Another GOP Tantrum

daimler-chrysler-logoThe latest GOP theory about that Islamunofascistocommunisti-communityorganizersecretmuslim Obama:

Dealers on the closing list donated millions to Republicans, $200 for Obama

The initial pass at the list of shuttered dealers showed they had donated, in the aggregate, millions to Republican candidates and PACs and a total of $200 to Barack Obama.

GAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!111one!! He’s talking revenge on all those innocent Republican Chrysler dealers!

But, as always, there’s a problem with their theory:

A meme that is currently picking up traction in the conservative blogosphere is that the list of dealerships to be shuttered as a result of Chrysler’s bankruptcy contains a disproportionate number donors to Republican candidates. There have been furious efforts to prove this contention by looking up campaign contributor lists at the Huffington Post, Open Secrets, and other places.

There is just one problem with this theory. Nobody has bothered to look up data for the control group: the list of dealerships which aren’t being closed. It turns out that all car dealers are, in fact, overwhelmingly more likely to donate to Republicans than to Democrats — not just those who are having their doors closed.

Of course, this will not stop the wingnuts from pushing this every which way. A laff riot.

37 Comments

The natural result of people who hate science.

So many ways to lie, so many things to lie about.

@Serolf Divad: It’s like the Sotomayor reversal-rate kerfuffle. If you do the math, it turns out she’s overruled 60% of the time. The average is 75%.

yes, 27% of the dealers on the closing list donated to republicans, wheras 90% of dealers are republican, therefore, this proves, what now?

The National Association of Dealer Counsel is abuzz with this, and laughing at how absurd it is.

It’s more amusing since they’re being put out of business by the policies they pushed and the people they supported.

Just got an email (NADC listserve) from one of the attorneys at the hearing today, and Nardelli is just taking the stand, and he says (the attorney) that they are not going to ask Nardelli about this, as the supposed data is so flawed that it would not be a good faith inquiry.

Yup.

I think everyone’s burying the lead. There are Democrat car dealers?

@ManchuCandidate: Scuzzi? This pruning of the dealer network came from Obama’s auto industry task force, sir.

@nojo: Yup. There are. My favorite one, his first job was as a union organizer.

TJ: This late in the day and nobody’s referenced the Levi Beefcake Photo?

Or maybe it’s on topic after all: Dad offered to buy Bristol a car if she broke up.

@nojo:

Put me in a room with Levi Johnston and there’d be more banging than a screen door in a hurricane.

And since I’m never gonna work this up into a post…

Chase is now rebranding all WaMu branches in California. Their slick commercials include these lyrics:

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well we all shine on
Everyone come on

Instant Karma? Really?

@nojo:
I thought Karma did get WaMu already which is why they got bought out.

@ManchuCandidate: Here’s the report from someone who was involved in deposing the President of Chrysler Tuesday, two days ago:

“Our belief based upon the deposition taken of Jim Press [Chrysler President] by Len Bellavia on Tuesday is that Chrysler may not have been in favor of getting rid of any dealers but may have been strong armed by the Task Force to reduce the ranks.Nothing in Press’ testimony revealed a possible political motive. Furthermore, nothing in the testimony would indicate that the Task Force chose the dealers to eliminate.”

The story trickling through the auto retailers community is that the Obama task force was a bunch of Ivy MBA academics, and they all worship Wal-Mart as the perfect company, and they have no idea about the need for post-sale service in the auto industry, and the importance of the dealer network in that, instead, simply because it goes with their academic theories, they insisted on cutting for cutting’s sake, pushing a “no customer service” model, kinda like buying at Best Buy.

@Prommie: Since I lack the competence to affirm or dispute your analysis, I’ll just say this sounds very much like the neocons hitting Russia after 1991.

@Prommie: Here’s a naive question. Why does it hurt the manufacturer to have “too many” dealerships? Doesn’t every unit sold contribute to profits? If a dealership is losing money for whatever reason, why is that the manufacturer’s problem?

@Dodgerblue: It basically doesn’t hurt them, Dodger, except for some incremental increase in administrative costs. But the benefit to the public is huge, increased competitition between dealerships results in lower prices, and the presence of many dealerships means you can get service anywhere.

Your modern MBAs think in terms of “If we quit paying all these little dealerships to do warranty work, and just have one huge national customer service center in Arkansas, we’ll cut warranty service costs by 40%.” Have fun taking your car to Arkansas for service.

@Prommie: When are MBAs going to get the hate they so richly deserve? They are waaaaaayyy worse than lawyers. There are actually a few lawyers who work for good, as we know from our comrades here. All I’ve ever seen MBAs do is try to fix things that weren’t broken, spend fortunes on “consultants,” and pay themselves ridiculous amounts of money.

