by Mike Kilgore

Created on: April 01, 2009

The U.S. government, that mighty bastion of bureaucratic incompetence, should never be in the business of being in business. It has been proven time and time again how woefully inefficient our Federal bureaucracy is at managing budgets, spending taxpayer money and making common sense purchasing decisions. Why would anyone want them to run the affairs of one of the largest manufacturing concerns in the world? What possible qualifications do they have?

Because the automobile manufacturers came themselves and asked for our help in the form of our taxpayer dollars. That entitles us, as it would any lender, to require certain conditions to be met by the borrower. These conditions are set to insure that the enterprise will be managed profitably enabling the enterprise to repay its obligation to the lender. Since it would be a little awkward for 100 million of us or so to oversee this process, that job does falls to our elected Representatives, such as they are.

I'm generally not in favor of the government stepping in to save a business, each business should generally sink or swim on its own. General Motors and Chrysler affect such a large segment of our economy that in this situation there seems to be little choice but to step in. Beyond those folks directly employed by the auto manufacturers are the large number of people dependant on them such as suppliers, service providers, retail dealerships and all those businesses that in turn rely on THOSE business, etc, etc...

Currently the White House is planning a controlled bankruptcy of GM that would split the company by allowing the sale of portions of the entity. All guaranteed by loans from taxpayer money. I don't know if that is a great plan or not, I'm not enough of an economist to predict the final outcome of this strategybut I am optimist enough to hope it works. Chrysler seems to have even fewer options available to it and may ultimately end in bankruptcy. The truth is this: automotive manufacturing has always been a major segment of our national economy and its continued viability is important to the security of our financial health. It is time for some oversight, as the excesses committed by the CEO's have been revealed and the American people have seen the side by side comparison's of labor costs between domestic and import manufacturers.

It is time to have this industry learn to get competitive with its foreign rivals, streamline costs, improve effienency and eliminate extravigent spending. If they need taxpayer dollars to accomplish this goal then so be it. But they will have to demonstrate a new level of responsibity and capability if they want my money. Perhaps we should all wish ourselves, "Good luck"...

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