LowRyter wrote:
spoon059 wrote:
LowRyter wrote:
You know this political rant just pisses me off
Then don't read it.
LowRyter wrote:
2. Chrysler took a bail out like GM. Ford got govt loans. The entire industry was helped. If GM had gone through a lengthy reorg, the suppliers would be at risk from going out of business. This would have effected the entire industry (the Big 3 and all the imports).
Chrysler took a bailout, but it was significantly less unpaid money then GM. By my last count, Chrysler failed to settle $1.3 billion. GM is still on the hook for $21 billion.
Ford took loans, which is not a bailout that left taxpayers out on their butts. The loans were favorable to Ford, but also favorable to taxpayers, in that it is being paid back with interest.
Your theory that the entire industry would have been affected is just that... a THEORY. The people that believe that theory fail to believe that the other manufacturers would have picked up GM's market share, thus employing the same parts suppliers...
yes a THEORY- just as Gravity and Evolution are THEORIES. Luckily we never put the alternative to the test. It was an unacceptable risk. It was also the THEORY shared by most of the industry, including executives at Ford and the aforementioned automotive suppliers.
My concern wasn't GM's market share. It was a lengthy reorganization that would have caused cash flow & disruptions for those suppliers during a downward economic spiral. And since Ford executives supported the bailout, it doesn't appear that they believed there would've been market share to pick up. A Simply analogy: why don't you just jump off a roof to test the theory of gravity?
And I would just as soon piss you off rather than be silenced from the thread, thank you very much.
Just don't question anyone's patriotism and you're fine in my book. You can believe any stupid thing you want and even write it here as you've so demonstrated.
If one lives in Michigan, particularly SE Michigan, it is very easy to agree with most of what you say.
As a lifelong conservative, the bailout's of GM and Chrysler should have caused me to join the ranks of the non-informed who cried out to let them die...but I have spent most of my life working in the SE Michigan economy. Many conservatives that live here also had to swallow some pride and support the bailouts.
Why, the naysayers ask...if they had any idea of how badly the automotive downturn, before the bailouts, has damaged the Michigan economy, they would understand why the bailouts had to happen.
I have spent a large part of my working life in the construction industry that built the infrastructure that supported the huge third party manufacturer's that for years were the backbone of the automotive industry development. Entire communities have grown up and spread across SE Michigan over the last 50 years as these auto related companies increased in numbers and in size. Communities like Sterling Heights, Troy, Roseville, Fraser and many others grew up almost overnight. Engineering, manufacturing and machine shops filled these neighborhoods with new industrial development and good paying jobs. Light industrial subdivisions popped up everywhere...with jobs to do and people to do them.
These days are gone...likely forever. All one has to do is take a drive through the industrial subdivisions of these fine communities and they will see why. Blocks and blocks of light industrial and light manufacturing buildings, once teeming with activity and employment are now empty...and for sale. Many are now bank owned. The domestic auto industry had caught a cold...and in Michigan, it became pneumonia.
If GM and Chrysler would not have been helped, the resulting economic fallout in Michigan would have been disastrous. The remaining businesses would have had virtually no chance of hanging on until the market, according to those who would have let them die, would find equilibrium with only Ford left in business. Hundreds of thousands of employed workers would have been terminated...with uncertain futures at best. How would this have benefited the country...or even Ford. The buying power of the American consumer would have been severely compromised.
One also only has to look at SE Michigan's recovery, or lack thereof, to see that even with the bailout's, the recovery has been at a snails pace. I do see some signs of new construction in SE Michigan. There is some recovery in progress...but without the bailouts...the last working person in Michigan would have needed to turn off the lights as he also left his job...JMO...YMMV...Patriotism has nothing to do with it...
Regards
