Progressive Democratic Gentleman

Listening to the political news, the use of three words bothers me: gentleman, democratic, and progressive.

My complaint about "gentleman" is not so much political, but general usage. Gentleman used to mean a man who was polite, educated, well-dressed, and generally a decent sort of chap. Today it seems to be used like the word "alleged" to give the benefit of the doubt to criminals, and to avoid libel suits against the news media. So, we hear them talk about a serial murderer, saying that the "gentleman" might be moved to a new prison. Part of the misuse is intentional because "gentleman" conjures up an image of a past time in which most people were much kinder and more thoughtful than they are today, So, they undermine that image by associating "gentleman" with the worst kind of things today.

A year or two ago the Republicans started referring to the Democratic Party as the Democrat Party, presumably because it has a coarser, more grating sound, but also perhaps because "Democratic" called up better images of democratic government in the Athenian tradition, than "Democrat" which in the US generally means a person who is Democratic politician or supporter. However, "Democrat" is a noun, while "Democratic" is an adjective. So, it's grammatically incorrect, but the main appeal for the Republicans is probably that it sounds harsher and thus it's easier to make "Democrat Party" sound insulting.

Finally, I don't like the term Progressive. To me the Progressive movement is something that happened in the first half of the twentieth century, limited to unions, social reform, etc. On the other hand, "liberal" is a term that again goes back to the ancient Greeks. It speaks of freedom; we have (or used to have) "liberal" education. Liberal speaks of freedom, of issues that are important to every civilization, while progressive is more economic and limited to certain mundale issues, times and places. I much prefer being a Liberal than a Progressive.

To the extent that the Democratic Party tries to make me a Progressive, rather than a Liberal, I feel less like a gentleman.

Government Fails in Banking Crisis

One of government's main functions is to provide security for its citizens in the form of police, courts, military defense, etc. It has failed to do this in the banking crisis. Government did ameliorate the crisis by preventing a depression era scenario where many major banks fail. The banks not only did not fail, they recovered quickly and their chieftains are making millions. On the financial side, government worked.

On the police side, government failed. Not one of the culprits responsible for bringing America to its knees has suffered any criminal prosecution. Just recently the criminal case was dropped against Angelo Mozillo, the head of Countrywide, and one of the worst offenders in the sub-prime mortgage banking meltdown. Apparently his old company, now part of bank of America, is still the object of a civil suit by some of the people who lost millions because of his actions, but the government says everything he did is okay.

This partly due to government corruption. The banks lobbied heavily for little or no regulation, and continue to do so. The main policing organization, the SEC, failed miserably under its chairman Christopher Cox, who should be criminally libel for his failure, but of course is not. The public seems more upset about his failure to catch Bernie Madoff than about his failure to prevent the worst financial crisis since the Depression. Of course, Congress got paid well by the banks' lobbyists to keep any laws from interfering with the banks evil deeds.

I like the book All the Devils Are Here because it criticizes many of the major players in the financial crisis for doing bad things. It doesn't take the position that "bad things happened," but nobody was responsible. People were responsible, and many of them continue to hold positions of power, including Lloyd Blankfein at Goldman Sachs and Jamie Dimon at J.P. Morgan Chase. The Morgans and the Rockefellers must be saddened that someone of Dimon's low moral integrity has dragged the names of their institutions through the mud.

Fiscal Policy A Shambles

American fiscal policy is in total disarray. Taxes are too low; spending is too high. Spending should be more stimulative and less for old people. Social Security and Medicare need to be reformed, in particular to be more to incomes, both on the taxing and paying ends. Rich people pay a much smaller amount of their earnings into Social Security and end up getting too much when they retire. Medicare takes care of the elderly, but until the recent health care reform, there was no general program to take care of workers. Congress is totally ignoring this problem. They pat themselves on the back if they cut a million dollars from education or the Pentagon budget.

Meanwhile, the Fed is pursuing a serious monetary policy with no help from Congress. Congress just criticizes the Fed's quantitative easing program (QE2), while doing nothing itself. If we get out of this recession it will be largely thanks to the Fed. Ironically, the Fed, which is usually seen to be the friend of the big banks, has turned out to be much more of a friend to ordinary people than Congress has.

