I like your idea of self-accountability, an idea that is unknown to our political and financial leaders. If you or I make a mistake ( I don’t know about you, but I’ve made my share.) nobody comes along with an offer to bail us out. And how fortunate we are. Imagine never learning from your mistakes. Imagine never having the incentive to do better. What we don’t learn from wisdom we learn through woe. Our government policies guarantee that woe will be in abundant supply.

That is correct, but, they all hope that you don’t ask why Japanese auto makers aren’t saddled with pension and health care costs. They hope you will just blame the auto workers for the competitive disadvantage of the “Big Three”. Here’s a little secret that they don’t want you to know: the reason why Japanese auto makers aren’t saddled with health and pension costs: Japanese auto makers are subsidized by the Japanese government. In other words, the health care (among other things) of the Japanese auto worker is provided by the Japanese government. This is why the “Big Three” were at a disadvantage for years, as well as the fact that auto plants in the States were more strictly regulated than plants located in Japan.
In case you were wondering, the Japanese work force is more unionized than ours.

The U.S. believes in “free trade”, but there is no “fair trade”. The figure-heads in Washington yawned while our trade deficits with other countries grew and grew. Our domestic industries had to compete against countries with nationalized health care- which meant that foreign companies had more free capital to compete against us (because they aren’t saddled with health care costs), and then there were those that artificially manipulated their currency, like the Chinese. It goes on and on…

Blaming the auto workers for the problems that the auto industry is simplistic, to say the least, and only hurts our country in the end.

You are 100% correct–although some bleeding-hearts might take offense about you advocating the demise of the Big Three automakers by allowing them to go broke. It is obvious they have been defying the consumers most urgent desires for years. The wages the auto workers are paid are ridiculously high–definitely far above the market wage. And the generous benefits—. This alone guarantees they can’t compete with more efficient producers of automobiles. No company can suffer excessive costs and remain in business.

Saving the Big Three with bailouts is downright theft–the transfer of wealth from the taxpayers to people whose services are no longer desired–as expressed on the marketplace.

It is evident we live in a society where some people believe they are entitled to unearned benefits. If the consumers no longer require your services–force them at the point of a gun to accept them anyway. This type of theft is more dishonest than the crime a holdup man commits when he insists you hand him all of your money. At least he doesn’t pretend his criminality is for the benefit of society–or that it is your patriotic duty to support his criminal enterprise.

We can conclude that all government bailouts are theft and therefore criminal acts against innocent victims.

By the way you mentioned something about false premises. When someone spouted something that was obvious nonsense, Ayn Rand would tell the person to “Check your premises.” Unfortunately, many people lack the integrity to do this.

TOUGH TIMES DON’T LAST ~ TOUGH PEOPLE DO

dlb

Unfortunately,I think the car manufacturers will get some bailout money using the reasoning that thousands and thousands of workers including those that supply parts, truck drivers…on and on…will all lose their jobs. They should have to file bankruptcy and work their way out of their problems like every other company like United Airlines was forced to do.

I hate to see this happen to our American cars but I for one do not think that taxpayers dollars should be spent bailing out any company.

Now with the knowledge and listening to savvy people, I have no doubt of the absurdity of “achievements” like paying people (very high wages, btw) for *not* working.

It just does not make any sense.
But, alas, that’s all in name of the “Spread the Wealth” principle.

I could not be a socialist, left-winger or whatever they are called, just because it goes against logic.

Unions create a wrong (meaning “not realistic”) mindset on people whose professional goals are “to get a good job with a good pension”, and while on that, make their leaders very wealthy.

Anyway, leaving the natural course to work (these automarkers going broke) it would be an excellent juncture point for a fresh start to set reasonable compensation, retirement plans based on savings while being productive, and very important: to develop the new cars using alternative energy.

This could be a great opportunity for USA automakers industry to take the lead again for the coming decades.

I agree with Robert, the Big 3 and all the rest just need to be allowed to go broke. Any other option just delays the inevitable pain and suffering that will come when we all finally have to face up to the consequences of corporate and government actions. As for executive compensation when that sad day finally arrives??? Here’s my plan, a nice striped suit and 3 meals a day. Maybe for good behavior a workout room and some trashy reading material.Or maybe they could get work release time in which they retool all those vacant auto plants to make more fuel efficient cars?