This may or may not be the right link for the NPR segment that was on this morning. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97933365. If not, I'm sorry I just wasted 4 minutes of your time.
Anyway, on we go. The discussion on the automaker bailout, which you may or may not have just listened to, discussed the automakers getting the bailout "with concessions." Well we know with about 95% certainty that the automakers are going to get something. Its the concessions, that are supposed to make the bailout palpable to the average Joe (be he a plumber or otherwise) is what I have a beef with: Top management must go. No financial engagements of $25-million or more without congressional review. Cabinet level auto-Czars, including reps from the EPA.
Is this supposed to make me like the bailout? This is giving them a lifeline with a brick attached. "You can have the bailout, sir, but only on condition that we saddle you with an impossible business model." Crazy!
So a family is going bankrupt. He asks for a congressional bailout. He gets one "with concessions." He has to leave the family. The remaining family cannot buy anything more than $50 dollars without approval from both sets of in-laws. And all family decisions are subject to review by the neighborhood association.
I thought we fought a cold war AGAINST communism and a real war AGAINST fascism. Now we can't get enough of it.
Ah, I have to totally agree with you on this one. There is a difference between oversight and socialism. However, lest we forget, without some form of veto power, there is no real oversight...it'll just be a bunch of ninny's that will make you spend more money than would be necessary to placate them to make them go away. But, we also need to let businesses actually DO business, i.e., they have to do things, sometimes really hard and difficult things, to cut costs, improve their product lines and push profit margins back up...which may actually require more capital...a hard sell for this economy, where no one even wants to buy a car, much less an American car from a company that is only a month or so away from being broke and going bankrupt. We should just let them go bankrupt, Chapter 11, reorganize, sell off crappy assets, get rid of archane pension contracts, sloppy worker unions, blah blah blah...actually make business work. That's capitalism, right?
ReplyDeletePrecisely. And if there is money to be made in a financing deal with any of the Big Three, someone with money (a bank) will make it. But if no bank sees money in a deal with a car-maker...why should congress sacrifice my dollar? And if money IS made...I'll see none of it returned.
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