Way-Broke Government Steps in to Save Going-Broke Automakers

Does anyone else see the irony, and potential catastrophe, in our government, whose debt now stands at $10.6 trillion, attempting to "bail out" a few car companies who say they will run out of cash sometime next year? Our government is spending amost $4 billion more each day than it takes it. What makes it think it is in any position to prop up the automakers?

Even funnier than this is the fact that the lawmakers want to create a Car Czar who will oversee the automakers' efforts to regain profitability: A Washington bureaucrat telling a Detroit auto executive how to run a lean, mean profit-making machine.

"Hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

How about our lawmakers in DC first coming up with a plan to operate the federal government without going more in the hole year after year?

Jurassic Park Detroit Style

Since it's the Christmas season and our government is in the giving mood, why stop at trying to save the (really misnamed) Big Three? Why don't the geniuses in Washington bring back some of the other defunct major car manufacturers like Hudson, Packard, and Studebaker, just to name a few. If "saving" GM, Chrysler and Ford (which, by the way, apparently doesn't need to be saved) is a good idea, wouldn't it be just that much better to expand the program and create even more jobs by bringing them back to life? I'm sure Al Gore could make a strong case to revive the Stanley Steamer! Is anyone in the Office Of The President Elect listening?

And on a serious note, shouldn't Ford, which seems to be in a position to weather this storm, be rewarded for good management by allowing the other two to take their knocks without the this massive government largess? Come on Barack, where's that tough stand against corporate welfare?

(Perhaps the funniest part of the whole drama was the testimony from the auto executives that they can't use the bankruptcy system to reorganize because declaring bankruptcy would "hurt sales." Nobody broke out laughing! Surely that was offered tongue-in-cheek.)

Das Kapital

It looks like Washington will cut Detroit a big check, if not now, certainly after the new Congress is seated. It's very possible that the US government will take some kind of ownership position in these automakers, just as it did with the banks.

I just wish Karl Marx and Frederich Engels were alive to see it. They'd be so happy.