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The first thing I thought when I stumbled across these pictures on Flickr while searching for a photo for the previous post, was that they must be photoshopped right-wing agitprop. Not so, it turns out. According to the site mexicoreporter.com, a Fiat dealership on Avenida Insurgentes in Mexico City has changed its name to Obama Motors. As a result, we get these images which look like something straight out of a Tea Partier’s Government Motors nightmare. You just can’t make this stuff up… [UPDATE: Having successfully solved America’s major political issues, comments on this thread are now closed. Just enjoy the funny pictures.]
46 Comments on “What’s Wrong With This Picture: Obama Motors Edition...”
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I don’t approve of “dealer advertising” on my car.
Front license plates? ugh!
What is the advantage of having “Obama Motors” on your car?
Next thing you know, the “Messiah” will demand the US cover the financing and warranty on these things.
We (US government) is already into helping the financing of automobiles – ever hear of GMAC?
Reactionary corporate welfare is what you get for having one of the shoddiest social safety nets in the developed world.
If there was somewhere for people to turn in a downturn this wouldn’t have been nearly the issue (and, in other western nations, wasn’t) and wouldn’t have seen nearly the bailouts. So instead of actual, working proactive socialist policies the US adopts a kind of panicked, reactionary socialism that costs more.
It’s kind of like being afraid to go to the doctor for checkups and physicals and ending up in the emergency ward instead. Which is an apt analogy, actually.
(ps, yes I’m baiting right-wingers, or at least I will until Bertel smacks this pinko down)
I assume that Germany is a “good social safety net” member.
Let’s watch what happens to Opel.
psharjinian: Reactionary corporate welfare is what you get for having one of the shoddiest social safety nets in the developed world.
Then how do we explain the government “interventions” on behalf of Fiat and Renault at various points in recent history? European countries have always been held up as the model the U.S. should emulate. People have said many things about the French, for example, but a fondness for unfettered free markets and hostility to government social programs aren’t two of them.
For that matter, I seem to recall Canada giving GM lots of aid, too. Is the Canadian social net now shoddy as well? If so, that’s quite a surprise, as I’ve been hearing differently for well over a decade.
I agree, in part, with psarhjinian.
We definitely get the government we deserve, as the old saying goes.
Years of deficit spending and warmongering (little of it justified) is now followed by…many more years of deficit spending and eventually increased taxation. Because what works in much smaller, more homogeneous countries will sure work here, right?
Or if you’d like a more soundbite-worthy quote from me:
I only wish the rest of the world would increase their defense spending so the US could limit our own and use the money on more important things…maybe even on healthcare.
“Years of deficit spending and warmongering (little of it justified) is now followed by…many more years of deficit spending and eventually increased taxation.”
Years? C’mon now, let’s not sell ourselves short – we’ve been doing this for decades. Decades.
Sure we pulled this after WWII and we got out of it. Just a coupla differences – we taxed rich people, and we had a positive balance of trade. Sadly, we have not had a positive balance of trade since 1975. Not once. Also, the last time we had concentrated the wealth of the nation in so few hands, we had the last Great Depression.
I wish all the teabagees would have been paying attention when Reagan doubled the national debt. Or when Bush II doubled the national debt.
porschespeed:
I like the idea of the Tea Party movement, in theory…with two big, deal-killing exceptions:
1. Where were they when Bush was screwing things up (at least fiscally)? Sure is convenient to pick on the current guy…
2. I don’t want to be a part of anything that lets Palin associate with them. That woman is poisonous.
ash78,
I too like the *idea* of the Tea Party. Direct lineage in this country from 1658 on, so I was bred to get testy when the government over-reaches.
I’m no fan of Obama, but I like neo-con bullsht even less. Talk about wrapping yourself in the flag then fist-f’n the country, all the while conning half the screwees into thinking the experience is the way it’s supposed to be. Ugh.
(Real Conservatives don’t care much for Neos, as Neos don’t represent any actual conservative values.)
The ‘teaparty’ movement is generally more fragmented than the Democratic party. Parts of it are merely parrots of Limbaugh/Hannity-esque silliness, parts actually seem to be heading in the right direction – that the last 30 years have NOT been all that rosy – unless you are part of the upper 5%.
And oh yeah, W. and company did a cocaine frat boy dance on the Constitution with a government about as transparent as the Soviets. With less integrity. By comparison, Nixon belongs on Rushmore.
A broad-based consumer economy does not thrive when distribution of wealth reaches feudal levels.
As to Sarah Palin, best I can rationalize is that when neo-cons rub one out they need to pretend it’s someone other than Ann Coulter (even they quietly admit she’s certifiable).
