Quote:
Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna
Some of the best ideas I've heard yet regarding the auto industry came from Paul Ingrassia, former Washington Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal on Sunday morning's Meet The Press show.
Ingrassia opined that what the auto industry needs is someone who can impose, not negotiate, fundamental changes to the structure of the industry. He used examples of the difficulty the industry has with the UAW contract, the state-by-state contracts with dealers, etc.
Whether he meant the "auto czar" that has been mentioned before or not, I don't know. It's hard to imagine how such a czar could be given the authority outside of bankruptcy court or the legal system to do things like invalidate contracts and override state laws. But ignoring those types of issues, that's probably exactly what's needed to begin to resolve the problems of the auto companies. If the "czar idea" doesn't gain traction, it would appear that the auto companies are headed for a bankruptcy court-imposed restructuring or even liquidation. I see no way how the parties at interest can ever successfully negotiate the needed changes.
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Then if they can't negotiate fixes to their problems, let them all die together.
As cruel as that may sound, that's capitalism versus the State nationalizing industries "for their own good." The last time I looked, General Motors consisted of Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, Pontiac and partial ownership of several other companies. Not long ago there was Oldsmobile as well, but that died due to evolving markets. There's not many around who still remember when there wasn't a GM, and all of those brand names were separate companies which got acquired and merged as the auto industry evolved.
A GM-Ford merger may be next in the evolution, but that's the industry evolving with the times and the business base.
I can't think of one time when "governmentalizing" has helped an industry. The last time it was done was in the establishment of the Department of Energy to shepherd us out of oil dependency. Boy, has that worked well! We have a "Drug Czar" and yet the problems associated with narcotic addiction, smuggling, violence et al has grown to epic proportions since that "leadership" position and supporting staff came onto the scene.
When will we ever learn that "more government" doesn't make things better and isn't the all-encompassing solution to every hiccup or problem. It just creates more jobs funded via taxation - jobs that just never seem to go away, and for some peculiar reason, the problems continue to mushroom.