But Now You Know

Why Nobody Wants to Bail Out Automakers (except bureaucrats)

One thing you’ll notice about the debate over bailing out the automakers is that, even more than in general, everyone’s against it except corrupt politicians, panhandling automakers, and monopolistic union officials.

That’s because it’s a lose/lose situation if we do, but things might actually get better if we don’t.

First, let’s consider the big, fat lie that three million people would be put out of work. 

We’ll ignore (for a moment) that bankrupcy will actually keep them in business and let them become more efficient.

Let’s pretend, instead that the automakers would actually [poof] ceased to exist.  Only a couple hundred thousand workers, not three million, actually are employed by those car companies.

If the companies vanished, then all other 2,800,000 workers would not only continue to have jobs…

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They claim three million jobs are at stake, but the bailout would actually cost jobs, and make a few union management types rich

…but probably end up with better versions of their jobs. Why? Because people wouldn’t stop buying cars, they just would be buying DIFFERENT cars. Cars that need dealers, mechanics, parts sellers, and all the other jobs that the car companies are dishonestly counting as “three million jobs”. If you don’t buy a car from the Big Three oligopoly of panhandlers, you’ll buy one from someone else, instead.

Of course foreign cars often don’t need repairs and parts as often as American cars, but THAT would represent a savings for americans in general, that would create more jobs.

But, of course, the Big Three are in ZERO danger of magically vanishing.

Instead, they’d have to file for bankrupcy “restructuring”, which would be a way to allow them to fix a lot of the stupid inefficiency that laws and bureaucracy have trapped them with, WITHOUT them having to steal twenty five billion dollars (a number that will grow) from you and me, and then have Big Brother socialize them with mandatory “changes” that don’t represent what we consumers want, anyway.

And…well, really, that’s it. There are no other excuses for squandering $500 from the pocket of every middle-class family on yet another socialist bailout. Just “three million jobs” that is really only a couple hundred thousand jobs that would not go away, anyhow.

Sure, I could point out how restructuring, instead of a bailout, would break the back of the UAW monopoly, which forces American car companies to pay nine times as much for labor as foreign car companies. And how the UAW is therefore bribing the Democrats the way the Big Three automakers are bribing the fake-Republican neocons…which might just happen to be why they are all for the bailout, when everyone else is against it.

But, really, it boils down to “three million jobs is a lie”.

In fact, it boils down to the fact that americans would probably GAIN jobs from letting GM file for restructuring, while we will LOSE jobs by squandering more money on the bailout, which will ultimately come out of YOUR pocket, and mine. When the government wastes money, we lose the opportunity to spend the money on actual, productive things that employ people.

We need more economic freedom, to regain true American prosperity, not more handouts lifted from our own pockets.

November 22, 2008 - Posted by kazvorpal | Economy | Add new tag, bailouts, big three, chevy, chrysler, conservatism, dealerships, dodge, ford, gm, liberalism, mopar, socialism, uaw