“Everybody thinks high gas prices hurt sport utility sales,” said Robert A. Lutz, the vice chairman of G.M., in an interview last month. “In fact they don’t.”
If you are like me, by this time you are getting tired of bailing out Corporations that have failed due to their own incompetence. Now we are being forced to bail out another industry that doesn’t seem to know how to run it’s business properly. Taxpayers will take the hit for the auto industry, one that has ignored all projections and continued to build gas guzzling muscle cars like the Hummer. The handwriting has been on the wall for as long as you or I can remember, and yet the auto industry executives continued to ignore trends. So the question is, due to it’s total failure, should we bail out GM? And after that why not bail out Circuit City, Starbucks, and don’t forget about Linens and Things.
WASHINGTON – Struggling to keep alive a government bailout of the troubled auto industry, key supporters offered concessions Friday — including reducing its $25 billion size. The White House came out firmly against a Democratic plan to carve it out of a $700 billion rescue package for financial companies.
The measure gained important ground among Republicans on Capitol Hill, where at least a dozen to 15 GOP votes in the Senate will be needed to prevent opponents from blocking it in the Senate. The focal vote on that could occur as early as next Wednesday.
Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri became the second Republican to publicly voice support for the idea, joining Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio. Both states have major auto plants. Several other GOP senators signaled they might accept a rescue for Detroit’s Big Three if it contained strict conditions for the beleaguered companies, including management and salary changes, concessions from their powerful unions, and a commitment to making more fuel-efficient vehicles. Alan Reuther, the United Auto Workers union’s legislative director, said one option under consideration was a smaller, more targeted amount of funding “that would get the companies through to March.” He said the union was “open to discussing various options like that. There’s a need for immediate action.”
General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., and Chrysler LLC have been clamoring for such aid as their industry is battered by the economic meltdown, which has choked off sales and frozen credit. GM has said it might not survive through year’s end without a government lifeline.
$30 Million dollar portion of Bailout already earmarked for bonuses for 50 executives.
NO let them fall, we as taxpayer have purchaesed some of their vehicles and lets face it we buy one of their cars and we pay twice what it cost us in interest, why do we have to pay again to bail them out, let them look at their own people that mis spend, Hay lets face it do we need a assistant to an assistant to make coffee, in other words they have had it good to long, and its unfortunate that the little people will suffer because of their misstakes, I say NO bail out.
No!! Give the money to a great American auto manufacturer to step up production of great vehicles. Tesla Motors comes to mind.
Don’t give it to the guys who deliberately, consciously, and with malice of forethought engineered themselves out of business.
The prius is the last remnant of the great technology that GM invented for the EV-1. GM crushed their wonderful car. That’s why they’re bankrupt. Let them die.
All of the big Three should remember Mr. Tucker when they crushed! his dreams. Had his company been in buisness today,we would have great,safer, and better gas mileage cars. Remember what goes around comes around, and i think it has. NO! NO! NO! To a Bailout of the Big Three. That is my Two Cents.