@nojo: The Instant Karma Chase ad is waaaaaaaaay better than the one that is on the radio here in Ess Eff ad nauseum and consists of a “phone call” between a single woman in California and her dingbatty senile mother back East who has an Ethel Bunker voice and is “soooo excited that her daughter’s finally met a nice young man named Chase,” and the whole ad is this wacky, “No, ma, Chase is my BANK” sort of thing. I immediately mute the radio when this ad goes on.

Mr. SFL and I agreed that if Chase wanted to actually make that ad somewhat relevant and compelling to the demographics here, it should have been Ethel Bunker talking to her son in California about this nice new man he’s met named Chase.

@Mistress Cynica: So after the MBAs are throttled, I want to go after the ad execs who dream up inane ads like that one.

@nojo: “Better get yourselves together, or pretty soon you gonna be dead”

I can’t believe that Yoko licensed the song to them, unless she enjoys going to sleep at night to the sound of John rolling over (and telling Tchaikovsky the news) in his grave.

@Mistress Cynica: Ever since I was a baby lawyer and found out that consultants masquerading as psychologists made $350/hour and up to say whatever you pay them to say at trial, I figured I went into the wrong GD line of work.

@SanFranLefty: I’ll take either one of those in exchange for that stupid woman and her kids wasting the rollover minutes. That bitch needs to die.

@Mistress Cynica: MBA’s are the source of the disastrous economic shitstorm, beginning back when, they are the source of the pernicious belief that its a sin and a waste to ever pay for anything, mortgage it and leverage the money to the hilt, always and in every way, borrow borrow borrow, leverage leverage leverage, paid-for assets are a waste of capital. When this idea spread into the general public, look what happened.

@Nabisco: Maybe Yoko knew what she was doing — the ad itself features arresting visuals of the Chase logo as a blue sun shining on Active Californians. It’s fucking disturbing.

@Mistress Cynica: Lawyers are still bad. Here is my fave lawyer story, appropo, vis a vis gay mawiage. I represented a gay widow who had lived for 20 years with his SO in one apartment of a small apartment building that the SO owned. The SO left the building to him, life estate, with the remainder to a charity, I think Saint Judes. Widow lived there for another 15 years.

The charity sued the widow ‘s estate for failing to maximize the value of the remainder, and for failing to raise the rent on his tenants for 15 years (all elderly, long term tenants).

Saint Judes sued the new SO of the widow, mind you, who had inherited the cash, alleging that the deceased widow had committed waste and despoliation, because he had failed to raise the rents and renovate the building.

Saint Jude sued the landlord for not raising the rent.

And an MBA testified that one has an obligation to always and in every way maximize income from any asset, and failure to do so is a sin.

Fucking prick lawyer.

@Mistress Cynica:
In my world of engineering, they are.

Truth is, the MBA is marketed as a “leadership” degree. The basic problem is that MBAs assume that leadership is independent of the industry and organization which is a huge FAIL. Leadership and technical skills matter in the industry and organization. It’s like explaining history without context. This is why all MBAs use the same play book.

MBA playbook
1) Cost Cutting
2) Talk of Synergies
3) Profit Margin
4) Use of “outside the box” thinking especially in accounting
5) ?????
6) Bonu$$$$$!!!!

My parents get upset with me because I shit on the MBA. Mostly because they have a Confusion respect for degrees of higher learning. I have rarely if ever said a harsh thing about any other Masters/PhD programs. Just the MBA.

A personal observation, most MBAs I know or have had the displeasure of working with are as a group, the most shallow (intellectually/personality) and insecure people I have ever dealt with. They assume that the MBA can cover for lack of skill, personality, knowledge and experience. It doesn’t as we have found out.

So yeah, I’m a hater.

@ManchuCandidate: Is “Confusion” a typo or a pun?

But it sounds very much like a certain strain of philosophers. They dream up their elaborate systems, and then they busy themselves redefining facts to fit them.

@nojo:
I’d like to claim pun but alas it is a typo. Although it does work because my parents think an MBA is higher larning instead of a waste of time/money.

@Prommie: Couldn’t we just blame the Catholics for that one? Or Danny Thomas? Better yet, Marlo Thomas. I’ve never liked that girl.

@Jamie Sommers: It’s all been downhill since we let JFK through the door, and now we’re looking at six Papists on the Supreme Court. We really need to demand loyalty oaths to ensure they don’t take orders from the Vatican.

@nojo: I smell an Illuminati / Opus Dei / Mason theory just waiting to see the light of day here…

dissenting
exCUSE me, but my lovely daughter and son in law took their MBA’s
(from wharton!) and moved to miami where they work on the side of the angels.
my son in law is reconstructing the budget system for all public schools, ensuring equality for the worst schools, while my daughter teaches physics to brainy obnoxious 11 year olds.
so there.

@baked:
I never met your son in law or daughter.

I have good friends who are MBAs (geez I sound like a racist or at least a MBA-ist) who do well in positions that reflect their skills. However, I have worked with many who do not and the results show.

What really irks me is that it is viewed as a “leadership” degree which it clearly is not.

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