Margaret Thatcher dead

[MML]

As we all know, she had a role in the Delorean saga, but it's just been announced that Maggie Thatcher died this morning:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22067155

[SamHill]

She spoke at my school's commencement in 1997, which was tremendous for me. My very humble grandfather, who had never set foot on a college campus, got to come (tickets were not available to the public) and he loved it. It was a great thing to do for him before he died a few months later. The speech, of course, was great.

Delorean vs. Thatcher was one of those immovable object vs. unstoppable force situations. I can admire them both for their respective strong personalities. At least they were never milquetoast.

[thirdmanj]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?client=mv-google&gl=US&hl=en&v=TIgVTMZ2Oqk&nomobile=1

[Dangermouse]

Hard to comment without becoming political.

Lets just say that she had more balls than any Prime Minister in recent history.

[thirdmanj]

Hard to comment without becoming political....

I managed... ;)

[OverlandMan]

Hard to comment without becoming political.

Lets just say that she had more balls than any Prime Minister in recent history.

+1. She was a politician.

[Jimmyvonviggle]

One tough broad. I love some of the old Saturday night live skits spoofing her and her husband.

[Dangermouse]

I get the impression that, outside of the DeLorean community perhaps, she had a broadly positive image in North America.

In the UK, not so much. Several street parties (block parties) last night apparently. It may be 30 years since she came to power, but feelings still run deep in some areas.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22066540#


The deLorean saga has not even merited a footnote in any of the obits or articles that have been posted, paling into insignificance beside the miners strikes violence, shoot-to-kill policies and "Margaret Thatcher Milk Snatcher".


On the lighter side, her puppet on "Spitting Image" in the eighties was just awesome. Check it out on youtube, but the jokes haven't aged well as they were very topical at the time.

[OverlandMan]

I get the impression that, outside of the DeLorean community perhaps, she had a broadly positive image in North America.

In the UK, not so much. Several street parties (block parties) last night apparently. It may be 30 years since she came to power, but feelings still run deep in some areas.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22066540#



That's in such bad taste --> to throw a party when someone dies. Some folks have no class.

[DL4567]

I'm completely ignorant on anything about her, outside her involvement with shutting down the DeLorean factory, but based solely on that..... good riddance to that b!!!! :dunno:
That was my first thought anyway when first reading the news yesterday.

[SamHill]

I'm completely ignorant on anything about her, outside her involvement with shutting down the DeLorean factory, but based solely on that..... good riddance to that b!!!! :dunno:
That was my first thought anyway when first reading the news yesterday.

Well, there's you-know-who's misappropriating $20M, being unwilling to negotiate the rights to the sale in the North American market, getting in the way of a consortium's efforts to keep the factory open, a total lack of transparency, inprudently increasing production to the extent that it leads to thousands of unsold cars, buying up companies, spending much needed capital on gold cars and bus projects and ignoring financing in favor of flying out to California to do a different sort of deal, but other than that, yeah, good point.

[DMCVegas]

I get the impression that, outside of the DeLorean community perhaps, she had a broadly positive image in North America.

In the UK, not so much. Several street parties (block parties) last night apparently. It may be 30 years since she came to power, but feelings still run deep in some areas.

She tends to get a decent amount of credit in the states as an American ally that helped topped communism and the cold war. We tend to think of her as Ronald Reagan with a vagina.




I'm completely ignorant on anything about her, outside her involvement with shutting down the DeLorean factory, but based solely on that..... good riddance to that b!!!! :dunno:

Yeah, I figured this would come up.

I'm a huge fan of JZD, and a big booster of him. However I will say that DMC's demise had more to do with him, than anyone nor anything else. There were two HUGE opprotunities to save DMC, and JZD blew both of them.

