The Real Reason the Government Doesn’t Want to Bail out the Auto Makers.

reply to post by defcon5

Sorry, I used to work in engineering, and even in the late 90’s they knew they were well behind the foreign manufactures. I drive a Foreign car that is nearly 14 years old, with almost 300K miles on it, and it is showing no signs of stopping any time soon.

That’s nice to know did you engineer American Cars? If so why were foreigners supposedly engineering better ones? If not, then what are you basing your qualifications on here say and perspective? I own three American cars one with 245000 miles on it, one with 125000 and one with 18000 miles. They corner, steer better, accelerate better, have a more solid feel and hertz rating because of better construction. General Motors has designed and given away more safety technology than all the world’s other car manufacturers combined. Chances are your car has some AC/DELCO original equipment parts in it as many foreign companies by high capacity air conditioning systems and onboard diagnostic systems fro General Motors and AC/DELCO.

Please go to your local DMV and ask them to tell you what is the most numerous 15 year old car registered currently with the state, chances are it’s going to be the Pontiac Grand Am.

I believe you believe what you are saying, but I believe you have gotten some very bad information. I have been doing business with every auto manufacture in the world for almost two decades. I know both the domestic and foreign side of the business and the marketing efforts that truly go into branding. The American Manufacturers were solid businesses until the economic collapse.

reply to post by defcon5

fact that foreign vehicles last longer, don’t break down as much, and use less gas.

One word Fiat! Oh alright two words the Citroen. Oh alright three words. The Trabat. The fact is you have a lot less safety equipment, power and maneuverability in Japanese and Korean Golf Cars.

Explain why Toyota sales are off thirty percent and they posted their first loss ever?

Americans need to find faith in supporting America if Americans want America to be prosperous. Frankly I don’t see how a nation could be prosperous if it’s own citizens refuse to believe in what it can do and manufacture and stick with it through it’s ups and downs. Yes it’s a free market, try buying something at a market when you have no job though.

I live in Miami the capital of wasteful spending. It only seems wasteful to the people who don’t live in Miami. This is how it works. I buy from your company more than I need at a higher price than it’s worth. You cut me a check back for some of it off the books. Wasteful spending is what Government and big business is all about. Productive spending is reinvesting profits into growing sectors of the economy.

The proceeds of most organized fraud on a managerial level get reinvested almost immediately back into the economy as most people committ fraud on a small scale to fuel lifestyle expenditures.

The more most people make the more most people spend. That is what keeps the economy moving. People need to make more money and that won't happen not supporting American products or waiting twenty years for America first to create an entire new industry.

Talk about forcing the banks to lend to risk borrowers. Do you know how many environmental mandates are forced on the manufacturers through CAFE restrictions and Safety devices that are mandated that drive up costs.

Have you used the airbag in your 15 year old car? Does it have one? If you have one, you paid about 1,000 retail to have it. If you don't have one, well saving that 1,000 dollars hasn't hurt you has it. Sorry in America you have to have two airbags minimum. Government law.

reply to post by defcon5

The same thing happened in the Airline industry, the old companies like Pan Am, and Eastern, who had excessive overhead in personnel folded and new airlines took over the spots that they left behind.

Wow and too think I worked for a decade in the travel business before switching to automotive. I am not even going to start on my beloved Pan Am where you could recline in full sleeping comfort in first class to the smells of fresh meat actually being cooked not nuked and served on China. Just so you know what really killed Pan Am was selling their Pacific Routes to United and getting into South America about 6 years before it really developed like they expected it would.

Repeat the Auto Manufacturers have been profitable for decades and employ millions of Americans in real living wage jobs and make a real quality product. My American car gets me every where a foreign car will go with cheaper parts and maintenance cost, more power, more room, better handling and performance and safety. Marketing is marketing. Many people are sold. That’s why they call them sales people.

Repeat Toyota down 30% first loss ever. The economy, our economy needs jobs. You can’t speed your concept to market, or set up the vast logistics of a 10,000 store strong dealer body like General Motors already has to provide that kind of economic assistance in your plan which presumably we have to import foreign engineers and workers and material to build them to the perceived quality you envision since you do not believe we domestically are capable.

I believe in America, that’s why I haven’t moved to another country. That and the toilet paper abroad sucks!

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


You’ll have to excuse me for not being an expert on the financial market, I have much less company time to spend day-trading then the average UAW worker does.

