When you give the government power it will abuse it

I'm utterly shocked! It's not like Obama's predecessor EVER played favorites. In fact, wasn't there an incident in which a covert CIA operative was revealed by a member of the Whitehouse staff because their husband revealed that the whole Nigerian Yellowcake Uranium deal was a COMPLETE FABRICATION (which Bush used in his address to the United Nations as justification for an attack against Iraq)

Nope, that's not playing favorites at all. Even better is that Bush publicly stated during the investigation that if anyone found to have compromised the identity of that operative that they would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Then he issued a presidential pardon to Scooter Libby

It's interesting how quickly you tried to change this into yet another "Bush did it first" debate. Rather than point to the fact that regardless how many have done it, this is wrong; you chose to attempt to excuse this behaviour simply because someone else may have done it before.

It's sad when we see this level of Gov't abuse so clearly and "transparent", what is even sadder are those who excuse this by claiming "he did it too".

LOL @Artysim

That has nothing to do with what he posted.  Is that the lefts only response?  Bush did it too, so it's OK if Obama is worse.

Oh, and btw, the yellow cake deal was not a fabrication, as has been pointed out here several times in the past few years. 

I've read this on a few different sites now, but what none of the articles mention, unless I missed it, is what percentage of Chrysler dealerships donate to GOP vs. dem campaigns. After all, the majority of wealthy americans are republicans, and I'd say the majority of auto dealership owners are pretty wealthy.

From what I understand, this has also been happening to GM dealerships as well.

That's a pretty general statement. Could you back this up? Money quantity does not necessarily describe a persons political party. I'm poor (according to Dem standards) yet I am Republican, the majority in Congress are Dems and most if not all are rich (according to Dem standards).

I would really like to see a counter argument to this article about the topic as oppose to simple "he done it, she done it too" corny arguments.

I really enjoy how liberals called Bush a fascist, but are silent when Obama does things like this.

Is this your only response? Gee, lets just parrot, "Is this the only thing you've got [insert squawk here]*"

Concerning the issue of yellow cake, from what I've read the whole thing was BS. Then again, why bother stating it - I know neither you nor ID will believe it.

As for the issue of whether Obama really is closing the dealerships because of their politics, lets just say I'm not going to take the word of someone's blog. I'll have to research more; but let it be known - if it's true - then I don't particularly care for the tactic.

~Alderic

This would be a huge scandal... if it were true.

Fortunately, it is not true, as is very well explained in this post at fivethirtyeight.com.  The post goes into a great deal of detail, but the gist of it is this:

Yes, a very large percentage of dealerships being closed are owned by republican donors.  However, a similarly large percentage of the population of dealerships iare owned by republican donors.  Owning a car dealership, it turns out, is primarily a republican occupation.  Once you account for that fact, there is essentially no statistically significant relationship between one's political contributions and whether or not your dealership gets closed.

Just for the record though, if dealerships had been closed based on political affiliations it would be outrageous - and the fact that Bush may have engaged in similar behavior would not make it one bit less so. 

That's a pretty general statement. Could you back this up? Money quantity does not necessarily describe a persons political party. I'm poor (according to Dem standards) yet I am Republican, the majority in Congress are Dems and most if not all are rich (according to Dem standards).

You're right, that was a pretty bad generalization now that I look at it..

But, since the republican party caters to businesses, it would make sense that business owners are more likely to donate to the republican party then democrat. I don't have any numbers to back that up, but I would like to know how many dealerships donated to each to get a better picture. If 99% of donations were to rep vs. dem, then it wouldn't look so skewed.

Bstock, both parties cater to businesses.  One caters to allowing them to run themself, the other caters to the gov't running it for them.

The problem that one dealership owner said was that he did not meet any of the qualifications of the dealerships to be met.  I don't remember them off the top but it was regarding volume, capital, etc.  This was one of the largest dealerships in Texas in sales and quantity.  For some reason he is still being forced to close with no one answering why (since he didn't meet the the requirements for closure).

I don't have the 'facts' to prove or disprove this owners testimony on the radio but it makes me wonder.

I don't care if Bush did it or not.  He's not in power and if he did do such things I reject it as being acceptable.  What is becoming rather irritating is that Obama campaigned on 'change' but since most of what he is doing the response is 'Bush did it too.'  Wasn't it Obama that said McCain would be 4 more years of Bush?