Companies, Not Fed to Blame

On Bloomberg, David Malpass says the Fed is failing because the Fed in giving money to US business by keeping interest rates low, but US business is investing in Asia. So, the Fed is just giving American money to Asia. Although there is truth in this, I would say the problem is American business that doesn't support America. CEOs and other senior executives of “American” companies outsource American jobs to China and India. The CEOs get rich by destroying American workers.

Impolite Politicians

Political discourse has become so bitter, it's hard to see how anyone can remain civil.

Last night I was shocked at how impolite Sen. Orrin Hatch was to Judy Woodruff on PBS' Newshour. He insulted HHS Secretary Sebelius, saying, "She just doesn't know what she's talking about." He was sarcastic, responding to one of Judy Woodruff's questions with, "Oh, isn't that wonderful?" And, "That's what I call bull corn." And later, "I see a middle ground.... They ought to trash the bill and get rid of it."

Interestingly, the New York Times had a tongue-in-cheek op-ed today on a civility course on Arizona. If there were such a thing, Sen. Hatch and his colleagues should enroll in it.

Government Shutdown Coming?

The NYT reports that talk on Capitol Hill is increasing the odds of a government shutdown. This brings back some bad memories of my experience in Poland, when the Republicans shut down the government on the day I was being transferred to Italy, leaving me stranded with no place to live and no income.

I wonder what the reaction will be to a government shutdown. Perhaps people will welcome it. I won't because I think there is a better way to resolve these problems of the deficit and the debt. The Congress and the administration should work out some sort of a compromise, either temporary or permanent, without shutting down the government.

Angry Letter to Congressional Delegation

I am disappointed that President Obama and the Democrats have apparently decided to take small steps towards balancing the budget by crushing the middle class, transferring the middle class' money to the super rich.

We see middle and lower class programs proposed for cuts, while taxes are reduced on the super rich. A recent report by ABC News on hedge fund manager John Paulson's multi-billion dollar payday last year indicated that most of his taxes will be at the capital gains rate; so, all the debate about the top tax rate is irrelevant. Rich people don't pay "income tax" (35%) for most of their income; they pay the much lower (15%) "capital gains" tax rate. John Paulson reportedly made most of his billions last year by betting on gold, i.e., against the US dollar. He made his first billions betting against the sub-prime housing market. Are these really socially valuable activities that deserve to be taxed at half the rate that working people pay?

Last night on PBS' Newshour, Sen. Bernie Sanders said that ExxonMobil paid no income tax last year, although it made $19 billion. If the Republicans succeed in cutting off funding for PBS, I won't see that anymore.

The Republicans always argue for a simpler tax code, but that's because they want to avoid paying taxes. Under a simpler tax code, every lunch will be a business lunch; every country club membership will be for business purposes, and every trip to Hawaii will be a business trip. Republicans want bigger swimming pools; they don't want to buy helmets for troops in Afghanistan. I guess Democrats are hoping that the Republicans will invite them over to enjoy the new, bigger swimming pools.

The Tea Party is angry. Well, now I'm angry, too. Unfortunately, I don't have billions to pay a lobbyist to bribe you. I understand that as a politician you have to prostitute yourself to the big money, but remember that even some whores have standards. See Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman."

Revolution

The revolution in Egypt makes me think about revolutions in the US. It seems to me that it came surprisingly easily and quickly. Maybe that is a sign of just how corrupt and weak Mubarak's regime had become.

The first American revolution, of course, was the revolution against Britain, led by George Washington and other elites, but supported my most of the common men, although there were some loyalists to the British crown. Although the American revolution was much longer and bloodier than Egypt's, most opinion leaders then were probably equally surprised that the little colonies defeated one of the greatest world powers at that time. Unlike what we know about Egypt at this time, there was a critical mass of intellectual, political and military leaders to take over the government of the newly independent nation. Even then, it was years before we had a Constitution and a fully functioning central government.

Then there was the Civil War. Arguably the Southern states were not trying to overthrow the central government; they just wanted out. But basically that's what the colonies wanted during the Revolutionary War. The Federal Government under Lincoln would not let them go; so, we had an unsuccessful revolution. However, the cost in terms of lives, property, and hardship was astronomical, especially to the South.

One of the closest parallels to the Egyptian demonstration that comes to mind, was the "Bonus Army" march and camp in Washington in 1932 by about 43,000 people, demanding bonuses to help many of the unemployed World War I veterans during the Depression. President Hoover dispersed them by ordering Army units against them. Three of the leaders of the Army units that attacked them were General Douglas McArthur, George Patton, and Dwight Eisenhower, all of who went on to play important roles in World War II. It doesn't sound as if any of the demonstrators was killed in the confrontation, and the protest was broken up.

