save the dinosaurs!
The Democrat leadership has obviously not gotten the memo on ideological shift. Here is the article from the wires.
Democratic Congressional leaders urged the Bush administration on Saturday to consider using the $700 billion bailout for the financial system to aid distressed American automakers, in a prelude to what may become urgent negotiations over additional economic stimulus measures.
This is a bad idea for so many reasons. First, it sets a bad precedent. Every progressive policy idea of the next four (let’s hope eight) years will be stained by the memory of this capitulation to corporate interests.
Second, it invites an environmental nightmare. What’s next? Bailing out the coal industry because it’s losing jobs to green energy? Bailing out AIG because they’re “too big too fail”? (Oops. Already done.) These guys are going out of business because they thought cheap gas would last forever. They are dinosaurs who deserve to die. Maybe if we’re lucky their carcasses will provide fuel for someone in one hundred million years. They even knew the good times couldn’t last, but they put that nasty thought out of their heads for instant gratification of quick profit. This is how the AP put it:
At Ford Motor Co. they called it “Blue,” a team set up around the year 2000 to design an array of small, fuel-efficient cars to compete with the Japanese. It didn’t get far because no one could figure out how to make money on low-priced compacts with Ford’s high labor costs.
Besides, the automaker was racking up billions in profits by selling pickups and sport utility vehicles. Times were good and gas was cheap.
If the government commits to maintaining failing technologies because people have jobs that depend on them we are never going to get ahead of the energy curve. If Chevron and ExxonMobil get bailouts there will be an insurrection right here in the good old U. S. of A.
Third, it validates the idea that corporations are the equivalent of citizens. It should not need to be said, so why am I saying it? Corporations are not people. They may have a lot of money, but corporations are not citizens. The business of government is citizens, not collections of citizens, or business syndicates, or legal fictions. If the Dems in Congress want to do something for the people who will be laid off if the auto companies die, put money into infrastructure or unemployment benefits. That at least will tide workers over until a true entrepreneur comes along with a better job to give these men and women. When you work in a factory it doesn’t matter if you build SUVs or hybrids — it’s all the same to the assembly worker. But if you bail out GM and Ford, all you will see for the next ten years are more SUVs and Hummers.
culturalcapitol.com 
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November 9, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Anonymous Novelist
Regardless of whether or not this is a good idea (I don’t believe it is), there is a precedent: Chrysler was bailed out by the government to much public protest in the 80’s. If history is doomed to repeat itself, this can only mean one thing: that evil known as the K-Car will one again be unleashed across the land.
November 9, 2008 at 10:02 pm
culturalcapitol
Yay! The K Car was just short of being an L car, but far ahead of the G Car.
November 9, 2008 at 10:16 pm
zachbreakpate
Have everyone seen this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/world/asia/10china.html?hp
While we have been sitting around for five years in a corner of the Middle East digging for plums with out thumbs, to the tune of a trillion dollars a year, China has been saving its money. And now they’re gonna spend it on an infrastructure upgrade that will leave us looking like 20th century losers. Here’s an additional thought: while we strive to prop up failing technologies and businesses instead of building infrastructure and education, China might try to pay for its infrastructure investment by cashing in some of its U. S. Treasury bonds. And how will a massive Chinese divestment in the U. S. affect our own economy?
November 12, 2008 at 2:18 am
bunky2
I’d like to know how much the Detroit 3 have asked the Canadian and Mexican governments to kick in toward the bail out. Or, is it expected to fall squarely on American tax payers’ shoulders to keep THEM working, too? If they’re losing money at the rate they say, $50 Billion will be gone in the blink of a turn signal. Why don’t we just add another “0” to that figure? … Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Lee Iaccoca, et al, sold us a bill of goods when he conned the US Government into bailing Chrysler out, and they’ve been turning out some of the worst crap to hit American roads, ever since. Just ask the guys at Daimler what a swell company Chrysler is. The German execs that orchestrated that deal are probably living in Siberia, now.
GM’s Rick Wagoner once stated that China was GM’s up and coming boom market. Apparently, they’re starved for Buicks and Trailblazers over there. Well, if that’s where their market is, then that’s where they should build them. I hear China’s in pretty good financial shape. Go ask them to write a check.
Ford continues to think that “bigger is safer”. They spent BILLIONS developing and producing their new “Flex”. It’s a “dud”. It seats 7, costs nearly $40K, and gets a whopping 20 mpg. Are these guys on drugs? What American families need is a $19K station wagon that gets at least 35 mpg. I work with a soccer mom who gets her kids to practice in her Imprezza wagon, without so much as a scratch on them. If Subaru can figure that out, why can’t Ford?
Decades ago, when the Japanese were exporting more and more cars to the US, the Detroit 3 asked the government to tack on an import tariff to stem the flow. It didn’t work. American consumers knew a good car when they saw one. Since then, Honda, Toyota and others have established themselves as more of an American auto manufacturer than GM, Ford or Chrysler have. They continue to increase production here, employ more Americans, and sell more cars, without having to “bribe” consumers with profit killing incentives. If I were Honda and Toyota, I’d be asking for import tariffs on all those “American” cars and trucks being “imported” from Mexico. Hey, it works both ways guys.
If these 3 are allowed to fail, it will obviously have an enormous ripple effect throughout the economy. We cannot, however, just give them a check without strict sanctions on how they spend it. If they’re just going to pay past due bills and insane corporate exec salaries, then, forget it. If the UAW isn’t willing to make necessary concessions, then forget that, too. There’s a slow boat to China waiting at the dock. All aboard!