Yeah but they're only owned by the government until they pay back the loan. If the car companies can become viable, they pay back the loan and go on. In an ideal economy the credit system wouldn't be so tight and the companies wouldn't be having so much trouble right now. In an ideal economy, we could afford to let one or even two of them go bankrupt and allow them the chance to restructure, and in the end probably bring back a lot of the workers they laid off, and a lot of the others would not have too much trouble reentering the workforce in other places. But with unemployment being at its worst in decades, the banks refusing to loan money, etc, it just doesn't seem like we can handle this kind of fallout right now.
Then you have the lies spreading on both sides of the table. The media blames the UAW for the cost to employ factory workers, and to some extent they're right, but the $72/hour figure they're throwing around is grossly inaccurate (GM had printed this in some anti-union material but later retracted the figure, without providing a new one). I've yet to be able to find the correct figures for certain for both Toyota and the Big 3 averages, but the $72 figure includes costs of retired employees spread across the active ones. However, even the UAW claims that it has managed to elevate the status of its members from the lower class, through the middle class and into the upper middle class, even those with only a high school degree. That's bull****. No company should be expected to provide its main work force that kind of prosperity.
But you can't just point the blame at them. The management and decision makers have failed again at reading the market and providing people with what they want, or at least convincing the public that's what they're doing. You don't even have to actually do it, you just have to start a better marketing campaign than your competition. If you ask me, they need to hire AB's brand-building team (now that Brito and InBev will probably be getting rid of them) and get to work at changing their image in the public's eye. Instead, they just allow this belief that all they do is build gas guzzlers, and let people go on thinking that they are becoming increasingly irrelevant in both the national and world market. It shouldn't be that way. No, we'll just fly into Washington on our expensive jets, flashing the fact that we make 6 times more money than the typical Japanese CEO and have the audacity to ask for more money.
So you see, I have a hard time even coming to an opinion on this matter. I thought I knew what I wanted the other day, and the more I read, the more I feel almost sorry for our politicians. The only real thing I can think of that matters is, do you think the car companies can become viable enough again, to pay back any loan. If so, then give them what they need. If not, don't. You're just pissing on a bonfire then. The fact is though, even though the Senate Republicans have managed to stop its passage, Bush and friends are going to dig the money out of TARP anyway.
God, I almost feel like this post should have a bibliography.
