"Major correction"... now I'm just a regular guy and I know virtually nothing about finance. What the hell does that mean?
He seems to be equating a private business to the stock market for some reason.
"Major correction"... now I'm just a regular guy and I know virtually nothing about finance. What the hell does that mean?
ah yes, the old delay the pain tact. The market needed a correction as was evident by the state of the major companies. The gov't interfered and prevented the major correction it desperately needs. But yeah, i guess you never let a crisis go to waste if you can use other people's money to help your friends....
GOP policies and Cerberus, run by Bush's treasury secretary, brought Chrysler to its knees.
wait a minute... wasn't Bush the one that provided billions of dollars of largely unconditional funds to Chrysler and GM?
Private equity guys like Romney brought Chrysler to its knees. Romney wanted it to go bankrupt. You are right, it's going to be OK as long as Romney is not in control of anything.
The automobile companies and all the industry depending on sales to those companies were on the brink of belly up. Now they're doing better than they have been for over a decade. And you call this "delay the pain." Interfere with the market you say? Free market fundamentalism. The free market isn't God. You're delusional.
Like I said, keep it up guys. Romney isn't going to win a single swing state in the mid west.
He seems to be equating a private business to the stock market for some reason.
"Major correction"... now I'm just a regular guy and I know virtually nothing about finance. What the hell does that mean?
It would be stupid for someone to think I was equating it to the stock market.
The market was speaking - the gov't wanted to mask what the market was saying - thus the bail out.
Who knows? Could have been taken over by Honda/Toyota/Hyundai or some other company that does a better job than GM or Chrysler. And Ford would have survived on their own and increased their market share even more, thus making the entire supply chain more efficient.
Ummmm..
That's a pretty low bar to use as a standard, isn't it?
Get back to me when they start kicking Toyota's azz.
Fern
So are they going to pay back all of the government bail out fund or do it the GM way (smoke and mirror)?
GM already kicked Toyota's azz.
The automobile companies and all the industry depending on sales to those companies were on the brink of belly up. Now they're doing better than they have been for over a decade. And you call this "delay the pain." Interfere with the market you say? Free market fundamentalism. The free market isn't God. You're delusional.
Like I said, keep it up guys. Romney isn't going to win a single swing state in the mid west.
Blame Bush then.....
That's the thing all of the auto manufacturers rely on a fairly small number of parts suppliers to build their cars.
They probably could have survived Chrysler alone going out of business, but a double whammy with GM going kaput as well would have killed most of them. Leaving even the strongest survivors in a very bad spot of not being able to get parts to build their products.
I blame the gov't - period. These companies shouldn't have been propped up byt the gov't. They shouldn't have been run by the gov't - period.
Uh, maybe that the old auto system was outdated and needed to be updated for the realities of today. You can't keep running these companies like they used to - they needed to be overhauled or they should be allowed to die. The gov't chose to prop them up and allow them to continue to run the old way. We'll see how long that lasts...
So then survival of the fittest, the big players would have survived and the tiny ones dissolved or absorbed. Doesn't mean we'd be worse off for it. The government should not have bailed out Wall Street either. All of these bailouts have just kept the status quo going for a little longer until the next crisis hits. As it stands, our federal (and some state like California) govt are far too big and need to be cut down drastically both in terms of size and power.
lol, they are temporarily doing better but that doesn't mean they are sound. Yes, the market determines their fate - you know - consumers? If a company can't or won't produce a product the company is offering - why should the gov't prop them up time and time again? With gov't intervention we get things like the Volt and other things consumers don't want/can't afford. In business, the market is God, it's irrational to think otherwise.
Along those lines... Chrysler has moved to a 401K plan.. but because the way the bailout was handled... the unions got to keep current pension and benefits. So now there is a at huge unfunded liability. GM is in worse shape. Both of which the U.S. taxpayer could be on the hook for once again. Chrysler needs to make $2 billion in payments in 2013 and 2014.
Regarding market corrections.. there are a lot of notable economists who feel the housing market would have corrected itself also... but government intervention made the problem worse and is making the problems drag out longer.
Chrysler was saved. They are now owned by Fiat. Will Fiat gut Chrysler as well? Will they be profitable enough to make pension payments? Can Chrysler produce a line of cars that don't populate the yearly worst car list?
You're not getting it.
There wouldn't have been any fittest to survive.
Both GM and Chrysler going OOB at the same time would have been like dropping a nuclear weapon on all automobile manufacturing within the US.
Without suppliers available, it would cause a cascading effect, Ford would have gone belly up in short order. Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, BMW and anyone else that still manufactured cars here would have likely shuttered their factories and pulled their operations back to their home countries.
Can you post the links to verify the union problems because I am having trouble finding this information.