If I recall correctly though, when this all began the problem was with Liquidity. Meaning the banks had enough assets to cover their expenses, but it was all tied up in real property. The reason that occurred was that the government required them to offer loans which they knew would default, and they would end up stuck with the repossessed property which they cannot resell for enough to cover the debt on that property. The government is buying shares in those banks in hopes that as the economy recovers, and those real assets can be sold off, that there will be a return on their money. With this in mind, what will the American taxpayer get out of bailing out the Auto Industry? We going to all get a free car? What assets do the auto companies hold that they are waiting for the market to go up on so they can pay back the loans with a profit?
Oh yeah…
I forgot…
Their plan is to ding the taxpayer for the cost of staying afloat, then repay that loan by increasing the price on the cars that they sell to………
The taxpayer…….
Nice scam they have going there, eh?

reply to post by defcon5

Are you kidding me?
Those guys would get those jobs out of high school, often because a relative got them in there, and would be making $80K to $100K almost immediately, plus excessive amounts of time off, full benefits, and vested retirement after 5 years. People who risk their lives saving other peoples lives for a living don’t get those types of benefits.

Are you kidding me? Why is it you feel a person should not be able to complete school, get a decent job with decent benefits and wages for honest work and showing up on time? Why is it you feel people benefit from having no leisure time and should not have any? Why is it you feel people should not enjoy certain luxuries for their honest work when one man alone hordes half the world’s wealth keeping it out of circulation and had most of it not out of high school but the day he was born. Inherited off of the backs of robbed workers and bilked investors.

You need about a 100,000 a year to live any kind of life in America unless you want to shop at Wal-Mart, eat McDonalds and vacation at your in laws and keep driving that car 15 years later.

You are angry that one group felt it was better to negotiate harder than another for a real living wage while most people don’t negotiate at all and have no living wage?

You are displaying much of the thinking that has caused the very problems you are decrying if you could just look beyond the circular logic of your position on these things.

Human beings should not have to slave their entire life to enjoy a level of comfort the world could easily afford to provide everyone if there wasn’t such greed and belief that only a privileged few deserve privileged things.

reply to post by defcon5

Detroit should have started making “Green” cars back in about 2003, but they CHOSE not to, and now want the US customer to bail them out.

So lets punish millions of Americans by firing them! Then since most of the world is unemployed and most of the wealth horded is in the hands of a very small percentage of people who never ‘had’ to do anything, let alone ‘green’ that have stopped ‘green’ because the two wealthiest people in the world own the world’s two biggest oil companies and let us let the unemployed and poor get angrier and angrier until you have a great big world wide war that destroys the environment with nuclear and biological weapons. That sure is one way to go green?

Support American companies and products. Help make America strong. America will accomplish a lot more in a position of strength and vitality than it will with envy and love of the neighbors grass.

I apologize if anything I have commented upon comes across disrespectful in any way.
I can appreciate the analytical leanings of an engineering mind. You design things. I sell them. I appreciate your very intelligent comments. I was very much against the first bail out. The banks should have taken the loss. It might be decades before housing markets regain the close to 30% and still dropping they have lost. Do you know how amortization works on mortgages? Most of the first several years of payments is interest on the loan. The banks are making money off of those assets they don’t want to take a loss on.

If you or I owned a home and we needed to sell we would be screwed though. We would just have to take the loss. So why does the richest group of men in the world not have too.
The Federal Reserve is a private not a government company.

The scam is that the Federal Reserve is the banks and the bankers. They are actually loaning us the citizens visa vi our government to loan to them and we pay interest to the Fed on the money they are essentially loaning to themselves.

If the extremely wealthy people who own these banks don’t want to bail them out why should you or I?

If you are going to bail something out put the money into a bailout that really helps the economy. Your saying it’s ok for Americans to loan rich bankers money to cover their losses for years as we wait for the assets to appreciate again and maybe the government not the citizen is going to see a profit for what the citizen already had to pay for to make them that loan. No one gets hired waiting for a house to appreciate in value. It does nothing but sit there.

Even if your dim view of the UAW is indicative of every plant in America and all they do is sit there at least they go out and spend the money they got paid at the end of the day, and that makes someone else’s paycheck. Maybe even yours.

No one is spending any money off of houses that might have to sit for a decade until the banks can sell them without a loss. It does nothing but help bankers not have to loose money.

