I’ve been meaning to write a post for over a week now about the prospective automobile industry bail out, but just haven’t been able to bring myself to do so. See, I don’t want to get into trouble for all the hate-speech that I would surely engage in against the huge doofaces who have run these companies into the ground for YEARS!
This should be their new mantra: consistently poor performance will yield consistently poor results.
So instead of ranting on and on about how these companies need to fail (go into bankruptcy), restructure, and reinvent themselves for long-term survival, I’m just going to post this image that I received on Facebook, which perfectly sums up how I feel about the whole deal:
Someone suggested that there are ‘national security’ implications with the auto industry since they were born out of the great manufacturing boom of WWII. Uhh… Hello! This isn’t the 1940’s, Auntie Em. We don’t use tanks as the primary weapon of war anymore, and the tanks we do use certainly aren’t produced by Ford (in that case, they’d just quit working in the middle of the war).
We don’t owe these car companies anything! For years they have produced crappy products that no one wants to buy, and the suckers who did buy them were invariably disappointed at either quality, safety, or performance. I’ve been very happy to patronize Honda, Toyota, and the other manufacturers who are clearly doing a better job and producing a superior product. And hey, they even manufacture their cars right here in America!
Sure, there are a lot of jobs tied up in the auto industry, and losing a million jobs right now would cripple our economy even more. The argument against letting these companies go bankrupt is that “no one wants to buy a car from a bankrupt company.” Uhh… But have these people seen the statistics lately? No one is buying cars right now, anyway! Now is the perfect time for them to restructure. It will cause the least amount of disruption to their already non-existent business.
The nasty component of this mess is the UAW. What can I say about the auto worker’s Union? Poo on you. You have become a cult of ‘rights’, just as most other labor unions, and have milked the cow dry. You have crippled your own industry by your greed (which is the danger of the modern labor union in a global economy) and basically unionized yourselves out of your own jobs.
I’m done with company bail outs. I want my tax money to go for something that I will actually see a return on rather than hand-outs meant to pump air back into balloons which have already popped.
Level 2, but poignant. =)
What’s more frustrating is that even bankruptcy courts cost money…
In this case, I felt it merited the level 2 word…
When wind first blew of this bailout, I said to Hubby, “They dug this grave, now they should have to lie in it.” Who hasn’t read a consumer reports to see how the American Auto makers were doing in comparison to the “foreign” names. I do realize that there will be millions of jobs affected, but when do we stop looking to government to solve all our problems? This is getting out of control.
http://www.caglepost.com/cartoon.aspx?id=d07faebc-55d7-4720-b48f-d5d3c6fe894e
I really can appreciate all of your sentiments in this blog. and I think from a Auto Technicians standpoint. seeing a ford windstar in the picture you got on facebook is not an accident. If any of you have owned one you probably know what I mean.
I can think of two wiser ways to spend gov’t money to help the auto industry (if we HAVE to spend money on them) give the consumer a 3,000 dollar bonus tax incentive if they buy an american car (they will need it for maintenance and repair which will help the economy as well.)
Or offer incentives (money if you are giving it away) to startup car companies that will do a better job than the big 3.
60+ years ago when GM, Ford and Chrysler were not at the top of the heap there were lots of competing car companies, and the only reason they are gone is because the Big Three beat them in a FREE MARKET game. Back then they had a better product and business strategies. The gov’t didn’t bail out a lot of those companies that went under.
If you went to an auction to buy a race horse would you even bid on one that had had 4 broken legs and is blind in one eye?
I always thought you shot a horse that broke a leg?
I can’t wait to read the history books 30 years from now…
You’re assuming there will actually be history books 30 years from now… we’ll probably be reading old blogs as if they were a history.
W.E.-
Long time reader, first time commentor.
One thing that we forget when we think of the bailouts is that the government actually doesn’t have any money with which to bail anybody out. They just print more (cue dramatic music: dun, dun, DUN!!). Those who think we are borrowing it have to ask themselves: from whom? Nobody has any money.
In sum: I agree with W.E. It will be tough and painful, but restructuring is the best thing for the auto companies now. If the Japanese and Korean were smart, they’d take this time to look at themselves and make sure they were fit in every aspect.
If they got the bailout money, that wouldn’t exactly put me in the mood to buy one of their cars. I assume a lot of people feel that way, so they’d still be screwed.
Could not pass this by.. High unemployment is the economy killer. If that many people were displaced and unemployed the impact would take a lot longer to recover from. If you recall from your american History classes, the only reason we got out of the depression was WW2 which was a great job creator. As much as I hate this as well, as long as the govt gets rid of the special interest groups and lobbyers, dumps the UAW union, retool for innovation and not technology following from others, it could work. Money needs to keep flowing. I think we are kidding ourselves to think this is a 1-2 year down turn.
It’s about time you found time to comment, FavUnc. I agree, employment is the engine of the economy… but still… can’t we find a better solution than for the taxpayers to just pay everyone’s paychecks during hard times?
I think the most interesting thing is that everyone assumes that the failure of one of the big three means that the company and the jobs simply evaporate. If there is some demand for their product, here or abroad, there will be buyers of those corporate assets and licenses. Further, the cars already sold will still need to be repaired, just a question of warranty. Further, if the remaining car companies have to step in to fill in the demand that stays constant, won’t they just have a chance at more market share. The sub-contractors and parts suppliers to the assembly lines should end up making product for new masters.
To be sure, the loss of one or more of these behemoths would be felt immediately, but it isn’t the complete melt down like Y2K was rumored to be (and wasn’t in the end). Doom and gloom aside, this is a free market economy and everyone is fiercely proud of it to the point that they make a lot of others choke on the point. He’s our test. This is where the government can invest wisely in long last projects that create jobs and new industries. We need new infrastructure, before another bridge collapses! We certainly could build new schools. Why not take this time to build clean energy technologies of the future, today! Yes, I am regurgitating from a current plan that starts on January 20th, but I was in favor before he said it.
It is well-past time to grow up and play with the big kids now. You remember the first time you were caught in a lie and had to “fix” things, right? It was tough medicine and it really deflated your ego, but it was worth it in the end. We now need to swallow hard and deal with it.
Booger
P.S. My wife is a certified teaching professional and she doesn’t earn what a janitor at GM earns. How long can that disparity continue and why should I pay to reward it? I support the concept of a union, but the UAW is the biggest blight on the reputation of unions as there could ever be. What a joke!
Got to agree with harry… poo on them