"The Audacity of Rope"

That's the title of Mitt Romney's new book, subtitled "give me enough and I'll hang myself".

His attempt to not only explain his opposition to the GM and Chrysler bailouts begun by President Bush and continued by President Obama but also to take credit for the way the revival of the companies evolved is a prime example of this theme. The fact that all of the Republicans line up and say they opposed all of the "bailouts" of the financial industry and the auto industry is a lowest common denominator competition.

Late last week at some major industry conference(I did not take notes on the article), President Bush was asked how he could justify bailing out the auto industry. His simple answer was that he "did not want to see 21% unemployment in this country". Later at the conference his former chief of staff Karl Rove spoke and in the "severe" conservative manner of the day he criticized the "bailout".

It's as if the Republican candidates all want to showcase the solidarity of their stupidity. In 2008 we were in a state of extreme crisis. If one does not understand that statement it's not worth explaining. Panics have no bottom if not addressed in aggressive ways.

What is often conveniently overlooked is that the financial industry has paid back substantially all of the "bailout" money at an 8% rate of interest. Of the major firms only AIG has not fully repaid the government and it's likely just a matter of time before their stock reaches a point at which the government is whole. The two firms that were beneficiaries of the bailout that will never be able to repay their debt, which one could conservatively estimate will reach $500 billion combined, are Fannie and Freddie. They were of course overseen by a congressional committee and influenced by HUD and by Presidents.

The bank failures overseen by the FDIC were virtually all smaller banks that were not involved in derivatives or securities issuance, but were felled by the traditional achilles heel of banking since the Medici's, CREDIT. Since the FDIC is funded by required banking industry contributions that was not a cost to the taxpayer.

As to the auto industry GM and Chrysler are both revived and the government will almost certainly be paid back over time, again at high interest rates or returns on stock investments. Almost all of the parts suppliers and related vendors are now being revived as well. Some of those didn't make it, but the great majority did either on a stand alone basis or through being combined with another firm.

The "bailouts" that the Republicans hate simply provided liquidity in a panic, liquidity to the banking system so that it did not freeze up and working capital liquidity to the car companies so they did not collapse in such a rapid way that they could not be revived. Wouldn't the Asian and European car companies have enjoyed the market opportunities that would have presented.

So Mitt, no matter what the issue, and there are so many but this post must end now so I can watch J.Lin, you are looking so disingenuous that it's difficult to see how you can look in a mirror, although it's easy to guess that you still like to do so. Why not take the risk of losing with a shred of dignity intact. The coil of rope is getting thicker.