I just noticed a posting on one of the China blogs I read infrequently, linking to an article about how GM is opening a new plant in Shanghai in a joint venture with SAIC (whose building I see frequently when cabbing around the city). I'm sure this has really nothing to do with the financial fortunes of the US-based version of GM, but I sure was interested to read about it.
Irony of ironies: GM opening new plants to make cars in China while American GM tries to get taxpayers (I'm still one of said taxpayers, even living in China) to fund continued job benefits for all those under-employed auto workers in the US. Then again, I don't feel too sorry for them, considering the fact that it seemed to me like they could've had some help last week from the Senate, except the UAW scuttled the negotiations, holding out for a sweeter deal from the White House!
Let the car companies go into bankruptcy, I say! They (and America) will be better off for it, MUCH better off than if we subsidize a dying industry (and make it worse by trying to force them to make green cars that the market may not be willing to pay for right now). And, I'm not the only one who thinks so!
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I am pleased to have read your last paragraph about the possible bankruptcy of GM (et al); I'm glad to see that you're a true-blue free-market advocate, and that the advocacies of a GSB guy like yourself do not include nationalization of our major industries. We just need to take the hit. As President Ford (a noble man from Michigan) said back in 1974 when he was placed in the Oval Office behind President Nixon: Bite the bullet.
Nevertheless, it appears on this side of the Pacific that Congressional friends of the auto industry will crowbar their sympathetic entitlement fix via the the already-allocated Paulsen fund. This is pathetic, but is a better solution that allocating more tax-money and red ink for the inefficient, outdated auto industry.
If the bankers know what's good for them, they'll cut the automakers a share of the pie before it's too late.
Furthermore, if Uncle Sam is going to meddle in these affairs, he should exert some pressure on those carmakers to move toward production, distribution and financing of light rail systems in metropolitan areas. Such a strategy would also segue nicely into President Obama's challenge to reconstruct "infrastructure." That might put a lot of those line workers to work on something new and better, and also tap the creative instincts of our next generation of engineers.
Carey Rowland, author Glass half-Full>
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