Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

I'll bet a poll would indicate that 75% of the people Do Not want to bailout the Big 3.

The problem is the corrupt Congress makes your decision for you and your money. I certainly hope that Congress votes this down. However, I think we are getting a bunch of theatrics with the Hearings, and the supposedly elected corrupt congress will hand them our money, and more later.

I think most people would rather see a resurgence in an American auto industry than a restructuring by foreign powers. That's the biggest point of contention right now. But if the bail out is successful, it will ensure the buyout of American corporations by foreign entities in the very near future. It's a temporary fix that won't address the problem of poor business, unless we are sure we can "restructure" the Big Three. But then why not just let them go bankrupt? "Restructuring" with massive bailouts and bankruptcy should accomplish the same thing. With the bailout, however, the federal government will need to set up an organizational committee to monitor the affairs of these "restructured" businesses. If the Three go bankrupt, someone will buy them out. Hopefully, an American corporation... as most people seem to want. However, that corporation would have to be interested solely in profit, and relinquish their affection for its employees, eliminating the excessive pensions, benefits and wages that they are currently distributing. And that's hard to do with a domestic corporation, as their pocket books are deeply tied into legislation and Congress.

It's a pity how national interests intervene in the ideals of pure capitalism. If that weren't the case, the American people themselves would be fairly wealthy.

[edit on 19-11-2008 by cognoscente]

Whether we like it or not, all Americans are heavily invested in the big 3. I would be willing to bet that they have a lot of government money already.

This is not a giveaway. The companies must repay the loans with interest, just as did Chrysler under Iacocca.

I think it is UN-AMERICAN to let major American companies fail when they can be rescued easily. If you feel the corruption makes them unworthy, then why rescue Wall St?

Our country is designed by GM. The are the parents of the suburbian concept. They wanted us to live in neighborhoods and drive cars to work, or see the USA. We did, and we love it. We love to see our country, have a little place of our own.

These companies need financial backing to make new changes. Normally, funding would be available, but is not due to the credit crisis.

The credit crisis was not caused by the big 3.

I say put some money there so they have access to funds to retool and develop better cars for us.

I love America. I am not in the auto industry. I am in insurance and home improvement industries. I would hope that if the problem hit me harder, you would want to help me out, too. Where is the Christian attitude of love thy neighbor, anyway?

reply to post by sad_eyed_lady

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It's funny how people complain about how much auto workers make but would you rather all the profit go to the coporation? Really it's like saying athletes shouldn't make as much money as they do because they really don't do anything.

But the professional sports industry makes tons of money so it's only fair that that the athletes reap some of the benefits. In the hay day of GM it was very reasonable and fair to pay it's worker $30 an hour.
But now it's not such a good idea.

[edit on 19-11-2008 by Teeky]

[edit on 19-11-2008 by Teeky]

I answered the ignorance elsewhere - www.abovetopsecret.com...

I will just add to the linked response that manufacturing is real wealth that actually leads to jobs - unlike supporting criminals in banking.

GoalPoster has got is RIGHT !!!! .... BUT he didn't
expand upon it far enough...The Big Three Automakers and America in general has got a SERIOUS OVERSUPPLY
PROBLEM...In short, because of the current and FUTURE
automation of design, raw & finished materials production
and even the eventual automation of sales and finance...
we will simply NOT NEED as many people PERIOD!!!
in the future in order to satisfy our needs and wants.

There are TWO books that ALL of you NEED TO AND MUST READ:

The End of Work by Jeremy Rifkin

www.amazon.com...

...and...

Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life
by by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray

www.amazon.com...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227126752&sr=1-1

which posit that 20% of the population of the world will be
able to design, manufacture, grow, supply, finance, and sell
ALL of the goods and services required at any time.

These books also posit that 80% of the world's population
ARE and WILL BE USELESS EATERS who can't afford what the
20% Elite make and conversely, the Elite 20% won't
NEED what the other 80% have to offer !!!!!

The Bell Curve posits that 20% of the world are
Cognitively Stratified above the rest with the
stratification based NOT by physicality, race,
or geographic place but rather by Raw Intelligence
and the ability to use or define complex information
and the resulting technological capacities that the
use of dense information exchange brings.

In short, 80% of you will be automated right out of your jobs!

And as a computer sciences researcher myself, I am hell-bent
on continuing to build systems that can autonomously grow
and cook my food, do my laundry, fix or build my car,
fly me to my vacation spot, defend me from the other
80% Useless Eaters and generally make my life as
comfortable as possible and keep the highly educated
and highly mobile elite as FAR, FAR AWAY and APART
from the great unwashed unintelligent masses as possible!

The book "The End of Work" and the "Bell Curve" posit
that the human race will split into two camps...==>

1) a gracile upper elite of highly intelligent
technological and information dense social beings.

2) A secondary mass of short, nasty brutes with the brains
of worms who will be thought of as little more than animals
by the upper-level graciles....!!!

Do not THINK that I am sounding snooty or elitist
but rather take these words as a SOUNDING OF ALARM
that YOU are being decimated on PURPOSE because of
sheer automation and greater/faster cognitive stratification
caused by ever-increasing information density that
only an elite few will be able to cognitively handle!

The problem is that MOST PEOPLE IN AMERICA and the
REST OF THE WORLD cannot see nor do they UNDERSTAND
and LIKELY DO NOT CARE about the UNDERLYING PROCESSES
of marginalization by way of automation and mechanization.

