"F. George McDuffee" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 5 Dec 2008 00:01:02 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:
snip
Are you sure? A sell off of the Big Three would result in so much
displacement that car sales for the whole country are likely to tank, IMO.
The multiplier effect throughout the economy will cause many more to be
laid
off or fired. And then there will be no reason to hire most of the fired
workers, because nobody's buying.
snip
-------------
Ed made a good case.

I sent the following email to my Congressmen. Feel free to use
any or all of it if you want to write your
senators/representative. Get their webmail at
http://www.house.gov/
http://senate.gov/

---------- start of email -----
Looks like we gotta' take at least some of the castor oil.

After watching the Congressional hearings on the C-SPAN website,
reading the "rescue plans" submitted by the "big three," and
discussing this at length with some very intelligent contributors
in several news groups, I have come to the conclusion that while
it will be very expensive and costly to the taxpayers to provide
loan guarantees and other funding, IT WILL BE MORE EXPENSIVE NOT
TO DO SO.

The cost will be the same either way George.
I'm snipping the rest of your post but not disrespectfully.
Putting a few billion dollars into the big three as a stop gap might make
this Chrismas season and the period between administrations a bit more
tolerable but given the ongoing wave of retrenchment in the other sectors of
the economy, one boogie man will just be replaced by another, and
immediately.

What the world must do is find a way to deleverage the financial system more
effectively than what is happening at present.
Every time the DOW makes a run, hedge funds, banks and investment banks sell
inventory until the gain is cancelled out and the sell off stops.This is
happening way to slowly and without any intelligence. Not only are markets
not self regulating - they are completely stupid.

We must also rig the system, if you will, to insure that the cycle of
privatizing gain and publicly funded losses is permanently broken to the
extent possible. Banks absolutely have got to get out of the risk business
beyond a certain very low level. Investment banks and Hedge funds must be
seperated from banks and the attendant reserves and cash flows. Let them
take the risks as private or publicly traded entities but with the full
understanding that they will bear every bit of the risk. The public sector
won't, under any circumstances, step in and clean up the mess of a big loss.

We have been on this hobby horse in a big way since Reagan and it has got to
come to a halt. Sooner, in this instance, is better.

Furthermore, people have to go back to making their money based on what they
do, not the debt or equity positions they can manipulate for financial gain
or speculative increases in the value of property.
Doctors must return to the practice of medecine, Dentists to dentistry and
teachers to teaching G

I've said it before and will repeat again that had Reagan allowed the S&L
crisis settle itself with a huge prat fall we wouldn't be where we are
today. You seem to be suggesting that we repeat that mistake and in the face
of the obvious result didn't work.

It's time to move forward to Capitalism 2.0.
V1 is as dead as a door nail.

JC