The Big(ger) 3 Picture

Ben's right, it's been a real gas to talk about how the UAW is a cancer on the U.S. auto industry, and boy did we all get a chuckle out of those GM execs taking private planes to Congressional meetings.
It's also been cute to watch Freddie and Megan bicker about who is evil and who is being unfair.

But we're all looking at the bailout as a mechanism to save the auto industry and we need to stop doing that. This bailout, like TARP, is a mechanism to save the U.S. economy by preventing several million people from joining the ranks of the currently unemployed. Although I feel GM and Chrysler have had such poor decision making since 1985 that their bankruptcy is inexcusable, and although I really want to see the UAW crushed, it's important to remember the purpose of the bailout is not to save Detroit per se. The purpose of this bailout, just like the last one, is to keep the economy afloat until it can bottom out, correct, and start back upwards. At that point, if people still don't want domestic cars, then we should discuss letting Detroit automakers collapse.

However, there is another alternative to the Detroit Bailout. If Congress were to propose a different use for $15 billion that could create 2.5 million jobs to offset those that would be ended by GM and Chrysler's bankruptcy (and Ford's shortly thereafter), then I would be happy to endorse it. But the sad fact is that the automaker's bailout is probably the only realistic way to keep those workers employed for the near future. Either they're unemployed and we pay their benefits, or they build cars and we pay for it. If you asked me whether I'd like to pay a man money to work or to play ping pong, I'd definitely prefer he were working for my dollar.


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