Nothing like a few hundred billion dollars in handouts from Uncle Sam to get people's confidence up about asking for money themselves. The Treasury announced $5 billion in loans for beaten-down auto parts makers. This cash comes from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
General Motors and Chrysler have opted to contribute support to this program, while Ford Motor Company has not. (Ford has not requested aid yet.) Only suppliers identified by American car companies will be eligible for the relief. A half million jobs are filled by US auto parts manufacturers.
Once again, the free market took a blow with this. I have to admire Ford for not caving. The US auto industry as a whole was setting itself up to digest itself with its unions and its retiree packages, and now major players are coming to the government for some Maalox®. They're just not competitive with manufacturers from other countries, and they're asking them to subsidize their inferior products so that the charade can go on a little longer.
My Corolla is great. I've had a number of problems with my Chryslers. I'm sure others have the opposite experience, but I know I'm not the only one with a similar experience. I'd definitely like to see Toyota and Honda do well. They've won. Or they should have, anyway.
Anything that interferes with people spending money how they choose hurts everyone. The TARP sucks money out of all of our wallets in the form of higher taxes and a weaker dollar, and ships it off to people who really should just find other work. It hinders competitors — the stronger ones — from selling more of their products. That seems more than a little backward to me.
People work in their own self-interest most of the time. Some just enlist the government to fight for them. But that has a price to all of us: lower standard of living, lower freedom of choice. I think this will continue, unfortunately.
"Anything that interferes with people spending money how they choose hurts everyone. The TARP sucks money out of all of our wallets in the form of higher taxes and a weaker dollar, and ships it off to people who really should just find other work. It hinders competitors — the stronger ones — from selling more of their products. "
That's brilliant. That one quote right there sums up what's wrong with this whole mess.
We should never have started this whole bailout stupidity.
Just want to say that I find your post really interesting and informative.
Slowly but surely… or perhaps rapidly and surely… we are devaluing the power of the dollar and destroying our free market economy. Before too long, anyone making over a certain amount of money will be decried as “un-American”, salaries will be capped, and the standard of living will go down. Socialism has failed everywhere it has been tried, but apparently, there are those in power in American who want to give it one last shot. Scary days ahead, my friend.