The distribution of wealth had nothing to do with the Great Depression. There was actually MORE concentration of wealth in the late 1700s and throughout most of the 1800s, but there were still plenty of periods of prosperity. The reason that economic “panics” (as they were called then) had less effect was because more people lived on farms and were self sufficient. They didn’t depend on outside employment to make a living.
The Great Depression was caused by the federal government. In response to the stock market crash of 1929, the Federal Reserve, fearing inflation, sharply limited the money supply and credit. The real problem was deflation. The federal government turned what should have been a short and sharp recession into a long depression.
The second big cause of the Great Depression was passage of the Hawley Smoot tariff in 1930. The Hoover Administration wanted to “protect” American industry and agriculture, and ended up sparking a trade war that drove the economy further into the ditch.
Incidentally, we ran trade surpluses during much of the 1930s, and I don’t think that many people would regard that decade as a period of happiness and prosperity. My 75-year-old father and 97-year-old grandmother, who got to experience the 1930s firsthand, sure don’t!
And please note that the Hoover Administration did NOT take a laissez-faire approach to the situation. He pushed public works and even created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) to assist failing companies. But these moves were overwhelmed by the above two factors.
And I’m not surprised that we had a trade surplus in the postwar years. Most of the other major industrial economies were bombed to rubble. (If you want an easy way to illustrate that gap, compare a 1950 Mercedes or Rolls Royce to a 1950 Cadillac – it’s no contest.)
Unless we are waiting for Germany and the Soviet Union to invade Poland, and the Japanese to bomb Pearl Harbor, I don’t believe that the economic lessons of that period are applicable to today.
geeber,
Not claiming distribution as causality, as you know, the causes of the Depression were myriad, and we can argue which was most important for days.
Macro point is that in a capitalist economy money must circulate in order to have an economy. One thousand millionaires circulate far more money in our economy than one (or even three) billionaires. Ten people making 100K are far more beneficial to our economy than one millionaire. As you have noted, we aren’t farmers any more. Money must keep moving or we collapse.
Just because we’ve cushioned the decline of the last 30 years with inflation and borrowed money, doesn’t mean we get to keep on doing it.
I’m no protectionist, but there is a point where continuing to give your wealth away in return for some cheap goods is not a sustainable metric.
Don’t take my word for it, read some Buffet.
Attention! Official MoonBattery Alert!
“actual, working proactive socialist policies”… Cuba?… Venezuela?… Sweden?… back away from the pipe, son.
It’s strange and kind of telling to think such a random assemblage of words could resemble tea party agitprop, but I guess that’s the state of political discourse these days.
I think everything on that plate was yelled by John “HELL NO!” Boehner last Sunday night.
It’s kind of like being afraid to go to the doctor for checkups and physicals and ending up in the emergency ward instead. Which is an apt analogy, actually.
Like most arguments from the left, it’s based more on an emotional appeal than the actual facts. The truth is that preventative medicine doesn’t really health care costs or improve health, unless you’re talking about stuff like exercise and losing weight, and I’d hate to have to gov’t force us to lose weight or exercise, much as they are usually good things.
It’s a myth, btw, that the uninsured in the US use emergency rooms as their primary care provider. Reviewing statistics from ERs, it seems that the uninsured use ERs at the same rates as everyone else does, and that they seek treatments for the same illnesses and injuries as the insured.
Please, by the way, spare us your superiority and sanctimony. If I wanted to live under socialism, I’d move south to Canada. It’s only 20 minutes from here. Lots more Canadians live, work and get their medical care in the US than Americans do in Canada.
Though I’m not sure that I’d be welcome in Canada. I’ve sometimes agreed with Ann Coulter, and I knew the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, may God avenge his blood.
While you’re waxing superior and all that, about how wonderful Canada is, are you at all concerned over threats to free speech and free expression in Canada?
François Houle, provost of the Univ. of Ottawa, in his letter to Ann Coulter:
“I would, however, like to inform you, or perhaps remind you, that our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or “free speech”) in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada.”
Dean Steacy, lead investigator of the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission:
Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.
Next Monday, Guy Earle, a stand-up comedian of conventionally liberal views, goes on trial at the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal for putting down two lesbian hecklers at his nightclub act.
And Lenny Bruce wept.
Regarding Obama’s telling businesses what to do (now he wants banks to give people who can’t pay their mortgages a break – not quite sure how he can effect that constitutionally, but since he doesn’t really care for “procedure” I’m sure he’ll figure out a way to enact it by fiat), I believe the term for that kind of government directed crony capitalism is called “fascism”, isn’t it?
