Bailout for these companies should be bankruptcy

GM sales are down some 40%, Chrysler is down some 50% and Ford is down around 30%. The American people have spoken, purchase after purchase and said they don’t want the products the Big 3 are making.

It’s nothing against the American worker. It’s really general management that has failed. Case in point: There was a GM plant in Fremont, California, that was just about the worst plant since the days of the Yugo. Toyota took the plant over; hired back the exact same workers who were employed there under GM; and it went from worst to first within 2 years. Again, there’s nothing wrong with the American worker; it’s management that’s at fault. Watch this video to see what Ford is doing in Brazil. Thus far the unions have prohibited this manufacturing technique in the US.

Now we have the Big 3 coming to us and begging to get them out of their management failures. GM says it could fail in a matter of weeks. An executive from Chrysler says that if the taxpayers don’t bailout the automakers, our country is going to go into a depression.They’re trying to create a sudden sense of urgency. But a vast majority of you people aren’t buying it. In fact, a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll found that 61% of Americans oppose government assistance for the automakers.

Capitalism allows you to file for bankruptcy, reorganize in Chapter 11 and try to make a go of it again. That’s how the system should work. It should not entail us being told to empty our wallets because the Big 3 didn’t make cars that we wanted to buy. But Nancy Pelosi is still up there preaching that bankruptcy is “not an option.” Look .. if bankruptcy isn’t an option, why do we have bankruptcy courts? What Pelosi meant to say was that bankruptcy wasn’t a political option. Well if it’s not bankruptcy then it must be a bailout. Can’t Nancy take a hint?

Here’s a great article from the Wall Street Journal explaining why GM’s plan is all smoke and mirrors … there are no real changes. No details. Their business plan is flawed.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger says that the union is willing to change its contract. The union is willing to delay billions of dollars in payments to a union-run healthcare trust. The union is also willing to “modify” the Job Banks program. This program lets thousands of laid-off auto workers get paid $31 an hour to sit around and do nothing all year which could continue even if American taxpayers bail out the American auto industry. Wouldn’t it be nice to get laid off from your job and get paid 95% of your salary to play crosswords all day long? Not only should that program be the first to go, but these union contracts should be scrapped all together. And there is one easy way to do this. Bankruptcy.

In capitalism, if a business is allowed to fail, the marketplace allows other more efficient businesses to survive. We pervert the system by bailing out manufacturers who have inefficiencies.

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