Let GM (AND the other 2) Fail
Why the American taxpayer should bailout a manufacturing company is beyond me. Whether GM is or isn’t building better cars isn’t the issue. The fact is the company caved to Unions demands over the last few decades, and the labor cost per car is too high to compete with rivals.
Bailing out GM is to bail out their cowardice in negotiating with the UAW. Let the UAW find companies to hire their workers.
People across the globe want cars. There are factories and companies across the globe that build cars. Taxing American citizens to prop up a car company is AWFUL public policy.
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November 19th, 2008 at 12:55 am
[...] package, Big 3, Bruno Behrend, Detroit, UAW, unions, United Auto Workers | by robnesvacil Dear conservative buck-passers, the United Auto Workers didn’t cause the Big 3 to focus on producing gas-guzzling SUVs that [...]
November 19th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Rob!! Good to hear from you again.
Why do we blame unions? Probably because they deserve a good share of the blame (how much is open for debate).
Certainly, incompetent management is a huge part of the problem, as only incompetent managers could focus on building the wrong kind of cars WHILE simultaneously caving into to UAW demands WHILE knowing that the world is witnessing a 10-20% over-capacity in auto production.
I agree with you on the SUVs, and the horrid mix of rolling scrap iron pumped out of the GM bureaucracy. Then again, it was the absurd mix of Americana that brought us here. The car companies and Congress created a special class of car that could avoid cafe standards. The American people - a nation that believes in their God-given right to cheap gas - bought them up in droves, and the UAW, never caring much for anything but extracting benefits from Corporations - regardless of their ability to pay for them - went along for the ride.
The idea that the taxpayer should bail these companies out is absurd. Let them file for bankruptcy. Let them either emerge from Chapter 11. If they don’t, let the assets be sold to companies that might want the factories and some of the workers, but not the bad management.
The case for a bail out is weak.
November 22nd, 2008 at 12:35 am
[...] A few days ago I was giving local conservative partisan pundit Bruno Behrend some flak for promoting the anti-union talking point that labor is somehow a major contributor to Detroit’s current fiscal mess. His complaints [...]