In my lifetime, several incidents come to mind. One was the assassination of President Kennedy. Although it is probably not true, there will always be some suspicion in my mind that Vice President Lyndon Johnson was responsible for the assassination. If so, the huge Warren Commission investigation was just a cover up, because the idea that there had been a coup in the US would have been too much for the public to bear. But there are tons of conspiracy theories, many of which don't involve Lyndon Johnson, and which are probably more credible, although equally false.

Another possible example was the resignation of President Richard Nixon. In that case, there was not a popular uprising, but he was forced out by a coalition of political elites, provided fuel by the reporting of Woodward and Bernstein. Fortunately his corrupt, worthless Vice President, Spiro Agnew, had been forced out before Nixon was, and solid leader Jerry Ford took over the government. But it was an unorthodox transfer of power for the US. Nixon was not impeached; so, he was not legally forced out of office. Like Mubarak, he left as a result of his own personal decision, albeit under great pressure.

Finally, it can be argued that George W. Bush was not elected in a "free and fair election," but rather was put in office in an extra-Constitutional move by the US Supreme Court. The Supreme Court stopped the legal proceedings about the Florida vote recount and the actual, physical recount. Basically the Supreme Court named Bush the President regardless of what actually happened in the election. It's possible that Bush actually won, but we'll never know for sure.

Thus, the US has had some experiences roughly comparable to what has taken place in Egypt. In every case, however, we had someone ready to assume power. It's not clear to me yet that Egypt has new leadership in place. I guess you could argue that Washington's becoming President after the Revolution was similar to the Egyptian military taking power today, but there were a lot more civilian leaders around Washington -- Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and the other "founding fathers."

Will Republicans Maintain America's Honor?

The current political situation is bringing back some bad memories from my days in the Foreign Service.

The last time the Republicans took over Congress, with Newt Gingrich in the mid-1990’s, they cut off funding for one of the main scientific cooperation projects I was working on in Warsaw, Poland, although the US had signed an agreement to fund it for five years just before I got there a year or two earlier. A senior official in the Polish foreign ministry used to call me in periodically and berate me because the US had failed to honor its promise. As a Southerner who grew up with a strong dose of the importance of “honor,” I really didn’t like it.

Then the State Department asked me to go to Rome, and the Republicans shut down the government on the very day my wife and I were leaving. We had moved out of our house in Warsaw, had everything in the car ready to drive to Rome, when the Embassy in Rome called at about 4:30 pm and said, “Don’t leave; we don’t have money to pay for the trip.” That left us on the street in Warsaw with no place to live. It turned out that the DCM (deputy chief of mission, the Ambassador’s deputy) in Rome was a friend from a prior tour in Brasilia. When I spoke to him, he said, “Come on, we’ll work it out.” But the whole thing left a very bad taste in my mouth.

Then when we got to Rome, one of my responsibilities was the nuclear agreement with North Korea. Again, the Republicans refused to fund all of the American obligations under the agreement; so, one of my jobs was to go hat in hand to the Italian government, who at that time held the Presidency of the European Union, and ask them to fund some of the things that we wouldn’t, so that the US would not be in violation of its agreement with North Korea.

That’s one of the reasons I retired. I didn’t want to represent a government that would not honor its promises.

Does the current batch of Republicans in the House have any concept of honor? We'll see. Back in the 1990's one of the Republican complaints about the Democrats was that because they had no business experience, the Democrats did not know how to "meet a payroll." Then, it turned out that it was the Republicans who didn't know how to meet a payroll, or honor their legal, treaty obligations.

Glenn Beck and Elites

Glenn Beck talks about Jimmy Stewart & Bedford Falls, and elites, saying that George Soros represents the elites.  But in fact Fox is the spokesman for the elites, which are big corporations and banks.  George Soros is part of it, but the rich Republican establishment, represented today particularly by the Chamber of Commerce, is an even larger part of it.  Beck doesn't mention them, the Koch brothers, for example.

His participation in the Fox News disinformation campaign to claim that Obama's Indiq trip will cost $200 million per day is also despicable. The claim is based on an incorrect statement by some low ranking Indian local official. It's just the Communist big lie.  

