Not thrilled meaning, I suppose, that they’re not in favor of it. Using that definition, AutoPacific’s summation of their survey of 900 Americans is an example of English understatement. According to their poll, “Fifty-four percent of respondents believe that General Motors should have been allowed to fail, while 58% believe that Chrysler should have been allowed to fail.” Not too bad you say, the words “simple majority” springing to your lips. Anyway. It’s a done deal. Yes, well, “Eighty-one percent of the respondents agree that the faster the government gets out of the auto business, the better.” The government’s counter-argument? We agree with your agreement! Meanwhile, don’t worry: good things are going to happen! The voters aren’t quite so happy-clappy at the prospect . . .
Forty-eight percent DISAGREE that having the government in charge of General Motors and Chrysler will result in more fuel-efficient cars and trucks. Fifty-four percent DISAGREE that having the government in charge of General Motors and Chrysler will result in much cleaner cars and trucks.
One wonder how many of the remaining poll-takers AGREED that Government Motors is a good thing or DIDN’T KNOW/CARE. Also, how many of the those surveyed even know what a Fiat is? Apparently, most of them don’t like them already . . .
Skepticism also surrounds Fiat’s takeover of Chrysler. American consumers do not see Fiat as Chrysler’s white knight. Over 47% of respondents believe that Fiat cars will not sell well in the U.S. Almost 43% believe that, bankruptcy or not, and Fiat control or not, Chrysler will fail in the next five years. In contrast, only 19% believe that Fiat cars will be a welcome sight in U.S. dealerships, and only 13% say that Fiat cars will save Chrysler.
The government didn’t get involved in GM/Chrysler to fix the auto industry, it got involved to blatantly violate bankruptcy laws and screw over creditors to pay a political debt to the UAW.
Bluecon,
burning the money would have created a lot of toxic smoke, and endangered the polar ice caps… tsk tsk tsk, very bad strategy for the green… pun intended…
i still believe letting GM and Chrysler Fail would have been disastrous although Farago might not agree… but it would have been interesting to see what might have happened… gee i wish i had a crystal ball…
heh…that small a survey, with no indication at all of the distribution of the survey participants is basically worthless. It could be a national survey of homogenous samplees (is that a word? :) )
The variance on that is going to be higher than the difference between “simple majority” and “simple minority”, except for the primary conclusion.
Ford is going down, anyway. Them not taking bailout money makes them look a lot more solvent than they really are. They’d have jumped on the corporate welfare train in seconds if it wasn’t the the Ford family’s need for control.
And when America’s industrial and banking systems collapsed into total ruin because it was politically unpopular to rescue them, leading to complete economic failure and the Great Depression 2.0, a significantly larger majority of people would be asking why the hell the government didn’t do anything.
@bluecon:
Interesting to quote Bertrand Russell. Here’s another: The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.
Dogmatically asserting that government intervention in private enterprise is destined to fail every time would seem to go against Bertrand Russell’s philosophy.
Yes, bluecon. But virtually nobody is changing their minds away from worshiping the new messiah in the White House.
Perhaps once the inintended consequences manifest themselves (or possibly, intended consequences?) we’ll collectively get to see what happens when the rest of the world say “forgedaboudit” re: lending or investing any money into the US.
Here’s a hint as to what can happen when a government becomes totally out of control – yet is in total control, and a country in which nobody from outside will invest, if you catch my drift:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/3453540/Zimbabwe-hyperinflation-will-set-world-record-within-six-weeks.html
Schiff was excellent on the Daily Show. And I have to credit Jon Stewart, he actually let Schiff speak unlike the sycophants in the mainstream media who spent more time cheerleading the market bubble and the government policies that created it than they did being…y’know…journalists.
The U.S. auto industry has been “fixed” for years – that is why we have this mess. I hope I’m wrong but I just don’t see how GM or Chrysler can be profitable without continuing government subsidies.
BuckD:
Russell’s comment appears to apply to classic liberalism, which in the modern American political context would be more aptly referred to as either libertarian or (fiscal) conservativism. Modern American “liberals” are progressives with a decidedly socialist slant promoting more equality of outcome than the classically liberal freedom to make one’s own way. Wiki “classical liberalism” if in doubt.
Pointedly fiscal conservatives do not oppose government intervention as a matter of dogma; we still seek with open minds situations that give reason to be optimistic. Those situations are merely found lacking (still).
Ronman :
June 10th, 2009 at 10:11 am
i still believe letting GM and Chrysler Fail would have been disastrous although Farago might not agree… but it would have been interesting to see what might have happened… gee i wish i had a crystal ball…
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GM and Chrysler combined account for 30% of U.S. car-sales.
Many other industry shrank by more than 30% already.
It’s OK that they fail.
Of the 13% that think Fiat cars will save Chrysler, they had to have been ringers. Who in their right mind would think this, unless the survey included some of the not -yet- strung- up Chrysler dealers with a wild, wet dream.
It’s OK that they fail.
Depends on how you look at it. Fail as in liquidated and shut down or fail as in start over and wipe th debts off the board? In the former case it’s not OK that they fail, at least from my geographic perspective. Now, if you are living in AL or TN you probably would have been rooting for them to fall off the face of the earth.
