John Cole at Balloon Juice has the answer:
We need to invade Michigan and rebuild the state from the ground up. We will be greeted as liberators, we have clear supply lines, and we can easily rebuild the auto industry with the kind of money we spend on other countries we invade. Hell, our new Secretary of State, Hillary of Clinton, spent the better part of the past year fighting for the rights of average folks from Michigan, so think of the good will we have with the public. This is very doable. Just tell Congress we will give KBR no-bid contracts to fix Detroit.
And citizens of Baltimore, Altanta, St. Louis, and DC- you better get your shit together or you are next.
Oh sure, we'll probably kill a hundred thousand civilians or so. But it's not like the Republicans care about that. In fact, it's regarded as shockingly bad form to mention it.
4 comments:
Just seems like bailing out failing businesses with tax-payer dollars is a bad idea. It goes against the fundamental principles free market enterprise.
If the vision and leadership of a company is so poor that it can't compete, how will throwing our hard-earned money their way help?
It is a bad idea.
Oh, and Merry Christmas!
Well, I live in Michigan. Philosophically, I'm against bailing out companies with tax dollars as well. Of course, the real solution to fixing the car companies isn't to throw money to them. It's to fix the economy. If the credit markets open up, the Big 3 can go get loans. If the credit markets open up, people can buy cars. If more people have jobs, they'll buy cars. If the economy were in decent shape, we wouldn't be hearing from the car companies like this.
On a less philosophical side, I want everyone who doesn't live in a car manufacturing area step outside their front door and consider the Ford, GM/Buick/Pontiac/Saturn, and Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep dealerships in your area. Then consider them being out of business.
Like that?
Then, let's envision the steel industry. How do you like laying a big chunk of them off? Plastics? You bet.
Here's the other thing. While you're standing on your front porch looking around your community, why don't you take a stroll through your subdivision or neighborhood and mark a big red bull's-eye on every tenth door. Because in the U.S., 1 in every 10 jobs is related to the auto industry. If the Big 3 go under, those people may very likely lose their jobs.
And what I'm not really hearing, but is very true, is that even if the gov't offers the $15B in bridge loans (which is what they were offering, not a bailout), if, say, General Motors does what it really needs to do and restructures--probably shutting down Pontiac and Buick, for instance--there will still be thousands of layoffs. Because the Big 3 are facing a new paradigm--it's impossible for them to sell the number of cars they're manufacturing.
So yeah, maybe we should invade Michigan. We happily spend more than $15B on a monthly basis in Iraq with a lot less to show for it.
Would the U.S. please invade graphic design and web development too. Oh, and publishing. Thank you.
When was the last time the free market was free?
Pre-October 1929?
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