The Economist on the Elections

The Economist magazine has some good points about the Republican landslide, the best being:

Only four years after the voters sent them packing, handing both chambers of Congress to the Democrats at the 2006 mid-terms, the Republicans are back. Voters then (and again in 2008) decided that Republican policies had blown up the deficit with unaffordable tax cuts, let the banks run wild, dragged America into two costly wars and produced a wretched harvest of stagnant wages, rising job insecurity and soaring health-care costs. Now they seem to have decided that they like Barack Obama and the Democrats even less.

I don't get it. The Republicans created huge deficits, a financial crisis, two worthless but expensive wars, destroyed the middle class, and seriously damaged the our system of medical care by giving the health insurance companies huge profits and greater control over patients. Then, since Obama didn't solve all these problems in two years, America voted the Republicans back in.

Obama's image of the Republicans as the people who drove the car into the ditch, seems perfectly logical to me. Why would America ask them to drive again? But people laughed at that simple comparison.

The first test will probably be the vote to raise the debt ceiling. Will the Republicans shut down the government again as they did under Newt Gingrich? The next will probably be what to do about the Bush tax cuts. The safest thing is probably to extend all the cuts for a year or two, although that is a defeat for the Democrats. Unfortunately, the Republicans are like a crazy man with gun; you can't risk trying to reason with them. It doesn't bother them if thousands of people go hungry, are cold, get poor medical care, but it bothers Democrats.

US Stimulus Goes Overseas

The other morning, Erin Burnett of CNBC said on "Morning Joe" that Bernanke and the Fed had generated about 20% of additional cash, but the economy had grown only about 2%. The implication is that the quantitative easing is not working. So where did the money go?

Businessweek last week said:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has tried everything to feed the U.S. economy the liquidity it needs to revive. In the process, he has conjured up more than $1 trillion of fresh monetary stimulus out of thin air. Inevitably, much of it has ventured overseas in search of yield. The big beneficiaries have been the stock markets of the emerging-market economies.

So while Bernanke is pumping out cash, the main beneficiaries are sending that cash overseas to emerging markets. That is a problem with a concentration of wealth. The very rich, who are the main recipients of the cash, are not investing or spending in America. They are investing overseas. This tends to drive down the dollar, which offends the other countries, whose currencies are driven up, thus making their exports more expensive and harder to sell, etc. It will be an issue at the upcoming G-20 meeting.

If the rich were loyal Americans, like those running corporations for a generation after World War II, Bernanke's largess would stay in the US and benefit Americans, not Chinese, Indians and Brazilians.

Deja Vu

This 1994 Republican Congress redux is hard for me to take.

In 1994 or 1995 I was at the American Embassy in Warsaw, Poland, supposedly running a science cooperation program between Polish and American scientists. The Republicans cut off the funding although the United States had signed an agreement promising to participate for two or three more years. I was accused of being dishonest by the Polish foreign ministry. Polish scientists who lost their government funding because of the overthrow of Communism got no help from the US. Poland is now doing well, but thanks to the EU, not the US. The people who took Reagan's advice to "tear down this wall" got punched in the nose by his hard-hearted, mean-spirited Republican successors.

Then the State Department asked me to go to the embassy in Rome. As my wife and I were about to leave Warsaw, with our car packed, including two dogs, the Republicans shut down the government. Rome called and said, "Don't come." But we had nowhere to live in Warsaw, and it was cold. Eventually got Rome to agree that I could come, but I will never forgive the United States for putting me and my wife out on the street in Warsaw when I was moving because the government had reassigned me. Clearly the Republicans have no idea of what it is like to run a business and meet a payroll.

Then, when I got t9 Rome, where I had been assigned because Italy had just assumed the presidency of the European Union, one of my main jobs was to beg the Europeans for more money to meet the terms of the nuclear agreement that we had signed with North Korea, because the Republican Congress would not appropriate the funds for the agreement. The Republicans apparently decided that the North Koreans were going to violate the terms of the agreement, so the Republicans wanted to violate it first.

Republicans have no honor. Their promise means nothing. To them the word of the United States is garbage. They will sell America's honor for filthy lucre.

Swift Boaters Still Around

As a Vietnam veteran, the most unpatriotic group I know of is the group that sponsored the Swift boat ads against John Kerry. Whether Kerry was a hero or not, he went to Vietnam, and he should not have been attacked for serving his country.

