What kind of "free market" has to bail out company after company?

[kentuck]

with taxpayer dollars? What happened to the survival of the fittest in the competitive marketplace? From steel companies to auto companies to airline companies, we have bailed out them all. If this is what is required in a "free market", then screw the free market!
Surely we can do better than that.

[ClassWarrior]

1. More Orwellian speak from the Radical RW.

NGU.

[soupkitchen]

2. freeper markets

Actually I have little problem with the government bailing out industry. Its the hypocrisy of this same industry leaders who take government help opposing the same government helping out working class and women that bothers me.

[ugarte]

3. If you're big enough, you get bailed out

Just like a bank will work with big debters and screw the little guy.

[Hubert Flottz]

4. The kkkind the Nazis had!

The Nazis just took the money and told people to shut up, it wasn't none of anyone's damned business WHAT they did! Sound like anyone else you can think of?

[Bob3]

5. Some one wrote years ago that modern socialism

begins when the corporate jets touch down at Dulles Airport.

[hatrack]

6. An oligarchy nt

.

[liberaltexas]

7. Republicans believe in Corporatism and Fascism and state sponsored CEOs

Lets be real, once a company is publicly traded then republicans coudln't be happier to go state-sponsored on us!

Hell, who hasn't seen the massive oil subsidies handed out year after year after year.

Lets be clear, Exxon made $25 BILLION in profits in 2004, that's virtually double the next closest contender Wal-Mart. Yet Bush maintains that they need tax breaks, subsidies, and to give away government land (military-bases) for refineries.

The myth of the GOP belief in free market is hillarious

[CWebster]

11. Socialize the means

Privitize the returns

[forgethell]

8. I've got to totally agree with you

on this one.

[jobycom]

9. They prove themselves wrong every day, don't they? nt.

[CWebster]

10. Corp welfare

Like tax cuts for the rich, the line is that it reinvests and bolsters the economy, which of course, is a crock. It is all about enriching the corporate class, while the poor are viewed as criminals incapable of achieving the American dream of a CEO.

[Tux]

12. Free market

Means corporate communism to Republicians. My biz failed and I yet to see my money. Oh wait....I didn't have a multi-billion $ corporation.

[Solly Mack]

13. Such a simple ,direct, and truthful point...I wonder why

republican voters can't grasp it?

It's such an in your face proof positive that the free market isn't...how the hell do people miss it?

[spooky3]

14. we need to protect those CEO bonuses to keep

Neiman Marcus and Mercedes sales booming. It's the ripple effect, ya know.

[htuttle]

15. I think that if a business is important enough to subsidize...

...then it's important enough to nationalize.

Airlines want a bailout? Then US taxpayers get a seat or two on their board. Oil companies want the US military to save their ass again? Then we get to own them. We may as well have a US Oil Force. We're already paying for one -- it's just that someone else gets to keep the profits.

If they don't like that idea, I'd prefer they have to sink or swim on their own just like all the rest of us small business persons out here.

[kentuck]

16. Absolutely !

But they act as if Social Security is not good enough to invest our taxdollars in, but bankrupt airlines are ok to throws billions and billions of dollars toward and to save their pension funds??

[htuttle]

17. One time, a business I was involved in got in financial trouble...

...and we had to go to our bank for a 'bail out' loan of a hundred grand or so.

The bank agreed, but put a bunch of 'covenants' on the loan. There were certain things we couldn't do until we paid the loan off (such as give the board a big raise, etc...). And there were certain additional reporting obligations we had to fulfill for the bank as well.

In all the history of US government bailouts of so-called 'free market' corporations, have you EVER heard of the government putting any strings whatsoever on the money? When the US bailed out the airlines after 9/11, didn't they turn around and give management raises with it?

Oh yeah -- we actually had to pay the money back too. It was a LOAN, not a gift. Did the federal government require that the airlines pay the 9/11 bailout money back? No. Chrysler? No.

[bemildred]

18. "Free Market" == Monopoly Capitalism.

Which of course is incompetent to compete on a level field of play,
and often incompetent to compete even on a rigged field of play.

[Jamison]

19. Are you kidding, GM and Ford can nevAr cease to exist!!!

They make the Expeditions, Hummer H2's, Escalades, and other various small penis compensators that get 8mpg that freepers can't live without. Don't you know that forcing people to have to drive a small, fuel-efficient Honda or Toyota is downright communist!!!:sarcasm:

[leftofthedial]

20. a repuke one

in truth, there is no such thing as a "free market" and there never has been.

[Tactical Progressive]

21. Corporate Welfare

and tax giveaways to the rich are sinking this country.

Dems should talk about this all the time, until it's as common a meme as the proverbial 'welfare queen'. 'Corporate welfare' has the added benefit of being truth, while 'welfare queen' is only demagoguery.

Sprinkle every conversation with allusions to 'corporate welfare'.
'Cheap labor Republicans' is a good one too for the other half of the equation.
'Right-wing corporate media' completes the triangle.

Every conversation.