I read this Reuters story today on Americans being against helping Detroit’s Big Three.
This is the self-same America that just authorized $700 billion (with a “B”!) dollars to bail-out struggling financial services companies.
Now $25 billion is too much to help keep hundreds of thousands of jobs around?
That seems to be a double standard. If it’s OK to bail-out the finservs, then it’s OK to bailout the auto makers. If it’s NOT OK to bailout the automakers, then those finserv bail-out funds should be revoked.
Personally, while I am a Ford Guyâ„¢, I don’t want to see the government providing aid to anyone that’s made bad business decisions. If they fouled themselves selling things people [apparently] don’t want, or for more than those people are willing to pay, they need to cut prices, change manufacturing, introduce new models, something.
I’m in London currently, and have seen a host of Ford vehicles I’ve not seen stateside. Coupes, sedans, minivans – all cruising around the city, with the drivers [apparently] happy. Certainly it can’t be THAT difficult to switch what side the steering wheel is on to bring all those models to the US?
If fuel economy is why people buy the Japanese brands, then bring the fuel-efficient Euro models to the states.
Ford – and I presume the others, but haven’t noticed them here yet – needs to do next-to-nothing to get all these cars to consumers in the States.
No government hand-out – just a new manufacturing theory.