The people who funded the Swift boat ads are scurrilous cowards who represent the very worst of America. While they had front men who actually served in Vietnam, I think the front men were used by the cowardly millionaires. I doubt the people funding the ad actually served, or if they did, they served in some very safe capacity.

The idea that they are now behind the flood of attack ads for the 2010 election is almost more than I can stand. The worst is that it worked. Now we will have a bunch of mean-spirited morons trying to govern the country, while it is fighting two worthless wars that they started and dealing with an economic and financial crisis that they created through their greed and incompetence. This is clearly not the greatest generation; this is a generation of draft dodgers and people who have no conception of what it means to serve their country and their fellowman. Steven Pearlstein has an excellent article in the Washington Post about what it means to serve in Congress, but I don't think they will pay any attention to it. They are too stupid and selfish, but for sure Big Brother (Fox and American Crossroads) will make sure that their friends get rich at Ameica's expense.

Jon Stewart vs. Obama

This column from the Washington Post pretty much sums up the commentary about Pres. Obama's appearance on the "Daily Show." It was Stewart versus Obama, and Stewart won. He made the President look like an ignorant fool, although the Republicans and unhappy Democrats will say that Obama made himself look like a fool.

But the problem is that Obama is not a fool. He is an intelligent guy trying to run an unruly country that is in trouble. Its business model for the last 50 years no longer works, and nobody is sure if there is a new model that can support the American lifestyle. The Republicans have a model: "Give us your money!" They want no taxes, no restraint on business. Unbridled greed is the Republican model. And for some reason many Americans like that.

Obama is trying to defend the middle and lower classes, but it appears to be a losing battle. By declaring war on Obama, Jon Stewart seems to have forgotten that Bill and Hillary failed to get any health care reform. The Republicans don't care about some compromise that might be good for America; they just want to win power. We don't have a pubic option in the health care bill because the Republicans kept it out, not because Obama didn't want it.

While Obama did not serve in the military, he did serve his community. The Republicans ridiculed his being a community organizer, but it meant that he cared about other people. When he graduated from the Ivy League, he could have gone the big money route, a Wall Street law firm, or corporate law, but he didn't. To some extent he remembered his roots. Republican roots are in the board room and the country club. The Republican establishment has no concept of serving the greater good, although many Republicans do, many of them moderates, or single issue voters on gay issues, or abortion or immigration, not focused on the overarching Republican agenda of making the rich richer. It's sad that Jon Stewart advanced this Republican agenda.

Juan Williams and NPR Fund Raising

NPR has no doubt gotten a deluge of negative comments about firing Juan Williams, but I'm guessing from the tone discussed in this Washington Post article that much of it was ginned up by Fox News and other conservative media outlets. Those outraged people were not likely to be donors to NPR in any case, and probably don't even listen to it. They get their marching orders from Fox, Rush and Sarah Palin.

The cutoff of Federal funding may be more problematic, but it was likely to come anyway if the Republicans win majorities in November. If they are willing to cut funding for Social Security, they are certainly willing to cut funding for NPR, Juan or no Juan.

Juan Williams Fired by NPR

As if to show that political correctness can be evenhanded, Juan Williams was fired by NPR for comments about Muslims after Rick Sanchez was fired by CNN for comments about Jews. To me, everybody is to blame. First there's too much "talk" on cable TV and talk radio. People say outrageous things to fill up time, or they say things that they haven't thought through because they have to keep talking off the top of their heads. On the other hand, people should be able to say things that are reasonable, whether or not they are absolutely true, like "Jews control the media," or "Muslims in full headgear on a plane make me nervous." On the other hand, these pundits get paid to talk on TV, and the good ones say interesting things without crossing some invisible political correctness border.

I happen to agree with both Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez; so, I'm sad to see them punished for speaking their minds. I'm sure that NPR has been looking for an excuse to fire Juan Williams for being a Fox News commentator, and I frankly think that is somewhat justified, because Fox has a definite political point of view that Juan Williams helps sell on the air, even if he sometimes differs with the more doctrinaire Fox commentators. He has been trading on his NPR affiliation to give credance to Fox's right wing commentary.