1. He upped production in order to comply with "Blue Sky" SEC regulations for a stock offering in order to obtain more cash for the company. Had he instead used that money to create a Finance division not unlike GMAC or any other number of "X Motor Credit" that other car manufacturers use, the company would have been well off. DMC could have simply financed buyers where other lenders would not have. Plus given the interest rates of the day, buying a DMC would not have been all that more expensive than say a Corvette, and even cheaper than it's contemporaries thanks to lower rates and lax rules for loan applicants. DMC could have shoved more cars out the door to not only evaporate excess inventory, but to have legitimately increased production. And that would have made the company even more stable and povided real income to self-fund operations.

2. The Brits worked hard to protect their financial investment, and the company and man that went along with it. Scotland Yard's investigation into the "Gold Facets" memo proved this. In the final hours JZD was offered a financial benefits package at the behest of Sir Kenneth Cork that included:

Between £60M - £80M worth of grants and small low interest loans.
Ownership of BL's TR7/TR8 including rights, manufacturing facilities, tooling, and components.


All that the Brits wanted in return was:

A seat on DMCA's Board to oversee operations.
Distribution of the TR8 through DMC's existing, successful network.
A hard $20M personal investment from JZD himself.


The Brits wanted to save jobs in England as well. They told him he could have the TR7 and re-badge it as a DMC. Sell it in America as a commuter car through DMC's existing network. Then yank the Rover V8 out of the TR8 and drop it into the DMC-12. Whatever, so long as it kept workers employed. With JZD's personal investment, this would have injected almost $100,000,000 into DMC. THAT would have certainly kept the company afloat for quite some time to further develop the car and other products (I can speculate beyond this as to what might have happened next, but that's for another time).

So all JZD needed to keep DMC going was $20M. What did he have?

$375K Pauma Valley Estate in California.
$5M Apartment in Manhattan.
$12M+ Estate in New Jersey.
$10M Check for a loan on his desk.


Yep, you read that last one right. There was an investment group (Not unlike Cerberus Capital) that specialized in high-yield corporate loans that had approved $10,000,000 and sent the paperwork over to JZD. He was half-way to the goal already. Instead he ignored the paperwork and boarded a flight for California to try and screw criminals out of cash (this can be seen in the sealed letter he sent to his lawyer). He took the easy way out, and it all came crashing down.

Can't blame Thatcher nor anyone else for that.

[DMCVegas]

Well, there's you-know-who's misappropriating $20M, being unwilling to negotiate the rights to the sale in the North American market, getting in the way of a consortium's efforts to keep the factory open, a total lack of transparency, inprudently increasing production to the extent that it leads to thousands of unsold cars, buying up companies, spending much needed capital on gold cars and bus projects and ignoring financing in favor of flying out to California to do a different sort of deal, but other than that, yeah, good point.

It seems to sometimes be rare we even remotely agree on things, but that is spot-on.

[thirdmanj]

She tends to get a decent amount of credit in the states as an American ally that helped topped communism and the cold war. We tend to think of her as Ronald Reagan with a vagina.





Yeah, I figured this would come up.

I'm a huge fan of JZD, and a big booster of him. However I will say that DMC's demise had more to do with him, than anyone nor anything else. There were two HUGE opprotunities to save DMC, and JZD blew both of them.

1. He upped production in order to comply with "Blue Sky" SEC regulations for a stock offering in order to obtain more cash for the company. Had he instead used that money to create a Finance division not unlike GMAC or any other number of "X Motor Credit" that other car manufacturers use, the company would have been well off. DMC could have simply financed buyers where other lenders would not have. Plus given the interest rates of the day, buying a DMC would not have been all that more expensive than say a Corvette, and even cheaper than it's contemporaries thanks to lower rates and lax rules for loan applicants. DMC could have shoved more cars out the door to not only evaporate excess inventory, but to have legitimately increased production. And that would have made the company even more stable and povided real income to self-fund operations.

2. The Brits worked hard to protect their financial investment, and the company and man that went along with it. Scotland Yard's investigation into the "Gold Facets" memo proved this. In the final hours JZD was offered a financial benefits package at the behest of Sir Kenneth Cork that included:

Between £60M - £80M worth of grants and small low interest loans.
Ownership of BL's TR7/TR8 including rights, manufacturing facilities, tooling, and components.