I don’t know if leftists don’t understand this or they do understand it and prefer to ignore it but George W. Bush restated an American truism when he said that freedom is not America’s gift to the world but rather God’s gift to humanity. We hold some truths to be self-evident and among those truths is the fact that our rights are endowed by a creator, not a parliament.
Among those rights are the right to your own property. Property rights underlie much of the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution. Freedom of the press means that the gov’t cannot tell you what you must or may not print with your printing press. Fourth Amendment protections regarding warrants, searches and seizures are clearly rooted in American’s right to control access to their property. The Second Amendment makes it clear that people have the right to own weapons, both as an intrinsic property right and to give them the tool to defend other property (and their own persons). The takings clause in the Fifth Amendment prevents the government from taking your property without just compensation, restricting eminent domain.
So property rights are a foundational American concept, and our government exists solely due to the consent of the governed. Americans are not servants or subjects.
If liberty means accepting that life is sometimes a struggle, that’s a worthwhile trade off.
Leftists, ultimately, don’t believe in property rights because they believe that the state is supreme.
+1
No, +10
I guess it was the work of those nasty, property-grabbing liberals on the Supreme Court that gave us the Kelo decision, wasn’t it? Or how about those free speech zones (actually pens) where it’s safe to express one’s views where the supreme leader won’t be bothered to hear them?
And, you kind of blow your wad when you accuse others of sanctimoniousness and condescension when a couple paragraphs later you’re waxing poetic about how “freedom is not America’s gift to the world but rather God’s gift to humanity,” coming from the mouth of a man who has no compunction about slaughtering hundreds of thousands to impose his own demented idea of “freedom.”
That’s some good stuff there…..not one word about cars…..but still some good stuff.
@ I’m a proud Canadain, and I find Ronnie Schreiber’s comment,right on the money. I was embarassed at our treatment of Ann Coulter I don’t agree with her 100%,but I draw the line at physical threats.
Our little socialist utopia is far from perfect.Our health care plan is wonderfull,right up to the point that you get sick. We point our fingers south,and say “oh those poor people with no health care” arn’t we smarter? Yeah till the Doc {if you have one} tells ya “you need a bypass fell’a, your on the wating list”. So unless your the millionare Premier of Newfoundland{he went to the USA for his operation} you hope to f– you get called before you croak.
My 93 year old mother spent 48 hours in the hall at an ER waiting for a bed. Yeah the same lady that lived through the London blitz. had to endure her last few hours on a stretcher,with the hookers and drug addicts, all milking our “free” health care.
Little know fact here,boys and girls. For profit health care is ilegal here in Canada. So if I want to open up Mikeys discount MRI’s.I’m breaking the law. Two other countries have the same law Cuba and North Korea.
I better stop before I beat up my trusty lap top..
“The truth is that preventative medicine doesn’t really health care costs or improve health…”
Bull. There are plenty of minimally-invasive “preventative” procedures that work better and cost less than the alternatives. Take the example of my father in law. About 9 years ago, he started having chest pains, so he went to the doctor. The basic tests were unrevealing, and so the doctor performed an angiogram on him, and found that he had blocked arteries. They inserted several “stents” into his arteries. The whole she-bang cost around $6,000, and he was back at work the next day. The alternative to all this would have been to let him have a massive coronary, and to fix that, he’d have needed bypass surgery, which costs $40-50,000, plus the hospital stay.
Which is cheaper? Which gets the patient back on his feet quicker? Which leads to a better outcome?
Of course, the key factor here is that he had insurance. If he hadn’t had that, the doctor would have performed the basic tests to determine that he was stable, and discharged him (legally, that’s what they have to do). Then, a few weeks later, when he had his massive coronary, they’d have to not only treat the basic heart attack, but perform a bypass operation to stabilize him as well. The cost would have been radically higher for the hospital, and the outcome for the patient wouldn’t have been as good.
Kelo was a travesty. Most eminent domain decisions suck. The court is still bound by precedent whether or not it’s a classically liberal ie. conservative or liberal ie. progressive court. I don’t necessarily like the Michigan supreme court’s decision on Marijuana metabolites in the blood, but they ruled according to how the legislature wrote the law.
Freedmike, an angiogram after a patient reports chest pains is not preventative care, it’s a diagnostic test to see if there’s a blockage. By the time they did the angiogram, they’d probably done an EKG or two as well.
Yes, annual physicals and regular visits to your dentist and eye doctor can pick up problems early on, but people have been having annual checkups for generations.
People go to the doctor when they’re sick. That’s how people are. The fact that Obama is president won’t change human nature.
Thank God that the founding fathers recognized human nature for what it is, didn’t set up a system that presumed people were saints, and made sure that the entire US House stood for reelection every two years.