Rick Sanchez and the Jewish Media

I’m unhappy about the flap over CNN anchor Rick Sanchez. In case you missed it, he was fired for saying during a radio interview that Jews control the media, or something like that. I was particularly upset with the hatred dumped on him by Howard Kurtz, who was the media critic for the Washington Post, and who has a show, "Reliable Sources," about the media on CNN. He is Jewish, and he had some other Jewish media types join him as commentators to dump on Sanchez. It’s ironic, because Sanchez is Cuban, and I’m not crazy about Cubans either. Sanchez basically said (not really quoting; here's the real transcript): "Jews are not an oppressed minority (look at how they control the media), but I’m Cuban; I’m an oppressed minority." I’d say Cubans are not an oppressed minority either if you look at how influential they are in Florida. Many years ago, there was an article in The Economist about how Jeb Bush got his start in Florida from some corrupt Cuban businessman, a big contractor, I think. He enabled Jeb to make his first million and go into politics.

The problem for me is that I think what Sanchez said is true, but it’s politically incorrect to say it. If it’s not true, they should refute it, not lambaste him for being anti-Semitic. It’s a difficult issue. The fact that Jews control the media (to a large extent) may not be bad. They are very smart. (Is that racist to say?) Jews own the New York Times, which I love, and the Washington Post. Some of my favorite columnists are Jews – David Brooks, Tom Friedman and Andrew Ross Sorkin, who write for the Times. My main complaint is that most Jews cannot be unbiased about Israel, although I think Friedman is as unbiased as anybody (Jew or gentile) can be. I think the 9/11 attacks were at least in part a response (by crazy fanatics) to US support for Israel. You can argue that the fanatical Muslim reaction should not stop us from supporting Israel, but that issue never gets discussed rationally, because it’s politically incorrect. If you bring it up, you’re anti-Semitic. Is the price of oil double what it would be if we didn’t treat Israel like a 51^st state? We’ll never know.

Looking for info on the Sanchez saga, I found this NPR blog, which I think defends Sanchez and criticizes Stewart better than I can. Plus the writer says she is Jewish; so, I guess that's why she's smarter than I am. I really like Jon Stewart, and I'm saddened that his episode has taken some of the gloss off of my admiration for him.

I can't find the Economist article I remember about Jeb Bush; I don't think the on-line archives go back far enough. This article from the St. Petersburg Times, however, is right on point. There are allusions to some questionable business dealings with Cubans in Wikipedia. Here and here are copies of a 1992 article from Mother Jones about Jeb's questionable dealings with the Cuban community.

I guess the lesson of this is that every ethnic group builds shady, mafia-like networks -- WASPs (the Bush family), Jews (finance and the media), Cubans (Florida real estate and CIA shenanigans), and of course the original mafia, the Italians.

Fox and Pravda

Fox News reminds me of the old Soviet Communist newspaper Pravda. Back in the bad, old Cold War days, people said the US would become more like the Soviet Union. Well, I think it has happened Like Pravda, Fox present the news as it would like it to be, not as it is, despite the "fair and balanced" claim.

As the names of the main Communist newspaper and the main Soviet newspaper, Pravda and Izvestia, meant "the truth" and "the news" respectively, a popular Russian saying was "v Pravde net izvestiy, v Izvestiyakh net pravdy" (In the Truth there is no news, and in the News there is no truth).

This development was predicted in George Orwell's book 1984, where, according to Wikipedia:

The Ministry of Truth controls information: news, entertainment, education, and the arts. Winston Smith works in the Minitrue RecDep (Records Department), "rectifying" historical records to concord with Big Brother's current pronouncements, thus everything the Party says is true.

Obama' Detroit Rescue Was Worth It

While the Republicans railed against it, the Obama bailout of GM and Chrysler has been worth it, and it may not end up costing as much as many people feared. Steve Rattner's book seems to support that thesis, in spite of its lukewarm review by the NYT.

American manufacturing is disappearing fast enough without have most of the automotive industry go down in one fell swoop. Unemployment would be much worse with the automotive companies gone. The two bailed out would probably have taken down most of their parts suppliers, and the loss of those suppliers might have taken down Ford, which was financially strong enough to forgo a bailout. You think unemployment is bad now? What would it have been if the big 3 and all their suppliers had disappeared? We were constantly reminded that we had Honda and Toyota plants scattered around Southern parts of the country that resisted unions, but we still would have had a lot of unemployed people in the Midwest. The Republicans say we should have bitten the bullet and taken the hit, but even now they complain loudly about high rate of unemployment. You can't have it both ways. Obama did the right thing. If you are going to let the car companies go down, do it when the economy is booming and there are new jobs available.