factories. Fact is that Chrysler's now turning a profit, with revenue up 30% since last year. The fact is that they (and the other bailed out automakers) were going to perish due to temporary crisis conditions, but with permanent consequences to unemployment and the manufacturing sector in the US as a whole.

It's corporatism, I wont deny that, but during the restructuring concessions were made by management and union alike, it was a measure undertaken for the sake of the economy at large, not the executives who had contributed primarily to Obama's opponents. If it was entirely a game of corporate influence, Obama would have let them fail and watch another source of GOP funding dry up.

Quote :

"That sounds like a terrible deal. 10 dollars is taken from me by force so people can keep making ugly, unreliable cars? How about nothing is taken from me and their assets are liquidated in bankruptcy proceedings?"

You have, without a doubt, the most myopic view of economics I've ever encountered. Do you really think the domestic auto industry dying would somehow benefit you in any way? You really can't see how hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of lost consumer demand would have any repercussions that might make it back to you? Does your idea of how market economics affect the standard of living extend to any scope or scale larger than idealized one-on-one transactions between tradesmen?


[Edited on February 8, 2012 at 1:41 PM. Reason : .]

2/8/2012 1:36:24 PM

^I'm not disagreeing with you, but rather just thought I'd point out a few things. Foreign automobile companies are still interesting in increasing their manufacturing capacity in North America (and the US) either through plant expansion or with new plants.

As to old plants, the old joint venture plant (NUMMI) that Toyota and GM had is now a Tesla factory and an old GM plant in Delaware is now owned by Fisker, who intends (as I don't believe anything has been sold yet) to build luxury plugin hybrids and ZEVs. So it would seem that at least some people are interested in these old plants.

2/8/2012 1:43:08 PM

Quote :

"That's a pretty good price to pay for saving the domestic auto industry"

nope

2/8/2012 1:47:54 PM

Quote :

"As to old plants, the old joint venture plant (NUMMI) that Toyota and GM had is now a Tesla factory and an old GM plant in Delaware is now owned by Fisker, who intends (as I don't believe anything has been sold yet) to build luxury plugin hybrids and ZEVs. So it would seem that at least some people are interested in these old plants."

True, but bear in mind at least the with the GM plant, that acquisition took place in late 2009, after the recession had bottomed out and things were on the (slow) up again. They might not have made the same decision had those plants been shuttered for 6 months. The recession might not have even bottomed out by then if there had been an addition half million jobs lost due to those bankruptcies. Hindsight is tricky though and we can't know for sure what would have happened. Regardless, it would have been foolish to let the temporary chaos of the crisis put those companies out of business when extending them a lifeline for a short period of time would help weather the storm.


[Edited on February 8, 2012 at 1:50 PM. Reason : .]

2/8/2012 1:48:47 PM

agreed


and neither of those companies has been yet to prove it can stand on it's own feet without government money.

2/8/2012 2:10:34 PM

Quote :

"Which one was the anti-asian ad?"

The other Eastwood one.
http://youtu.be/f9Tpw1ICJEc

2/8/2012 2:20:02 PM

lol

2/8/2012 2:21:28 PM