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US automaker bailout poll

Should the US bail these ungrateful automakers out?

  • Too bad, let them sink!

  • Blindly hand over 25 billion

  • Provide limited assistance in other ways.


Results are only viewable after voting.
WOW!!! Look at that huge amount!!!! When you make that kind of money you must prepare for things to happen. Save for a rainy day so to speak.

Look what happened to Eastern Airlines because of Union greed. Same goes with auto makers. They had a great run while it lasted!!!! Making that kind of money they deserve to sink!!! Even cut those amounts in half and that is not too bad for wages! What a horrible mess they are all in. Too bad Detroit.

huh union greed.... I think I said something of the sort....
 
Let's all play nice. We don't want the Mods to have to intervene. :001_smile

I knew it was coming.

Not trying to get the mods involved, just stating the obvious. :cool:

True, True

Everyone calm down, this thread is growing extremely tiresome. :rolleyes:

Very true. I start to bow out, when most threads hit 7 and 8 pages in only a day or two it is usually an indication of a very heated/opinionated debate. Sometimes its just easier to drift away from the subject at hand...

Can't we all just get along? :lol:
 
Don't forget that it was Democratic members of the House of Representatives who turned down the CEO's on Thursday, telling them to come back with a plan to stay viable and concessions from all players.

Yes! The democrats are the new fiscal conservatives of the 21 century! :biggrin:
 
they allready F- ed it up enough with the bank bail out,
personaly, i think that a consumer directed stimulus package, making it cheaper to purchess an american made car (im saying american made, not made by an american company), in the form of low or no interest credits, fixed rebuy price for cars above a specific age or that get less then 30-35mpg,

theres no point on giving them more money to build more product that no one is buying,
 
I'm an outsider here in more ways than one, but this is big.
It's not just a few jobs lost in the US, it's also Holden in australia, daewoo in korea, (owned by GM), Ford in europe (make small cars like fiesta, focus, mondeo, turbo diesel passenger cars etc), Ford in australia (falcon), manufacturing plants in south africa that will all go down the tube as well.
Part of the reason why the US companies got into this mess is becuase the government treated trucks as commercials, making them cheaper, and so many people in the US wanted trucks, so that's what they made. Then the price of oil went above $100bbl and no one wanted trucks. (edit: instead of making trucks cheaper, they could have made effiecient cars more attractive, and be making them in mass volumes, the auto industry, and people of the US, just took advantage of government policy, so the current crisis could be blamed on government planning just as much as the US auto industry)

The goverment discounts and the low price of fuel is what got the "big three" into this mess, and the credit crisis has brought them to bankruptcy.
Did they make poor decisions? Yes, they didn't make small high quality cars, but a few years ago, no one wanted quality small cars in countries where fuel was cheap. Given the time it takes to ajust to a new market, things (oil price and credit crisis) changed way more quickly than any auto maker can plan for anyway.
In fords defence though, they did have pretty good cars developed by their european arm that can be sold in the current climate.

I'd like to raise three points.
The US manufacturers are suffering because they have to supply health and pension plans to workers, mainly because the US government doesn't offer that, unlike other countries. The unions wanted similar conditions to the workers at other car manufacturers in countries that had socialised pensions and healthcare. Fair enough the union wanted similar conditions to other manufacturers, it's not the unions or workers fault that the US government doesn't supply them, so the manufacturers were stuck with supplying them.
If the companies folded, it would be the government that would be lumbered with those costs today.

Being that company payid socialised welfare is the norm in the US, and part of the reason why they are struggling, these auto makers could close shop, move to mexico or brasil and start selling cars from there, saving a lot of money in employee costs, materials costs etc and no longer be losing money. They are only losing money because they are based in the US, paying decent money, looking after their workers, paying other US companies for materials. Most asian brands have started factories in cheaper countries to make more profit.
The government probably will bail them out, for the same reason they have bailed out some of the financial and insurance institiutions, the big three are too big to fail. Too many job loses, huge loss in dometic products being produced, they'd have to take on pension and welfare payments of former workers, less competition so local prices will rise, loss of production facilities that may be required for war production in the case of a major future war.
That's just the US side of it, the international side of it is all these subsiduries closing down or being sold off, meaning less money flowing into the US, more unemployment around the world.
 
Here is a question........ If they get the $ to save the companies, do you think they will really try and fix the problem, or whiz the $ away on silly perks that will infuriate the people paying their bills?
that is my fear, any sort of bailout will be wasted and we will be in worse shape than if we let them go under and start over.
 
