Tags
automotive, baby, bailout, consequences, drunk, GM, government, industry, Michigan, uncles
Wow, over two months since I posted last! Our beautiful daughter was born in late May, and I haven’t had a chance to write more than an email since. It’s funny to me that after following GM’s decline for years, I had to hear they went into bankruptcy from my husband’s grandmother, because I hadn’t been listening to the news while recovering from childbirth. What a crazy few months it has been for everyone.
Now I hear that GM is being allowed to put all its viable parts in a “new GM,” while getting rid of the “old GM” and all its liabilities. What a deal! Can I get the same arrangement? Do you think the government, now that it is a majority stakeholder, realizes this is the only way to make GM profitable again? What about the consequences of promising the moon to the unions for so many years, or of building shoddy cars or not thinking long-term about consumer demand? Companies who behaved like this used to fail, and that was a good and fair thing–painful but better for everyone in the long run.
The bailouts of Wall Street and the auto industry have served a purpose–to keep the world from sliding into a Depression as a result of America’s greed–but it’s all starting to look a lot like that family you know who enables their drunk uncle to continue his bad behavior so he won’t embarrass the family or have to face his inner pain. I am acutely aware of the consequences a failed auto industry would have for Michigan and the country, but I’m starting to worry that if the government keeps using magic tricks to avoid the consequences of deregulation and excess, we are going to have a much bigger price to pay down the road… or my daughter will.
