Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragoneye
Not a full bailout. Never...that would be ridiculous in any industry. Lassiez-faire is a concept I believe in. But some support would be nice...there's no reason that a foreign manufacturer should have an easier time conducting business in this country than our OWN companies. That's the beef I have surrounding this issue.
|
Yeah, if the government's going to get involved with bailing a company out, it had better be for a damn good reason. When Chrysler was bailed out, with the economy already in terrible shape at that time, it would have been exponentially more devastating to the country to have such a large company and most of the suppliers and dealers go under with it. Because of that and also because Chrysler had such a good plan in place to restructure and just needed a bit of money to get turned around, it ended up working very well...they had 7 years to pay off the loan guarantees, and things went so well it only took them 3 years to do so.
There are a lot of other things the government could do to help level the playing field not only for the auto industry, but for all of the manufacturing sector in general, and not have to dabble with bailouts and rewarding companies that grossly mismanaged themselves into oblivion. Revamping the healthcare system so that companies don't have to shell out so much in benefits, pressuring Japan and other countries to stop manipulating their currency to give them advantages in other markets, offering more comprehensive assistance in developing alternative energy solutions, reviewing and restructuring legislation and regulations that are outdated or do more harm than good, etc.