A new CNN/Opinion Research poll brings Detroit one of those good news/bad news deals. The survey of 1000 voters reveals that “63% of Americans said they supported the government’s automaker bailout unveiled Friday. But if the companies ask the government for any more money, 70% said Washington should let the companies enter bankruptcy rather than give them any additional assistance.” To paraphrase the Temptations, get ready, ’cause here it comes! Uncle Sugar is set to dole out an additional $4b, already promised under the terms of the deal. Not to mention the $25b retooling loans– which seem to have disappeared off the outrage radar. And when the final final reckoning arrives in March… “With the current credit situation, it has been very hard getting debtor protection financing, so any automaker bankruptcy would have to be assisted by the government,” said David Weiss, chief economist at Standard and Poor’s. “If one of them enters Chapter 11, they would still need government funding to avoid failing.” CNN dutifully reports that “Some analysts estimate that the cost of an auto bailout will eventually run as high as $125 billion.” MORE? You want MORE? And there’s a twist to this tale…
“94% [of respondents] think a bankruptcy of one or more of the U.S. automakers would cause problems for the economy. Fifty-one percent think those problems would be major, and 15% said it would cause an economic crisis.”
In other words, the average voter knows a Motown C11 would suck, but want The Big 2.8 to face the music anyway. Insensitivity and ignorant bias or, God forbid, common sense and principle? Hey! Guess where The Detroit News’ Daniel Howes stands on that one?
Danny cites a single email as proof that the crux of the matter is, was and will be pig-headed left coast elitists (and their ilk) who unfairly hold Detroit’s prior automotive sins against it. Howes sugar coats it, and exhorts the ailing American automakers to confront the magnitude of the problem, but the bottom line is between the lines: buyers outside fortress Detroit lacks understanding and compassion. Detroit as victim.
“A more contemporary understanding of Detroit’s new metal also would help, but that’s probably too much to expect when generalizations rooted in personal experience can suffice — and show Detroit, yet again, just how problematic its revival truly will be among fellow Americans.”
Unfortunately, I don’t think public polls/surveys on these types of issues really constitutes a jury of executive opinion.
CNN also recently published a survey that found the average American did not understand their own debt and simple concepts of debt.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/26/pf/financial_illiteracy/index.htm?postversion=2008022612
Does this then mean that CNN invalidates their own poll where a random group of Americans comments on the effectiveness of lending to Detroit?
I do sometimes wonder, what would happen if we just gave it to them?
Really. Honest.
Doling out 10B here, 25B there, is guaranteed to get us more of the same. Nothing will change, the death will only be prolonged. More importantly, in the next 2 years we’re gonna drop about 100B just keeping these bozos at the teat.
What if we just fixed it? Paid all the bills off. The loans, funded the VEBA, did the retirement contributions, the whole shootin’ match.
In return, they have no excuses for failure. NONE. When GM and Chrysler do go Tango Uniform, (Ford, might make it) the taxpayers actually own the asset, and have something to sell to get back a dime on our dollar. As it stands now, we’ll get nothing, and everybody knows it.
Uncle Sugar is gonna whip it out and piss it away, no matter what. Why not confound the apologists, and fantasylanders? Why not just shut these leeches up, once and for all?
The money is going to get spent anyway. Give them all the rope they need. Clean slate.
I know what would happen. So do most of you. There’s no valid excuses for the D3 at this point. But, we’re probably going to throw 100B down this rathole. Let’s have the ability to get some of our cash back at the end.
The thing that bothers me the most about this is what it means for my kids and the grandkids I don’t have yet. They are the ones who are really going to have to pay for all these bailouts and there will be nothing to show for the high taxation they have to deal with.
Would you be happy knowing that 10% of your taxes were going to pay for keeping Packard/Studebaker or AMC in business 50 years ago while they burned up the money. I think people forget that there are consequences to all these bailouts, we just push the economic pain into the future instead of dealing with it now.
“pig-headed left coast elitists”
God I wish I could live in fantasy land like people in Michigan.
It was Nancy Pelosi, queen of the “pig-headed left coast elitists”, that tried to save the pathetic, failed Detroit automakers.
An idiot Republican from Michigan stood up and pouted with lies about the Detroit automakers’ failures being caused by the economic crisis, and about the Detroit automakers having anything to do with national security, but he was just trying to support the big-3 middle managers that ruined the big-3 but voted for him.
But the most part it was “pig-headed left coast elitists” that supported bailing Detroit out.
Nancy Pelosi was blocked by conservative Republicans from the south that stood up for the principle of allowing failed companies to go bankrupt, instead of putting failed companies on government welfare.
However, in the end the President, a pig-headed east coast elitist, bailed the auto companies out to avoid adding any additional embarrassment to his legacy.
The Detroit News probably chooses to bash liberals when it is conservatives that would have let the big-3 go bankrupt because it can help the Detroit News feel like the Detroit automakers are rugged individualists when they are in fact welfare queens.
>>However, in the end the President, a pig-headed east coast elitist, bailed the auto companies out to avoid adding any additional embarrassment to his legacy.<<
Since when has Texas been on the East Coast?
porschespeed… Re: fixing all problems for them.
I recommend that you read the stories of “lucky” lottery winners. The vast majority end up worse off than before their win.
Pride comes from succeeding on your own hard work and skills. If we bail them out to the extent you envision, then we will end up Soviet quality cars and car companies.
tedj101:
He was born in Connecticut to a wealthy east coast family, went to private high school in Massachusetts, and then went back to Connecticut for college. But the cowboy outfit sure did turn out votes.
The car is Great! The idea is great! but we all know that without the tax payer being held up at gun point for the bailout money that Ford will get, this car is dead meat.I for one don’t care if it gets 100MPG I WOULD NOT BUY IT! The only money any of the Big 2.whatever will get out of me is the money I am being forced to give them.I will not pay for a car twice.
@yankinwaoz,
You know as well as I do what would happen. But I guess I wasn’t clear enough on the bigger picture…
One way or another, it’s gonna cost at least 100B to unwind GM and Chrysler. (If Ford does a LOT more right, they might have a chance, but let’s leave them out for a moment.)
If we keep paying them month to month, no chance anything will change in the big picture. None.
If we simply pony that up in one grand Peter Northian money shot (forgive me, I take the jokes when they… oh, nevermind) then CUT THEM OFF, we are not spending anymore money.
But the bills would be paid. The suppliers would be whole. That would give everybody a chance to really hit the reset button. I know GM and Chrysler would still fail in the end. But it might , just might, leave the supplier chain sort of intact.
Moreover, it eliminates all the excuses.
Moreover, it eliminates all the excuses.
No it won’t.
I mean, we all know it eliminates the excuses. But there would still be The Man, or the banks, or globalization, or the wetbacks, or the crypto-corporate complex. The list of excuses for their failure is limitless.