And it's coming faster than you THINK...the day
a 10 Gigahertz, 128-bit Microprocessor is announced
is the day that MOST of the menial or routine jobs
in the world from waiter/waitress, food service,
cashier, shipping & receiving, auto/consumer electronic/
toy/plane manufacturing, ...or... secretarial,
routine customer service, taxis, chauffeurs,
bus drivers, truck drivers, pilots, basic sales,
large scale farming AND ANYTHING ELSE that is
ROUTINE OR HAS A DEFINED PROCESS is ABSOLUTELY TOAST
due to the sudden introduction of expert systems/AI
that can do the jobs faster and BETTER than YOU!

As soon as we have a chip like that proverbial
128 bit 10 GHZ microprocessor, it means we now have
the computer horsepower for viable real-time machine vision
and object recognition, real-time control and sensory
of the local and far-away environment via robotic
manipulation, real-time autonomous control of
artifical hands, legs or other dexterous manipulators,
viable voice recognition and voice synthesis and other human
like aspects that I can ASURE YOU WILL BE USED
by the current financial and cognitive elite
to either make their lives easier or yours worse or BOTH!

Unfortunately I see a dark future for humanity
and unfortunately you WILL NOT HAVE the physical
POWER or COGNITIVE STRENGTH to resist the changes
or forced relocations or EXTERMINATIONS that
WILL HAPPEN in my guess no later than 25 to 40 years !!!!

In fact it WILL BE like movie Terminator II: Judgement Day
except it will the 20% Elite that will start the
Rise of the Machines!!! ... and you will be LEFT
POWERLESS because NONE OF YOU WILL BE fast enough,
smart enough or physically powerful enough to STOP IT!!!!

Any Comments?

---

My Suggestion for YOU!!!

Learn Robotics, Expert Systems and AI Computer Science
and ULSI/CPU Chip Design!

...or...

already be or somehow become rich and famous

otherwise you, your children and grand-children are TOAST !!!!

reply to post by GoalPoster

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I'm from Detroit and I don't like all these player haters wanting to see their fellow Americans fail. I remeber I was dating a college graduate who worked at Chrysler corporate and he was downing the manual workers basically saying they were stupid. Well I just think he was jealous because he was making $73,000 and my mom who was working on the assembly line was making well over $100,000.

Like I said before I'd rather see the average everyday worker make some money than majority of the profit going to the corporations. If that's what you want then we will be just like China. Cheap labor and super rich corporations.

Just a few points I'd like to toss out here.....
Firstly I must say that I was born and raised in Detroit. Both my parents are retired auto-workers, Mom Ford, Dad GM. So obviously I have a somewhat sentimental connection to the American automobile industry.

Also of note, every single car I have ever owned (10 so far) has been American made. Not only is that of note, but I'm damn proud to say it. If the American auto industry goes under or is bought by a foreign entity I guess I'll never own a brand new car again. It goes beyond pride to say such things. I support the American worker because dammit this is the country I live in and I want it to succeed. Oh and I could care less if your Toyota was made in Tennessee, last I checked Toyota wasn't an American co. Ya, I may buy $5 crap from other countries but my biggest expenditures go back into THIS economy, the economy of the USA (for what it's worth these days). I don't care who any of you think you are but American cars are just as good. I've only had one serious issue with any of my vehicles. Not only that but part of how this nation got to be as strong as it is/was was built on the backs of factory workers and Rosie the riveter.

There are a lot of factors that led to where the auto industry is at right now. There is not one single issue you can point at, cut out, and then make everything magically better. As others have stated a bailout (by its self) would just prolong the inevitable. Unions, upper management, corporate greed, economic policies, governmental policies (free trade agreements) to name the most prevalent reasons are where it's at and anyone who says "No bailout for the big-3" trumpets those reasons if they actually know what they are talking about.

My own mother said "Let them fail" and her retirement is not vested. I looked at her quizzically and she said "Yeah, a lot of people will be out of work, entire cities will turn into ghost towns and the homeless rate will skyrocket. But there is no easy fix, and out of hard times comes character, and hopefully from that would rise an industry I would be proud of again."

Personally I don't think it absolutely has to fail? Why is it necessary to put all these people out of work? Things can be done to stop the slide without handing them a bailout check.
Initially:
Disband the UAW
Clean out upper mgmt and wasteful spending
Put tariff's on foreign automobiles, including lesser tariff's on "American" cars assembled out of the country and shipped back.

ehh my .02



[edit on 19-11-2008 by wazar]

I agree with Romeny let Detriot fall and allow a restructuring of the auto-industry to begin research and devlopment the Big 3 must die out.

The article was good, but did anybody catch the link that was down below in past coverage...

www.nytimes.com...

Your right we are already bailing them out. All those fleet government vehicals you see cops and feds driving...? Those aren't imports! and their C.E.O.'s flying into D.C. on private jets to beg for money!!!!! Are you kidding

reply to post by wazar

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Are you serious?



source

Obama wants to make unions stronger.



source

Seems the only way they will ever be disbanded is if the Big 3 fail.

Yes I'm serious, too bad I didn't win the presidency lol

You say that as if I think Obama is going to save the big-3. I don't think any politician will do what is needed, every single one of them will do whats best for them and their interests, not the countries.

I know better.

[edit on 19-11-2008 by wazar]

reply to post by nyk537

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I say lets bail them out only if they produce one hybrid vehicle for every American family at no cost to them in lieu of repaying the govt.We are the people.This would drasticly reduce our dependance on foreign oil as a nation,it would allow the automakers a chance to partner with the American people and make a change that is needed....YES WE CAN!The question is will they (the govt and automakers) use this oportunity to UNscrew the American people?