You are right about so many things. I am not sure if I can agree with you that now is the time to terminate the employment of millions of Americans when the replacement work you envision for the industry that once employed them will take another decade or more to logistically employ the same number of people fired.

I would rather we bail no one out. It’s too late though for that. If we have to use socialistic remedies lets at least apply them to where it benefits the greatest number of people and not the fewest.

Off to bed, as soon as I finish starring your posts. I will reply to your other great posts tomorrow. Thanks for your input and observations.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
That’s nice to know did you engineer American Cars?

I was a subcontract IS/IT developer. I did not work on the cars, I wrote software that they used to benchmark their cars against their competitors cars, amongst other things.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
If so why were foreigners supposedly engineering better ones?

Other then superior materials being used, I cannot tell you because I did not work for them. I know about the materials due to dealing with US after-market crap that I have had to put on my car a few times.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
If not, then what are you basing your qualifications on here say and perspective?

First hand personal experience.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
I own three American cars one with 245000 miles on it, one with 125000 and one with 18000 miles.

Let me know when you hit 14 years, 300K.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
They corner, steer better, accelerate better, have a more solid feel and hertz rating because of better construction.

American cars steer like they have a brick in the wheel when you spin them past a certain point, and the steering usually loosens up on them. I doubt that your car is going to out accelerate my foreign sports car. I drive one of those sports cars that have been in a few video games.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
General Motors has designed and given away more safety technology than all the world’s other car manufacturers combined. Chances are your car has some AC/DELCO original equipment parts in it as many foreign companies by high capacity air conditioning systems and onboard diagnostic systems fro General Motors and AC/DELCO.

I doubt there is anything American in my car that I did not put in it, it came over on a ship.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Please go to your local DMV and ask them to tell you what is the most numerous 15 year old car registered currently with the state, chances are it’s going to be the Pontiac Grand Am.

Toyota Camery I believe.
You might be correct in Detroit, but not elsewhere in the US. Of course you see mostly US cars up there, because everyone up there gets them on Employee pricing.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
I believe you believe what you are saying, but I believe you have gotten some very bad information. I have been doing business with every auto manufacture in the world for almost two decades. I know both the domestic and foreign side of the business and the marketing efforts that truly go into branding. The American Manufacturers were solid businesses until the economic collapse.

Man, the stories I could tell you…
First hand stuff of course.
I’d rather not go into it to that level. I truly believe that you are jaded as that is your line of business, as are many US autoworkers workers. The reality is that I was an outsider, and owed no loyalty to the company I was contracted to, so my opinion was more objective.

reply to post by ProfEmeritus

One of us is missing something major here. The Government DID bail out the auto industry to the tune of 17.8 Billion dollars on December 19, 2008:

You are correct as always Professor and thank you for commenting.

The Big Three were looking for quite a bit more than that. They are taking what is being given and in General Motors case it likely will tide them over. Ford and Chrysler might not make it though.

The enormity of the manufacturing process is a very costly one budget wise. Most people aren't entirely aware of what a huge portion of the economy auto sales are and how they drive the economy.

You buy a Bic Mac someone somehwere might be shooting that 1.99 through the economy again.

You buy a new Impalla and 24,000 dollars immediately gets dispursed through a huge pipeline that pays a living to a very large group of people.

The government can mandate and attach anything it wants in the way of strings on the Big Three they have been doing it for decades on environment and safety initiatives. The Manufacturers always comply.

Car dealers have never been well liked. I fear the resentment and frustration of the bailout to the bankers, combined with that has many Americans ready to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Automotive profits filter to almost every segment of the economy pretty quickly.

In my humble oppinion that and any other viable manufacturing is vital to restore to full vibrancy as quickly as possible to restore our economy.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
One word Fiat! Oh alright two words the Citroen. Oh alright three words. The Trabat. The fact is you have a lot less safety equipment, power and maneuverability in Japanese and Korean Golf Cars.

I believe that the Camery had the safety record for many years, so has the Volvo.
I suggest you look at the current safety records, and remove the blinders:

Institute for Highway safety
Large Car: Acura RL
Midsize Car: Acura TL
Midsize Convertible: Saab 9-3
Small Cars: Honda Civic
Mini Car: Honda Fit
Mini Van: Honda Odyssey
Large SUV: Audi Q7
Midsize SUV: Acura MDX
Small SUV: Ford Escape
Large Pickup: Ford F-150
Small Pickup: Toyota Tacoma

Only two US cars made number one picks this year…

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Explain why Toyota sales are off thirty percent and they posted their first loss ever?

