“Let ‘em Fail”
That is what 6 in 10 think:
A national poll suggests that six in 10 Americans oppose using taxpayer money to help the ailing major U.S. auto companies.
Sixty-one percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey out Wednesday are dead set against the federal government providing billions of dollars in assistance for the automakers, with 36 percent favoring such a bailout.
[...]
In early November, polls indicated that nearly half the public supported federal assistance to the big automakers when this issue first came before Congress.
But evidence in surveys from other organizations suggests that the poor performance by executives from GM, Ford and Chrysler at congressional hearings, and the admission that they had taken private jets to get there, resulted in a steep drop in support for government assistance to automakers…
Opposition to the bailout of the auto industry is widespread across the country, even the Midwest, where the domestic automakers have their headquarters and many of their assembly plants.
The poll indicates that most opposition to the bailout comes from the West, where opposition reaches 67 percent. Sixty-one percent of those polled in the Northeast, 64 percent in the South and 53 percent in the Midwest oppose using federal dollars to help the automakers.
I am still on the fence, but there is still an intriguing argument for letting them go bankrupt and for them to reorganize. There are also other, smaller more innovative companies looking to jump into the fray
Filed under: Politics
As a Detroiter, I believe that if either GM or Chyrsler goes under, Mo-town with become New Moghadishu.
Detroit already has double the nation’s unemployment rate, one of the highest foreclore rates and one of the nation’s highest crime rates, especially car theft. (The people that build the cars know how to steal them).
That is why I am still split on this issue. Some think that even WITH this bail out that GM and Chrysler would fail anyway. The market should be allowed to let new more innovative companies jump into the fray.
On Detroit, what a sad story. In 1950 it had 1,800,000 people and last year, it dropped below 900,000. It is the first American city in history to drop below a million.
Detroit had 3 times the out-migration rate of any other city in the US. It dropped from being the number one per capita income city in the US to ranking #62. One can sometimes buy a house in Detroit for less than a car
An argument that Detroit is a victim of bad leadership is the fact that Grand Rapids was doing well recently relying on the auto industry while Detroit is continuing to collapse in the same state (Michigan)?
The problem is, unless these companies can pull themselves out of this mess they will continue to be perceived as loser, inferior brands, and the cycle of failure is going to continue.
You know what would impress me? Watching them go through what any other company would endure in this situation and then, perhaps after suffering a few years of severe hardship, they come out with a product that surpasses the competition. That’s how this whole capitalism thing is /supposed/ to work.
“One can sometimes buy a house in Detroit for less than a car”
How is that bad thing? I once saw a report on tv a few years ago where ,at first, one gay man bought a house in “rundown” black neighborhood and fix the house up and slowly other gays did the same. Now there’s a gay enclave where there was once a rundown black poor neighborhood. Why can’t us Muslim do the same thing? There a plenty of empty houses in midwest they can be brought on the cheap. We can easily turn a poor neighborhood into a thriving muslim community.
As far as the big three I say let them fail…unless…
They declare bankruptcy
all wages & bonuses freeze for ALL employees for FIVE years
Pay for executives are cut in half
the top executives running the company now must be fired
the union and companies must renegotiate contracts
we don’t “give” them the money we LOAN them the money to be paid back within 10 years to 20 years.