If the Dems lose the House in November, the Health Care bill is moot because a Republican controlled house will simply vote to not fund the bill.
@RS
Yes, annual physicals and regular visits to your dentist and eye doctor can pick up problems early on, but people have been having annual checkups for generations.
People go to the doctor when they’re sick. That’s how people are. The fact that Obama is president won’t change human nature.
I’m having trouble following you. First you tell us preventive measures don’t save money. Then you seem to say annual check-ups catch conditions early – which presumably saves money (and must be one of the reasons check-ups are covered by insurance). Then you tell us people don’t go to the doctor unless they’re sick, which seems to contradict your notion that people have been getting annual check-ups for generations.
Of course, you specifically left out Doctors from annual check-ups. Did you mean to imply that only Dentists and Optometrists can detect conditions early?
I get an annual eye exam, and a dental check-up twice a year. Am I wasting my time with the colonoscopy every 5 years?
Who… Sgt. Shultz???? He knew nuthink, midapoplectic!
If you’re still not believing it, here it is courtesy of google street
http://maps.google.com.mx/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=es&geocode=&q=fiat+insurgentes&sll=23.644524,-102.568359&sspn=38.587434,56.513672&ie=UTF8&hq=fiat+insurgentes&hnear=&ll=19.382227,-99.176296&spn=0,359.998275&z=19&layer=c&cbll=19.382102,-99.176334&panoid=GaO56gl0NW7OnZ_aDDVOLQ&cbp=12,285.93,,0,5.73
+1
“Among those rights are the right to your own property. Property rights underlie much of the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution. Freedom of the press means that the gov’t cannot tell you what you must or may not print with your printing press. Fourth Amendment protections regarding warrants, searches and seizures are clearly rooted in American’s right to control access to their property. The Second Amendment makes it clear that people have the right to own weapons, both as an intrinsic property right and to give them the tool to defend other property (and their own persons). The takings clause in the Fifth Amendment prevents the government from taking your property without just compensation, restricting eminent domain.”
Until the most deceptively labeled piece of legislation in history is repealed, ALL of those rights are negated by the government. AT WILL. The “Patriot Act” gives the government the ability to legally violate the Constitution.
That Obama hasn’t repealed it yet, puts him right there with W.
The suggestion that hundreds of studies, reams of data, and dozens of countries that all indicate preventive medicine saves money don’t exist, or are somehow invalid just boggles the mind.
I realize that the average Glenn Beck listener doesn’t want to use that ‘google’ thing, but the rest of us do. We also now how to parse data and study methodology.
So, give me a preponderance of evidence. Which, of course, you can’t.
The President doesn’t “repeal” any laws on his own.
The bodies of Congress write bills, pass them, and a committee of House and Senate members agree on a compromise single bill. Each house passes the compromise bill, and the President signs it. That bill can repeal/modify an existing law.
Last time I checked, the President’s party had a significant majority in each body of Congress. They can do what they want.
Shorthand my good man, shorthand.
Obviously Obama has enough votes to amend/repeal pretty much anything. Ergo, “he” can repeal it.
I tend to assume that most people here passed that civics test in 5th grade, and still remember most of it. Under that premise, I sometimes over abbreviate. Mea culpa.
“I realize that the average Glenn Beck listener doesn’t want to use that ‘google’ thing, but the rest of us do. We also now how to parse data and study methodology.”
How now brown cow? Typical libtard… typing through the tears.
“How now brown cow? Typical libtard… typing through the tears.”
Anybody with the stones to sit down with a transcript of a Glenn Beck show and fact-check with me, is welcome to.
Though I will admit, Beck does occasionally have some accurate facts in his show, and sometimes actually espouses conservative ideals, so perhaps I shoulda picked mouth-breathing-ditto-heads. Or O’Reilly believers…
Libtard nonsense?
If by that you mean conservatives who are tired of watching people who call themselves ‘conservatives’ cut taxes for no reason, spend money like water, get involved in wars of misadventure, screw the environment, not maintain a positive balance of trade, violate the Constitution, well, yeah, I’m one of them.
If you think Bush (either), Cheney, Rush, O’Reilly, or any of their ilk is a conservative, please, do some historical research on what a conservative is supposed to stand for.
GeneralMalaise, I make GW Bush look like a commie. Having said that, using terms like “libtard” makes you look, well retarded. If you can’t make an argument without blindly calling someone names, then don’t bother. Sorry, but you are what is wrong with this world (and the current Republican party). Lazy-thinking at it’s finest.
