OK, Mr. President, it's your baby now. Force the CEO out. Dictate the new CEO. Tell them what cars to build. Force them to build little things that we get killed in due to CAFE going to 36 MPG. Demonize the corporate culture and pay. This is all your baby now. Watching the Dow drop 275 points as an aftershock of this tells me one thing. Most businesses are thinking, " Am I next?" And Yes, you may well be. Does anyone think this is a good thing? Does anyone in the Whitehouse know what a lugnut is? Are you going to deal with the Legacy costs that are choking GM? Are you going to restructure the union contract so GM can compete? Are you going to stop the Job Shop program that pays thousands of people not to work?  I won't hold my breath. Remember What Ronald Reagan said, " The 10 most frightening words in the English language are 'I am from the Government, and I am here to help'".  I Dare you to look up the definition of Fascism in the dictionary! tr

The 1908 Model T, what a car!

Now He's hitting my sweet spot. Automobiles. Saying the 1908 Model T got the same fuel mileage as today's SUV. I didn't think He could have said anything to make me more embarrassed but this will be hard to top. Finding a comparison to a model T with a Cadilac Escalade was hard to do but SUV Envy has a way of drawing out stupidity. I am sure a writer or staffer threw this one out while dreaming of His next promotion but this simplistic comparison is beyond belief. Did you know that the new cars of today are so good that when driving around in LA they actually clean the air? That advancement can be measured in many ways is obvious but to pick one thing from a 100 year old piece of junk and use it on the biggest stage in the world, the bully pulpit, is flat embarrassing. For all it's hype and promise, nothing comes close to the effective, unmatched power derived from a barrel of good old crude oil. Some day we will have a brilliant moment in history and will move to a new technology, but these ain't it, trust me. In the late 19th Century, Britain was dying, black lung and the soot of coal was a dredge on the entire world. And, they were running out of coal too. They were in big trouble. But, by 1910, and the discovery of the full use of crude oil, the country was transformed and countless lives and misery saved. That is called a paradigm shift. That will happen once again. Mostly by accident and a time of it's own choosing. And not by forcing government programs down our throat. Did you know; In 1908, Japanese immigration was forbidden, and the Cubs won the World Series? Can you believe they play baseball the same way they did one hundred years ago? You'd think they would have improved it somehow by now.
tr

President Obama has a mantra about the recent passage of bills. That was not on our watch. OK. Sure, that was the last congress. Got it. Did you not vote as a junior Senator on "that budget", full of pork? I don't think there was ever a pork bill you didn't vote yes on. Come to think of it. The Victory in Iraq wasn't on your watch. The great relationship you just pummeled with Britain wasn't done on your watch. The last eight years without an attack on our soil, wasn't on your watch. Congresses lax deregulation of Freddy and Fanny were not on your watch. ......wait, you were in the Senate for some of that. Strike that. So yes, now, We are watching. tr

I felt it necessary as the "loyal opposition" to start a page rebuting much of what President Obama says. ( actually, I am just getting tired saying it more than once.) 

"A [federal budget] surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day." --President Barack Obama in his Tuesday night address

Mr.Obama, We do not transfer wealth. It is not a zero sum game as you think. Wealth is created mostly by hard work, ingenuity and creativity. Sure, at the margin some slug will do something wrong and gain from it but mostly, We don't need the government to create wealth. The gov. can only take away. 2nd, Regulations were gutted by Congress! Barney Frank et al. The pressure to do loans to anyone with a pulse for the last 30 years and the creation of Fanny and Freddy are most at fault. The Bush admin. tried three time to tighten these up and was laughed at. Everything's fine! Right..... Banks pushed bad loans because they were under pressure and they knew they were going immediately sell them to Fanny and Freddy. Get it! Bear Stearns and others were allowed to go way out on a limb with multiples that should never have been allowed. Again, Congress! ( mostly, democrat). The Free market is taking the blame here, I think not. If the market were a level playing field and people were allowed to fail, it would work. Almost flawlessly. Works every time it is tried. And remember, no one is to big to fail ,or too small to succeed. Your manipulations and machinations of the market can only create a Frankenstein type monster that will at some point turn on the people.