It's hard to believe we're even talking about giving $50 billion tax dollars to the dinosaurs of the American car industry. The same people who gave us the Pinto, the Aztek and the Hummer are now asking us to trust them with billions of our money. Are you kidding me? Here's the Natural Truth about the car industry:
In 1960, the Big 3 sold about 90% of all cars purchased in the U.S; today they sell about 47%. That is, most cars bought by Americans this year were not made by the Big 3. And this share loss has accelerated over the past decade. (Also note that Michigan has already lost more than half of its auto manufacturing jobs in the last ten years, so lots of current Big 3 jobs will likely be “lost” even if they continue to operate outside Chapter 11.)
Why can't GM, Chrysler and Ford do what almost every other industry (except, as of late, the financial industry) and go bankrupt? On the one hand, we're told that the US car industry can't be allowed to fail; on the other hand that the Big 3 are really in pretty good shape and just need a bridge loan. Here's the real deal, as Jim Manzi reports at National Review:
We're going to give our money to the guys on the RIGHT side of this graph? So that UAW employees can keep getting $75 an hour to hold their tools?
The Big 3 will never recover, no matter how many cars we buy, when they're losing money on every sale. Thankfully, GWB is saying "no" to the Big Auto bailout today. But what will Our Dear Leader say in January?
UPDATE! From emailer Joel:
Hey Michael, For starters i work for Toyota and the difference in quality is night and day. That is one of the reasons these cheap manufacturers are going under. People say buy American, yet most fords are made in Canada and Mexico, That isnt American to me. A huge majoirty of Toyotas and Lexus are made right here now. While Ford and others close factories, toyota continues to grow and open them. Let the big crappy 3 go under and believe me the country will still buy millions of vehicles, but they will have to buy a quality product. And toyota will absolutely need more help, so while they might be out of jobs for a small time... more jobs will be needed to build something worth buying.
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