All that the Brits wanted in return was:

A seat on DMCA's Board to oversee operations.
Distribution of the TR8 through DMC's existing, successful network.
A hard $20M personal investment from JZD himself.


The Brits wanted to save jobs in England as well. They told him he could have the TR7 and re-badge it as a DMC. Sell it in America as a commuter car through DMC's existing network. Then yank the Rover V8 out of the TR8 and drop it into the DMC-12. Whatever, so long as it kept workers employed. With JZD's personal investment, this would have injected almost $100,000,000 into DMC. THAT would have certainly kept the company afloat for quite some time to further develop the car and other products (I can speculate beyond this as to what might have happened next, but that's for another time).

So all JZD needed to keep DMC going was $20M. What did he have?

$375K Pauma Valley Estate in California.
$5M Apartment in Manhattan.
$12M+ Estate in New Jersey.
$10M Check for a loan on his desk.


Yep, you read that last one right. There was an investment group (Not unlike Cerberus Capital) that specialized in high-yield corporate loans that had approved $10,000,000 and sent the paperwork over to JZD. He was half-way to the goal already. Instead he ignored the paperwork and boarded a flight for California to try and screw criminals out of cash (this can be seen in the sealed letter he sent to his lawyer). He took the easy way out, and it all came crashing down.

Can't blame Thatcher nor anyone else for that.

:hihi2: Lord Vegas has spoken. Any further discussion on the matter is unnecessary.

Great post though. I wasn't aware of most of these little facts. Your encyclopedic knowledge is most impressive.

[DL4567]

Well, there's you-know-who's misappropriating $20M, being unwilling to negotiate the rights to the sale in the North American market, getting in the way of a consortium's efforts to keep the factory open, a total lack of transparency, inprudently increasing production to the extent that it leads to thousands of unsold cars, buying up companies, spending much needed capital on gold cars and bus projects and ignoring financing in favor of flying out to California to do a different sort of deal, but other than that, yeah, good point.


It seems to sometimes be rare we even remotely agree on things, but that is spot-on.

Maybe you guys didn't see this:


I'm completely ignorant on anything about her, outside her involvement with shutting down the DeLorean factory, but based solely on that..... good riddance to that b!!!! :dunno:
That was my first thought anyway when first reading the news yesterday.

[DMCVegas]

Maybe you guys didn't see this:

We did.

http://1-media-cdn.foolz.us/ffuuka/board/m/image/1239/26/1239261890781.jpg

[andyd]

Dangermouse and Vegas- your posts are spot on (IMHO!)

andy

ps. Oh yeah, opinion of Maggie? --> :t2:

[Ron]

I get the impression that, outside of the DeLorean community perhaps, she had a broadly positive image in North America.
In the UK, not so much. ... ...How many times was she (re)elected???

[Dangermouse]

...How many times was she (re)elected???

Elected in '79, and re-elected twice after that.

(Now, remember that in the UK, the regular voter doesn't actually vote for the PM (Prime Minister). One votes for your local MP (Member of Parliament, like a congressman) who is from one of the main political parties* (Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats, etc, etc). Then the party with the majority of elected MPs forms the government and the head of that party automatically becomes Prime Minister. So Mrs Thatcher was the Conservative MP for Finchley (an area of London) as well as Leader of the Conservative Party as well as Prime Minister.

* Side note - In Northern Ireland at the time, even though it was/is part of the UK, the main political parties (Conservative Party and Labour party) did not field candidates. Voters there could only vote for candidates for various local Unionist and Republican parties who by definition would always be in the minority. So, no matter how unpopular her (or other PMs) policies may have been to the residents of NI, they could never have any affect on her position, or political party, though their voting in the next election. Yet another idiosyncrasy of life in NI.

[thirdmanj]

Just.....waiting... :popcorn:

[Dangermouse]

Can't decide if this is crass or amusing:

Sales of the song "Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead" have soared since her death to the extent that it is projected to be at #3 in the UK music chart (Billboard Top 40 type thing), presenting the BBC with a huge dilemma on whether to play it in their Chart Countdown show at the weekend

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21241791

Another example of how polarizing a figure she was/is to Britons, even in death.