Whether this is happening or not since we have so much invested interest in GM and Chrysler as taxpayers, I'd like to see some kind of public transparency here and investigation.

Uh, I disagree. There's a difference between "catering to," in terms of the interests of the business and your claimed catering to - in gov't taking over. Sorry, but honestly, what business wants the government to take it over?

AJ, the subject matter pertains to political parties and how they cater to business.  Note that I did not mention the business' preferences. 

Either way, if either party is in office and it looks like they will be taking over businesses, the businesses still has a say. The business can say, "Sorry, but no." That's what I'm talking about.

Agreed.

You gotta talk to some people in the only language they understand, repetition.

I never mentioned anything about the yellow cake issue and honestly know very little about it, not enough to make any kind of argument besides saying "I don't know enough". In the end it's Gov't regardless which party is in charge, they all politicians either way.

Haha, very true....sadly. That goes for anyone: republican, democrat, or a purple people eater.

Mm, I think someone else did; ID i think.

If the objective is to sell more cars, why on earth would we want to shut down dealers? It just doesn't seem to make any sense. 

Ahhh, but it does.  Instead of thinking about this as "closing" dealerships, think about it as "consolidating" dealerships.  Fewer dealerships will (probably) mean that the remaining dealers get larger.  Larger dealers are better able to advertise, take advantage of economies of scale, provide a broad selection, and other services.  This will - theoretically - enable you to sell more cars with less overhead. 

All that is cold comfort if you are one of the dealers - or an employee - who is getting shut down, but there IS logic to the plan.

While Velwins comment makes sense to me, my question would be not be about selling more cars but more about the people losing their jobs. Wasn't the Obama Admin suppose to be creating jobs? How exactly does closing dealers accomplish this? Would that make people lose jobs? And wouldn't this allow the dealers that remain to abuse the lack of competition? I am having a hard time seeing how closing these dealers down to downsize and save the company outweighs the number of people lsoing their jobs and the possible abuse of lack of competition. I doubt the Obama Admin will be able to over see every dealer and stop the possible abuse.

I think alot of this has to do with the financing and dealerships work.  My understanding is that each dealership puts a liability on the manufacturer (I am too tired to remember or look up exactly how).  They have to close some of them because they are too big of a liability risk to the Manufacturer.

Keep in mind this is happening so that they can file bankruptsy.

Hope that helps, Anthony.

Richard Armitage was not a member of the Bush White House staff.  But then, I wouldn't expect Arty to deviate from the party propaganda.

On the subject of the OP, where's the 'empathy' and compassion here?  Where's the 'transparency' promised by the administration touting itself as the most honest & transparent in history?  There seems to be no rhyme or reason to closure decisions, which would be no big deal if the Feds weren't doing the closing - Chrysler & GM could use any basis they wished if they were doing this without our money, but they aren't.  However, dealer network contraction, being fundamentally anti-competitive, would probably be looked at more sceptically if they were simply going through bankruptcy on their own.

Thank goodness for the 'stimulus' bill - 'saving jobs' at the rate of minus 500k a month.  Guess we shouldn't complain, especially since it was all Bush's fault.

Did GM say just NO? You'll have to refresh my memory.

People that want to buy a GM (and apparently a Chrysler) vehicle are going to probably buy it anyway. Reducing the number of dealers will reduce competition, raising the price of the vehicle. This is important as the government tries to dictate the type of cars that we will buy (by reducing our choice) they can ensure the proper price (i.e. highest) price can be obtained from the consumer. IMO this will push consumers into the foreign and last non-government owned US company (Ford), so long as they produce what the folks want.

Unless Government Motor's politician/automobile engineers get lucky and come up with a winner and buyers overcome the skittishness of buying from a bankrupt company , the others can expect to do well,even in these lean times.

GM's new commercials actually tout less choice (less brands, less models). I'm not suggesting this is bad from a business standpoint. One has to ask why GM didn't do this 10, 20, or 50 years ago, just now that the government owns them. That's right they (the govt.) are business experts, they know best, right? I believe GM will sink much lower before (if) things get better for them.

What will be interesting is what the gov. will do to make the others produce their cars. Ford watch your back.