Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Finance, the economy & Economics Bailing out the auto industry - yes or no?

Ken, I got your joke and enjoyed it - it was the joke that made me think I was on the Round Table, in fact.

I do remember the Pinto, because I drove one, and on a busy interstate. We finally got the fault fixed - two weeks before the car was rear-ended. It probably would have gone up in flames. And, yes, it was experiences like my Pinto and SIL's Chevette that led my husband and me to a Toyota dealer in 1980. It isn't just a gas mileage issue; to be fair, for a long time, American-made cars had a really bad reputation, some of it richly deserved.

That's part of why I've been so undecided about all this. I hate rewarding companies with such lackluster performance in terms of quality, innovation, and performance. And yet I see the arguments for saving the industry, too. I like the limitations someone listed a page or two back - was it Phil?

On the cost of labor - I think these numbers are easily mucked with, which is why I don't trust them. Yes, retirement medical costs are a labor cost -- but they are not a current cost; they're a debt incurred in the past. I think costs like that can be unfairly "spun" in a way that makes current labor look really greedy. I also believe labor uses similar techniques. Let's face it, this is not an industry where management and labor have a strong history of working toward their common interests.

Olyve, you're onto something. Instead of using all this rescue money for entire industries, let's use it to buy up all the health care, and then see if industries and citizens can make it on their own when they're out from under that huge obligations.