Pointedly fiscal conservatives do not oppose government intervention as a matter of dogma; we still seek with open minds situations that give reason to be optimistic. Those situations are merely found lacking (still).
So you just decide to have faith in Peter Schiff instead?
If you actually read into him, he’s been losing his clients money despite the broken clock claim that he called the market collapse.
In fact, all the bozos above should put all your money where your mouth is, invest it with Schiff and see how that works out.
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In the former case it’s not OK that they fail, at least from my geographic perspective.
You have to remember that the people calling for liquidation have already shown they don’t care that whole regions of the country are turned into wasteland.
derm81 :
June 10th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Depends on how you look at it. Fail as in liquidated and shut down or fail as in start over and wipe th debts off the board? In the former case it’s not OK that they fail, at least from my geographic perspective. Now, if you are living in AL or TN you probably would have been rooting for them to fall off the face of the earth.
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1) In a liquidation, not all the jobs would be lost. Toyota/Hyundai/Chery/Tata will buy the plants and hire most of the workers back and produce Yaris/Elantra/Nano etc. Only that UAW would be gone, the salary of the workers would be like $40/hr everything combined (not bad for such a job really).
The reason that these car makers don’t intend to buy GM/Chrysler asset now is because of the UAW union protection strings attached to the deal.
Plus, the debt holders won’t have to whine to us. They can do their best to negotiate with Chery or Tata.
2) I agree with “depends on how you look at it” statement. From the view of a robber, it’s perfectly fine to grab the victim’s money.
I mean, we can have more intelligent debates, if neither of us is involved in this shxt. But now, I am forced at gun point to hand my money to UAW.
1) In a liquidation, not all the jobs would be lost. Toyota/Hyundai/Chery/Tata will buy the plants and hire most of the workers back and produce Yaris/Elantra/Nano etc.
Why? Plenty of unemployed in the south, where the local gov is giving away money to subsidize industry.
The reason that these car makers don’t intend to buy GM/Chrysler asset now is because of the UAW union protection strings attached to the deal.
Or maybe a factory that makes sebrings is an extremely risky venture. No, that’s not it, because it doesn’t involve the UAW.
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But now, I am forced at gun point to hand my money to UAW.
Do you use this shtick for all collective decisions?
“Hey wsn, we all agreed to use the office pool money to throw Jim a going away party since he got layed off”
“I guess I got no choice with a gun pointed at my head, you focking natzi thieves”
this is why chrysler should have died in ’80’s but the government came to what looked like the rescue, but had chrysler died then, when both ford and gm could have absorbed their market share with out a problem then at the very worst we’d have two failing car companys now and not 3 failing car companys, maybe the stronger ford and gm could have done better with chryslers extra market share and might not be in the mess at all. then again they have shown regardless of market share bad desions kill companys, so it might not have advoided it, but every car company around today could have been better off because of chrysler’s failing.
the government is getting involved because they got involved in the past and only prolonged chryslers death till now.
maybe this time they’re death will be prolonged another 5 years and then we can deal with more then 3 car companys failing at once.
this could just be the snowball of governments past tampering with the free market.
@KGrGunMan
The loan guarantees Chrysler got in the 80s have absolutely nothing to do with the current situation. Chrysler at the time had a good plan to deal with the economic situation and the car market at the time. They just didn’t have enough money to get the K-car off the ground. They had 7 years to pay off those loan guarantees, and they were so healthy after they got their plans implemented, they paid them back 4 years ahead of time. At the time, that ended up paying off very well for the government and Chrysler and was a very successful venture that prevented hundreds of thousands of people from losing their jobs in what was already a terrible economy at the time.
This time around, not only did Chrysler largely stop building desirable quality products that customers wanted, they had practically nothing planned to help them turn things around and fix their broken product portfolio. The loan guarantees of 1979 have nothing to do with today.
Peter Schiff called this exactly and he continues to be right.
So why was he losing his client’s money last year, the one time in his whole life he can claim some sort of ephemeral victory?
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To really see how idiotic this guy is, you have to remember that the Austrian school has been calling for THE BIG ONE for decades, and it never seems to happen for them. Now that it finally did, their hero is doing WORSE than the dow!
What’s really pathetic here is that Schiff had to come out with some sorry excuses about how he DOESN’T actually believe hyperinflation was going to happen, after it became an issue how much money he was losing for people.
In all seriousness, a retarded monkey can make far better predictions, so make your own judgment call how smart his followers are.
@JaysonAych
i agree that then and now are different situations, what i was trying to say is that chrysler did not have the money at the time because they were not a solid viable company and should have failed. in the late 70’s the free market spoke and choose to kill chrysler, the government intervened and saved chrysler for the moment, only for the free market to again choose to kill chrysler.
how many years before the free market does what it’s already done twice? they are not a viable company now and they should have died in the ’80’s. the custmers have spoken and the people do not want chrysler to stay alive, if they did they would have bought their cars.
had chrysler died when the free market first chose to kill it then every other car company would have been better off today.