I dunno how many times I’ve had the term “liberal”, “libtard”, or other variation slung at me because I said (in the past) that I didn’t like Bush. They never even bothered to find out why I didn’t like Bush (part of it was his Big-Government programs, unfunded mandates, and other acts that were not fiscally conservative).
As for the preventative-medicine-doesn’t-do-anything meme, well, that’s just downright stupid. Sorry, but I’m going to call a spade a spade. I think for myself, do my own research, and don’t readily accept prepackaged sound-bites from pundits (who are paid top rile people up or push an agenda — they are not idealists or political scientists). If you are basing that argument on a technicality, then yes, technically it would be better if we all smoked, as we’d die sooner and not be a drain on society. But that’s just a stupid argument.
Also, I agree with porschespeed: The Patriot Act (that name is pure doublespeak) violates personal liberties, which is something that the Republican party once stood for. Only 4 (R) senators (Sununu was one of them) and 13 Republican congressmen (including Ron Paul) had the cajones to speak out and vote against it.
“The truth is that preventative medicine doesn’t really cut health care costs…”
“Bull. There are plenty of minimally-invasive “preventative” procedures that work better and cost less than the alternatives.”
Actually, when you are looking at the overall cost to society, the earlier statement is true. For the most part, those who are saved by preventive treatments end up getting sick and dieing of something else. In the meantime, unless they are working, they consume more Social Security, Medicare, and other government-provided resources.
Preventive medicine can be effective in prolonging lives. It is definitely worth doing. But that doesn’t mean it saves money (on a societal basis). Anyone who tells you that we can fund universal care based on the savings from preventive medicine is misinformed or lying.
If they are non-productive members of a society, or are taking more out than they put in, there is a valid point.
If everyone went back to smoking, we could save a ton on long-term Soc-Sec benefits. In fact, we could start passing out meth and heroin to anyone who asked- that’d thin the heard a bit as well.
IIRC, either PM (B&W?) was floating around former Sov-bloc nations
showing governments the slightly earlier deaths of smokers, and the concomitent savings on end of life pensions.
Remember, SS is supposed to be self-funding, not an expense. That it has not been properly adjusted as we went along is a failure of leadership, not the program.
there’s simply too many studies that show the cost/benefit of preventive care. Yes, there are exceptions. But our medicine is the most expensive in the world and the average American gets mediocre results for all that money. And it gets more expensive every year.
Get a grip, porscheguy… Beck and Limbaugh are entertainers. Taxes are usually cut to help spur capital investment, which in turn helps to create jobs, etc., etc.. Much of the rest of what you’ve written is a mix of hyperbole, opinion and a whimsical wish to return to the good old days.
I am with you on the exhorbitant spending and balance of trade, though.
maybe they mean bin laden?
Just a quick correction: Russ Feingold (D Wisconsin) was the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act. The Vote was 98 yea, 1 nay, 1 non-vote. Perhaps with the re-authorization in 2005 (?) there were more who voted against it, including a few Republicans, but let’s give Feingold credit for standing up for what was right when it was very un-popular to do so. The Republican Party of Wisconsin thought he had committed political suicide with that vote because he would be seen as “un-American.” Now we can see that he was the only senator who cared more for American tradition and freedom than his own career.
My, but this looked like a good thread. Pity I missed the best parts.
Well… if it ain’t D.B. Cooper…
This thread is why I stopped wasting time reading TTAC comments. Instead of cars, it’s the politicial equivalent of the Hatfields and the McCoys. And I thought things would change after RF left…
+1
I´m not interested of your extremist political views.
Generalmalaise:
To put Sweden in the same sentence as Cuba and Venezuela is retarded.
Takes two to tango, friend. Sweden is a welfare state with an extremely high income tax, but does allow private corporations. And they have a significant demographic problem that portends a bleak future.
What’s Wrong With This Picture:
1) Teabaggers support trillion dollar Iraq war with Tax payer money that killed 4000 US lifes
2) Teabaggers oppose trillion dollar health care plan that might give 31 million health insurance.
Yes, it’s a bit of a time warp with this thread, but still more civilized and rational than those commonly part of the last regime’s attempt to stay interesting by being incendiary. I attribute this new tone solely to the way the present guys are running things. The tenor has been raised enormously here at TTAC and I think the proof is before us. BTW, the only thing I know for sure is that Tea Baggers and others on the far right are running up against the tide of the country’s demographic destiny. We are becoming much more the nightmare vision of these folks and even a Malthus couldn’t argue otherwise, nor hope to change the outcome.
Epithets such as your “teabaggers” are a coarse reminder of just how low the common denominator has fallen.
Mr. Niedermeyer, tear down this thread.
:)
-1
;>)