Errrm…
Because no one is making large purchases right now, including foreign cars. What is the loss of the Big three this year? I bet its higher then 30%. I don’t see Toyota, Mitsubishi, Honda, or any of those guys asking THEIR governments to cover their losses.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Americans need to find faith in supporting America if Americans want America to be prosperous. Frankly I don’t see how a nation could be prosperous if it’s own citizens refuse to believe in what it can do and manufacture and stick with it through it’s ups and downs.

Americans have been burned on American cars, the problem is not the American consumer, its that the Auto Companies have been selling us crap painted gold, and trying to tell us it’s a solid gold ingot. Years ago the automotive companies here were the best in the world, but that is not the case anymore. Maybe its time for some of the employees there to take the blinders off, realize that they have grown up around that industry and are jaded in its favor, and that they are not making the products that they did years ago.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
I live in Miami the capital of wasteful spending. It only seems wasteful to the people who don’t live in Miami. This is how it works. I buy from your company more than I need at a higher price than it’s worth. You cut me a check back for some of it off the books. Wasteful spending is what Government and big business is all about. Productive spending is reinvesting profits into growing sectors of the economy.

The proceeds of most organized fraud on a managerial level get reinvested almost immediately back into the economy as most people committ fraud on a small scale to fuel lifestyle expenditures.

So you are trying to justify what the Auto Companies do based on the fact that what other do is worse? Interesting line of thinking I suppose, but not going to fix anything.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
The more most people make the more most people spend. That is what keeps the economy moving. People need to make more money and that won't happen not supporting American products or waiting twenty years for America first to create an entire new industry.

While that is basically true, it only works so far. Eventually, if keep increasing employee wages, you increase the cost of the items, thus you cause inflation and end up with really no more money then you had before. The auto Industry people have increased wages ABOVE what the normal US citizen makes, and are too blind to see this. So now they are producing vehicles which the rest of the normal waged citizens in this country cannot afford. Then they sketch their heads and wonder why this is, because they make enough to buy their product through employee pricing.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Have you used the airbag in your 15 year old car? Does it have one?

No, hence the fact that it’s a 15 year old car, but yes it does have one.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Sorry in America you have to have two airbags minimum. Government law.

My car has both, and way before US law required it. I paid less for that car then people pay for a US SUV.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
I am not even going to start on my beloved Pan Am where you could recline in full sleeping comfort in first class to the smells of fresh meat actually being cooked not nuked and served on China.

None of the airlines were serving that kind of food after awhile, it was uneconomical, and that included Pan AM. The only airlines that do that kind of thing now are Government run ones like BA or AC.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Just so you know what really killed Pan Am was selling their Pacific Routes to United and getting into South America about 6 years before it really developed like they expected it would.

What killed Pan Am was the same thing that killed Eastern. I know I worked right next to those guys right up until the end. It was overhead in the fact that it was an old airline, with a strong Union, and that lead to pouring the never-ending dollar down into Salaries and Pensions. The guys at Pan Am were almost as bad as the guys at Eastern. I recall watching them sit there on a gulf cart looking at one of their aircraft sitting on the ramp for 20 minutes, refusing to flag it in because under Union Law they did not have to flag in the plane and work on it until its scheduled arrival time. They could have cared less that it was an inconvenience to the passengers or wasted 20 minutes of Fuel.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Are you kidding me? Why is it you feel a person should not be able to complete school, get a decent job with decent benefits and wages for honest work and showing up on time? Why is it you feel people benefit from having no leisure time and should not have any? Why is it you feel people should not enjoy certain luxuries for their honest work when one man alone hordes half the world’s wealth keeping it out of circulation and had most of it not out of high school but the day he was born. Inherited off of the backs of robbed workers and bilked investors.

Are you going to tell me that someone with a lesser education should be making more then these folks make:
(based on averages from salary sites
RN: $55K to $65K
Paramedic: $30K to $45K
Police Officer: $40 to $60K
Fire Department: $30K to $50K
Teacher: $40k to $60K

Compared to:
Automotive Assembly Line Worker: $55K to $70K
Automotive Engineer: $60K to $90K

Yep that sounds about right.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
You are angry that one group felt it was better to negotiate harder than another for a real living wage while most people don’t negotiate at all and have no living wage?

