No more bailouts!

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You know things are running amuck when the only difference between the response of San Fransisco Democratic Senator Pelosi and Texas Republican President Bush to Detroit automakers lining up for a bailout too is in deciding which particular taxpayer-provided funds should be used to do the bailing.

A pox on all their houses! The farther we get into this fiscal mess, the worse our government decision-making is getting regarding it!

Frankly, Detroit is beyond being able to be bailed out. And I'm highly offended at the very idea of helping the big 3 U.S. carmakers continue to pay their workers more per hour than I or most other taxpayers funding any such bailout make ourselves, particularly since it would only help them build more cars I'd never be willing to buy at any price.

Update:
This article explains precisely WHY bailing out Detroit automakers costs jobs rather than saving them.
" Making bad, uneconomic investments in failing industries does not, on balance, preserve jobs; it tends to destroy more jobs - and more good jobs - than it saves.

If you give money to failing industries to save jobs, then you are probably taking even more jobs away from other industries who would hire or retain workers but for their higher expenses. In essence, throwing money down a hole may preserve jobs in the short term but should lose jobs in the medium and long term.

If you pay for an auto bailout with today's tax money, then over the next couple years you are taking jobs away from lots of people currently working.

If, on the other hand, you pay for today's auto bailout with an increased deficit, then lots of future workers will be unemployed or take worse jobs in order to pay for today's auto workers. Again, you would be taking jobs away from lots of people (mostly in the future) to preserve the jobs of auto workers and their suppliers today.
...
The only job-saving justification I can think of for a Detroit bailout is if the problem were only temporary; then destroying jobs might be imprudent. If Detroit's business model were strong, if there were little or no overcapacity, and if Detroit's problems were only temporary, then one could reasonably think that a bailout might be efficient. But there is no temporary market failure here to redress. Detroit's problems have been here since the late 1970s.

Anyone who thinks that giving money to a company losing 2-3 billion dollars a month -- with overpaid workers and overpaid executives - would usually save jobs in the long run, rather than lose them, doesn't understand economics."

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This page contains a single entry by mitm published on November 14, 2008 9:25 PM.

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