I wonder if the Bush administration and their Republican allies in Congress would be more supportive of bailing out the US auto industry, if it wasn’t such a union stronghold? Hmm…
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If the industry had not pushed back so hard on fuel standards and actually produced cars that were relevant maybe the public would be on board with this bailout. This has nothing to do with unions IMHO, except where they promoted regressive measures in order to protect jobs.
I am sorry the people who gave us the Hummer, the H2, and that goddamn Escalade don’t need help from my wallet. Thank you very much!
On the other hand 25 billion is small potatoes when we are talking about giving Wall Street 700 billion.
The answer is no, they would not. Which also explains why the Democrats are lining-up to support the bailout: unions vote for Demcorats, and the Dems must pay back their masters by bailing our Ford, GM and Chrysler.
I suggest Chapter 11 bankruptcy for all three auto makers. No tax payer involvement there: just the bankruptcy courts helping rehabilitate an industry that has lost its way. Incompetent management and greedy unions and poor quality have pretty much ruined this business in America.
Management has to realize the glory days are over: they don’t get guaranteed sales of their products to a “captive” American consumer. Unions have to realize that defined benefit pensions worked only when retirees lives a few years after retirement, not decades and decades. Sorry, but it’s time to assume responsibility for your retirement, unions. Management, too: no more golden parachutes for running your companies into the ground.
Health care? Well, there always Medicare for retirees. Wasn’t that Great Society program supposed to solve the issue of health care for old folks?
I agree with Mr. Incorrect on this one. This is the drubbing they’ve been warned about since the first Japanese import hit our shores.
Now they know where that kind of foot-dragging will get them. Why not use the bail-out money to buy the auto makers’ stock and sell it back to the workers at bargain prices?
“The ownership society”.
@3,
Not a bad idea!
Mr. Incorrect,
For years the auto companies gladly gave away pensions and other deferred benefits to unions in return for salary concessions. The Unions were thinking strategically about the future well being of their members, the auto manufacturers were thinking about short term profits and their own executive compensation. Why blame the unions for being the better bargainers?
At any rate, Republicans have no use for the midwest – Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio and Pennsylvania are not part of “real America” and are not supporting the Republican party adequately. So now they must be punished.
Yes and No.
Yes, I think the Bush admin loves to do ANYTHING that hurts unions.
However, No, the management of the big 3 is so greedy and short sighted that they did this to themselves. 10 years ago, they knew that the bubble would someday burst on Gas Guzzling cars and SUVs and they did nothing. They were too tied to short term profits when they knew there would be long term pain. They got their bonuses and stock options, and to hell with everyone else.
I don’t buy american, because the gas millage is so bad and the quality is so poor. Give me a honda anyday.
I think a union worker could make a great honda, I don’t think management will let them. the management won’t make the long term costly decisions to allow the union member to make a quality vehicle because they are too greedy and tied to this quarter’s earning share.
I could be wrong.
Goldy, do you support bailing out the auto industry? If so, why?
Not that I want to see the US auto industry collapse, but didn’t they just get $25 billion only a few months ago?
After seeing how the current Treasury Secretary has handed out billions that were used to buy up healthy companies and finance retreats and CEO bonuses, I’m more than just a bit nervous about opening up the taxpayers checking account again, unless we get some serious control over how the money is spent.
I just checked, and if I’m reading the figures right, General Motors current market cap is only $1.73 Billion. Ford is currently worth a bit over $4 Billion, while Chrysler is apparently worth a bit less than the retail price of a Happy Meal toy.
Why don’t we just buy them?
Why not just remove the extremely expensive health insurance burden off the back of the industry?
And all industries?
Goldy, do you care about the Troll? If so, why?
@9,
That is what a decent single payer system would do.
Anybody, do you care about the Troll? If so, why?
What is especially ironic about the auto industry lobbying Washington for help is that they fought CAFE standards on the grounds that they should be free to make the vehicles they wanted – and screw the air poolution and oil crisis, capitalism reigns. they made more money of the gas guzzling big vehicles. Now that the market has dropped out for those gas guzzling vehicles (even with todays gas prices, consumers know that they have no control of gas price escalation) they are in trouble. Notice how they chose quick profits over long term success…
Now that they are facing a financial crisis, suddenly government handouts seem like a good deal….
@2 Why not Medicare for everyone? We’re just throwing away the 25% of American health care costs going to the no-value-added insurance industry. Medicare does the same thing for 1/2%. You can save 24 1/2% upfront simply by substitution government management for private management of health insurance. Why not? When government managers out-compete private managers by a factor of 50, why should consumers continue to line the pockets of inefficient, ineffective, and useless companies in the name of slavish devotion to an idiotic ideology? Thank conservative stupidity for the high cost of American health care, the companies it has ruined, and the jobs it has cost.
@7: do you support bailing out the auto industry and why? Answer your own question first, if you have any intellectual integrity.
@12 No. Self-explanatory.
@15 The rationale for bailing out the auto industry, if there is one, would be the same as for other bailouts: Too big to fail, too much economic fallout. Of course, nowhere in this line of reasoning will you ever see anyone suggest that doing anything for workers is an objective. In America, socialism is reserved for the capitalists.
No, I don’t think the big 3 (or any company) should be bailed out. I think all it would do is delay the inevitable.
And what’s with the attitude from everyone toward me? I was sincere and polite when I asked that question.
If GM had just kept refining the ’55 chevy (like I told them to!), we would have a vehicle today that is the Platonic archetype of what an automobile should look like, and the most efficient, technologically advanced car in the world.
Putting a lot of money into changing the looks of an automobile is a waste of time.
The ’55 chevy is and was the perfect looking car.
re 19: Now you know how we feel when you go off on one of your sneering, mindless rants.
“…if it wasn’t such a union stronghold”
probably not. The arguments against a bailout is couched in ideological terms–nose, meet face.
The “Chapter 11” option isn’t much of an option. It allows the automakers to reject the aspects of the bargained-for union contract which it doesn’t like, and keep the parts it likes. The company would cast off the worker benefits and lower wages – but it would still be in trouble because it still can’t sell cars. Being free from payments on it’s long-term debt isn’t going to help much because it still needs credit to operate (a lot harder to get and more expensive while the company is in Chapt. 11), and it still needs to pay suppliers.
The real problem is that the U.S. car companies can no longer compete overseas, their consumers at home have less and less money, their customers can’t find financing due to the “credit crisis”, and the foreign car makers are simply making better cars and have better long-term service records.
Are the American car companies going to rely upon being the cheapest option out there? If so, they are going to be in real trouble next year or so, when the Chinese enter the U.S. market. Chapter 11 isn’t going to protect them from that.
The best hope they have is for the government to institute a national health-care system of some sort or another to remove the burden of funding future health benefits from them, and to fix the credit mess which could have been fixed a year ago if Bush & Co. hadn’t been so willing to listen to the bankers who then blamed it all on the borrowers.
It is what you have earned.
I watched the show today.
Anyone with a open mind would laugh at the big 4 thieves. They been a joke for too many years.
Anyone who ran a business for the union boss and not for customers deceivers no bail out from Joe taxpayer.
Chapter 11 is the way to go this way we all can see the truth.