Unions should have gone the way of the Dodo back with the Company store.
Oh, and believe me Nurses, Police, and the like also have unions, but they are held to a higher standard since people start dying if they go on strike. So there are Laws that state that necessity workers (Nurses, Fire Department, LEO’s) cannot go on strike for any reason.

Maybe as the UAW wants to be part of the Government they should be held to the same standard as other government workers… We’ll see how the Unions fair when they cannot go on strike… Then we'll see how strong those Unions are when they cannot blackmail the companies into submitting...

I am done with this for tonight.
I’ll look at it again tomorrow.

One key issue that no one has mentioned is a simple one - banking and finance is difficult to understand. Auto manufacturing is not. I really think this is a big part of why they have been dealt a tougher hand than the banks. No senator/politician is going to show their hand and admit they have no idea how a modern bank works, but it's simple to understand just what the big three do.

It's an interesting concept, but real estate would be the better target if they wanted to achieve this. Not only that, but from having worked on small newspapers I can safely say there is no real 'journalism' to speak of - they're not worth attacking because they're already biased and devoid of any real depth.

I thought they wanted to because those mobile barbecues & ridiculous smoke stacks that pump mercury into the land, air and water are an excuse to tax us and give us subconcious thoughts about the two most nasty parts of our bodies, to help along with eugenic genocide of 90% or more of the population to protect from the environmental that they, the corpoate-state complex created:

Carbon footprints: (For some reason, Humans are the only animals whose pods stink when enclosed in shoes). - Try imagining the line: "You think yo feet don't stink" being said by ANY animal to another animal, (assuming they could talk) HA HA - And the animal would get the same look a truther gets from an ignorant person.

Flatulence: Our beinds smell to all hell when not washed. Sorry to bring this up, but now at least a few people will not have it subconciously implaneted. - You now can see even more through their sick game, unless I'm just making connection that were unintended perhaps, yet are still there none the less.

(Due to this, we (most of us) take showers everyday).


By the way; The guy on the left who kinda looks like a Lizard smells WORSE than a Donkey's ass... Or an rump for that matter. - So, to get back on topic, I'd like to personally witness the ones that are deceiving any creature in the universe... - I'd like to see their heads run over by all the cars in the universe... - Then the universe would have peace, and would be predator-free!

[edit on 7-2-2009 by Time=Now]

[edit on 7-2-2009 by Time=Now]

[edit on 7-2-2009 by Time=Now]

Part of the reason the southern senators are opposing the auto bailout is because that's where the non-union Japanese car factories are, and our trade rival Japan is lobbying against the auto bailout.

Lets face it, DC is foreign controlled territory now.

All wealth is produced by labor. In today's world labor gets an unfair share, due to parasitical frauds concocted by the wealthy and connected.

And usury, compound interest, "investment products", sitting on top of the pyramid of workers laboring, as an exec or "investor" , and getting a fat bank account, is unearned taking of wealth.


[edit on 7-2-2009 by seker2k]

Originally posted by defcon5
The reason why the government is does not want to bail out the auto industry is because: 1) we do not live in a Corporate Fascist state, 2) the auto makers will be back asking for money again in 6 months when the last amount runs out. The Auto industry has been heading for this problem for a long time, and I know because I used to work contract for one of them. It used to amaze me that they could afford the salaries and overhead that they generated, and still manage to produce any product whatsoever. They have managed to make it up until now by producing utter crap, disposable vehicles, that have to be replaced every 100K miles then overcharging for them. When the economy took a dump, people could no longer afford the convince of a $40k vehicle that would fall apart after 5 years.

It would take tremendous trimming of fat for the auto manufacturers to become profitable, and they are not willing (nor are their employees willing) to do that. In the auto industry, I have seen people with high school educations, who push a broom, make more (salary, benefits, and pensions) then any of the college educated medical, law enforcement, or rescue personnel that I currently work with, which is quite sad and unfair when you think about it. To be honest I am rather tired of hearing the plight of the poor Detroit Autoworker, who pretty much made the bed he is now laying in.