[Ron]

Just.....waiting... :shark:Fixed that for you.:devil:

[Ron]

Elected in '79, and re-elected twice after that.

(Now, remember that in the UK, the regular voter doesn't actually vote for the PM (Prime Minister). One votes for your local MP (Member of Parliament, like a congressman) who is from one of the main political parties* (Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats, etc, etc). Then the party with the majority of elected MPs forms the government and the head of that party automatically becomes Prime Minister. So Mrs Thatcher was the Conservative MP for Finchley (an area of London) as well as Leader of the Conservative Party as well as Prime Minister.

* Side note - In Northern Ireland at the time, even though it was/is part of the UK, the main political parties (Conservative Party and Labour party) did not field candidates. Voters there could only vote for candidates for various local Unionist and Republican parties who by definition would always be in the minority. So, no matter how unpopular her (or other PMs) policies may have been to the residents of NI, they could never have any affect on her position, or political party, though their voting in the next election. Yet another idiosyncrasy of life in NI.

I'm with you so far, but besides the minority "gets screwed" (as usual), in short, I would say 'well, the voters know how it all works'.... What am I missing? (PM me if need be...I'm curious.)

[Dangermouse]

I don't think you are missing anything. (unless I am missing your question)

Yes, the local voters certainly know how it works. I was just pointing out that unlike in the US, where you actually get to vote for the POTUS in November, voters in the UK do not vote directly for the PM, so it is a slight mis-nomer to say that she was "elected" as PM. The UK voter can certainly vote Conservative or Labour (or other) in their local election knowing that the winning party's Leader will become PM. Or vote against a particular party, and indirectly against that party's leader.

My second point was that whether the PM helped or hindered the DeLorean project, it would have no direct effect on her or her party as local NI voters could vote for neither. This would not have been the case if the DeLorean factory had been next door to the Lotus factory in England, for example, where her Conservative party would field candidates in local elections.

[Ron]

OK...it just seemed that you were originally saying the people on the other side of the pond didn't like her, which made me wonder why they would keep re-electing her.....if she was THAT bad, it seems they would get the point across to the party (indirectly if that is what it took.)
[FWIW- Voting for the POTUS is just a "suggestion" due to the Electoral College, and House vote in case of ties...]

I was with you on the other point.

[Cory W]

Can't decide if this is crass or amusing:

Sales of the song "Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead" have soared since her death to the extent that it is projected to be at #3 in the UK music chart (Billboard Top 40 type thing), presenting the BBC with a huge dilemma on whether to play it in their Chart Countdown show at the weekend

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21241791

Another example of how polarizing a figure she was/is to Britons, even in death.

I think Ben Cooper is doing the right thing. For once.

I'm still pissed about him replacing the Moyles team with Nick Grimshaw. If I wanted One Direction all day long, I could let my daughter play her CD on repeat while I drive.

I enjoyed the campaign for Rage Against the Machine for Christmas #1 a few years back, as it kept Simon Cowell and X-Factor off the chart.

People have every right to make a political statement if they so wish, fine. It's less than a minute, and it will show on the chart for the week (or at least until the Chart Update on Wednesday), so they still have their victory.

[Rich W]

OK...it just seemed that you were originally saying the people on the other side of the pond didn't like her, which made me wonder why they would keep re-electing her.....if she was THAT bad, it seems they would get the point across to the party (indirectly if that is what it took.)
[FWIW- Voting for the POTUS is just a "suggestion" due to the Electoral College, and House vote in case of ties...]

I was with you on the other point.

I guess another parallel could be if US voters want Democratic control of the House, but have no voting choice in that Pelosi would be made Speaker.

[Ron]

I guess another parallel could be if US voters want Democratic control of the House, but have no voting choice in that Pelosi would be made Speaker.Perfect example!
(And then there is the flip side, voting in a party just to put a particular person in....but we don't want to go there ;-)