The entire American auto industry needs restructuring to be able to compete in the current/future marketplace. The amount of foresight, commitment, and money required is massive. The auto industry cannot accomplish such restructuring without the government's help. Unfortunately, the amount of money required is larger than anyone wants to give them--even if they come up with a sound plan for the future. They better have employed some damn good management and strategy consultants.

That said, those who said the industry should be allowed to 'sink' clearly don't have a very good grasp on how that would affect the American economy as a whole. Yes the American auto makers have been narrow-minded, short-sighted, and (let's face it) an embarrassment. But these huge companies, with their tens of thousands of employees, are for better or worse tied to our economy. It would be very foolish to simply let them go down the toilet.
 
I'm in this late, and so my point may have already been made & argued to death, but...

As much as I detest what I sometimes see as blind faith in the market to fix all our ills, this is one case where I believe the market has wisely spoken. Let the Big Three go bankrupt and reorganize in such a way that they respond better to consumer demand and throw off the old business models. Short-term, it's a big hit to local economies. Long-term, the companies will come out better than if they'd been kept on life support.

Same scenario with the housing bubble. Government, don't reward dumb business decisions with bailout money.
 
A year in Chapter 11 is just what GM needs to get it in shape - the corporate equivalent of a heart transplant. They have way too many dealerships with "tenure", extraordinary overhead, bloated executive ranks. Even with this baggage, they are quite competitive overseas where markets are growing but their US products are uninspiring and out of sync with consumers needs. The gov't should help them restructure but not give them a pile of cash. However it's done it won't be pretty. Just giving then 25B$ will enable them to stay alive for a few months as they **** through the cash while they come up with another hard luck story and come back for more - much better to get it over with and move on.
 
I'm really divided on this one . On the one hand I know we need a manufacturing base in this country, skilled manual laborers, and the pay and benefits these jobs bring and the benefits the big 3 have on the economy in general. On the other hand you got to wonder what the Big 3 is thinking their idea of innovation being heated windshield wiper fluid, and putting a pickup bed on the Hummer 3 and making bigger trucks while gas continued to rise and then haing a massive advertising campaign to force the greatness of theses developments down the consumer's throat.:confused:
 
The unions have made many concessions, honestly the unions aren't the problem that people make them out to be.

But it wouldn't surprise me if the Union Busters in Congress were the ones making the most noise against any bailout these days.

To bring this back to the current situation, it seems like people from most viewpoints are converging on a managed fast-track bankruptcy with some sort of government-provided credit or credit guarantee, with an expected demonstration of major restructuring before any help is extended. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama seem to be on the same page.

There are a number of questions to be asked, but I think "Can the economy survive their liquidation?" trumps "do they deserve the bailout?". If the answer to the first is "yes", things can go down that path, but it seems like a thorough understanding needs to be in place before the decision can be made.
 
I think "Can the economy survive their liquidation?" trumps "do they deserve the bailout?".

I am not convinced that the reorganization process would be a net negative on the economy. In fact, I think it may bring confidence to to a marketplace that has been plagued by doubt since the "big drop". I really am looking to see how the CEO's come back to congress next week to present their argument for being propped up. I'll hold my judgement until then I suppose, but I still am weighted much more towards some kind of Big 3 reorganization.
 
I am not convinced that the reorganization process would be a net negative on the economy.

Nor am I, but I do think that an awful lot of heavy hitting economists should be trying to figure this out for the government. Getting it wrong is pretty bad both ways-- a waste of big money if we go for an unnecessary bailout that we didn't need (for any reason-whether we could live with a Big 3 meltdown, or whether the Big 3 could find a way to make it work on their own), and devastating if the Big 3 melt, and unemployment zips up to 15% and stays there because the economy couldn't absorb the hit.

In exchange for my tax dollars, I expect my government to be doing the homework here, not guessing, and not making poor choices based on which ideology happens to be driving Congress at the moment.
 
In exchange for my tax dollars, I expect my government to be doing the homework here, not guessing, and not making poor choices based on which ideology happens to be driving Congress at the moment.

I wonder how long it will take for the President Elect to replace Paulson? :rolleyes: He's on the transition short list I betcha.
 
I dont think the company should fail but the CEO's should have personal responsibility and should have to feel some of the burn......maybe even pay out of their own pockets........So many people work for those company's and I would not want them to lose their jobs......as that could be a possiblity.
 
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