[edit on 2/6/2009 by defcon5]

I have worked for Ford Motor Co as an auto-worker for over 20 years.It amazes me how a CONTRACT worker makes such observations and judgements.I could make the same ignorant statements.How about the reason our quality was bad for a while was of the incompetent and lazy contract workers we hired because corporate no longer wanted to pay their own workers to do the job? Also those people you are so quick to judge for having a high school education and were pushing a broom,those were workers with over 30 years and their senoirity allowed them to get that job.It is sad and unfair that a person who does not have a college degree makes a decent living with medical benefits and a pension?No what is sad is that every worker does not have those benefits.You think just because you have went to college that makes you better?So what!!!!!! I was in the US Army,does that make me better than someone who has not served?We do not live in a Corporate Fascist State?Do you live in America?Or on planet Earth for that matter?The corporations run the the U.S and the planet as a matter of fact.You claim to be educated and you seem to have missed that one???????!!!!!!!!!!
You are tired of hearing about the poor auto worker who made the bed they are lying in now?Really?I have been working on an assembly line for over 20 years and I did what exactly?Come to work on time?Do a quality job?Get injured,cut,severe lacerations?Some workers permanently disabled or even killed?And one last thing.A 100,000 miles and they have to be replaced? Funny I usually have over 200,000 miles on my American made vehicles before I trade them in.I have read Toyota is now loosing money,I guess they are building junk now right? I know it must be because they pay their workers too much.No wait, it must be their lavish benefits and pension costs.Oh thats right they do not have lavish benefits or pension costs.I guess it must be their over paid,lazy contract workers.

Whether these things are being done for the purpose of driving independent news sources out of business or that is just the consequence of the things being done doesn't matter much to me. I think you hit the nail on the head when pointing out that is the effect of what is happening. We all have a future with even less independent news being dispensed to the general public. That is a dangerous condition indeed.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Except that we are bailing them out...

yeah

reply to post by Time=Now

Then the universe would have peace, and would be predator-free!

I am all for peace, knowledge and love. Maybe as more people become aware we will reach that critical mass that forms the thought group that finally puts an end to the madness.

Thanks for your post

reply to post by seker2k

Lets face it, DC is foreign controlled territory now.

There are those who say it has always been foreign controlled territory. It pays to remember that D.C. was set up as a district immune from most laws, for a class of people who could create laws to legalize almost any form of criminality they choose.

I am beginning to suspect based on the last century of warfare we were purposefully founded to be the safety overflow for other nations dissatisfied citizenry to ensure their continued stability and to then be utilized as basically the world’s cannon fodder when major wars are planned to wean population.

All wealth is produced by labor. In today's world labor gets an unfair share, due to parasitical frauds concocted by the wealthy and connected.

Could not have said that any better.

And usury, compound interest, "investment products", sitting on top of the pyramid of workers laboring, as an exec or "investor" , and getting a fat bank account, is unearned taking of wealth.

You certainly have a grasp on things! What an insane world we abide.

Originally posted by cognoscente
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

Look, the responsible thing to do is to find a new industry. Otherwise, billion dollar University subsidizations would do just as well. New manufacturing techniques could be developed, new data could be collected and properly analyzed, and all these things could be transferred to the private sector in the form of interested professors and their students creating new businesses. Bailouts don't accomplish anything. If you really want to "bail out" the auto industry, pump money into making a completely new, indistinguishable auto industry, with entirely different players and a totally different labor market. Don't give the money to the same people. Make a new auto industry! Give loans to people that have good business plans. Risk is mitigated because the taxpayers are funding the whole thing. As soon as those businesses start doing successfully, give the taxpayers a share in the profits in the form of a capital warrant, which the government can refund at any time, and return to the people in the form of a national tax rebate. There you go! Problem solved? It seems simple enough.

The U.S. is incapable of admitting that the world is catching up in industrial and technological progress. It's funny how Capitalism is proclaimed as the pinnacle of modern America until there's actually some level of international competition. Then we renege on our values and become Socialists. How hypocritical.

[edit on 6-2-2009 by cognoscente]

You do realize how much it would cost to " restart " the auto industry right? That means new factories for different condidtions, totally redesigned assembly lines . every one destroyed and rebuilt for the " new cars" and models.

That would cost more money than our country has to offer or perhaps even has.

What you want to do is the equivelent of what Matt Millen did with the DETROIT Lions. Instead of keping core players in the on field personel, he got rid of everyone, including the scouts and upper management, whom all coincidentally now work for..........wait for it......... THE STEELERS ! Great job millen you gave all our assets away for what to re-build????



The auto industry would turn into the Detroit Lions of Manufacturing. Lets learn from others mistakes. I know it's a diff situation, but Business is Business and the same principles apply.


So Yea I am going to have to disagree with you.