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On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:28:01 -0500, Tom Francis - SWSports wrote:



Maybe it's because I see it as more black and white than others - it's
not that I don't have empathy and sympathy for laid off workers - I do,
believe me I honestly do.

Hell, I know that, and didn't mean to insinuate anything else. We're
just looking at this differently. Right now, I believe the economic
situation it too perilous to allow GM to fail. It is difficult to defend
GM. They have had plenty of warning to make the difficult decisions, and
they didn't. As I have said, under normal circumstances, I'd let the
market deal with them.

From my perspective, eventually, several major car manufacturers are
going to fail anyway. There seems to be a glut of manufacturers with
very few open markets.


Again, I think your last paragraph illuminates the problem and is the heart
of the dilemma in terms of what to do.
If you believe there are going to failures of some car manufacturers anyway
due to over capacity, what sense does it make to
pour money into prolonging the life of a very troubled and distressed
company if it's eventual demise is all but certain? I think that is the
situation in the case of GM and probably Chrysler as do many others.

Furthermore, oil prices will eventually go up again. That factor, plus the
focus on fuel efficient and alternative energy driven cars is going to
change America's love affair and overall use of their cars. It's happening
already. Cars will be less a part of our lives, driven fewer miles, used
primarily for basic, necessary transportation and last longer. That's going
to further diminish the market growth for "new" cars and particularly the
ones that traditionally generate the highest profits. Regardless of how a
company like GM manages to stay in business, they can't remain the goliath
of a company they have been over the past 40 years. Jobs are going to be
lost and vendor businesses are going to fail.

Unemployment is rising everywhere. It's not just the automotive industry.
Wouldn't it be better to invest billions of dollars into the creation of new
businesses or the expansion of existing, but healthy businesses to create
new jobs? Seems to me that route is better than pouring it into a bloated,
obsolete organization that is likely to go belly-up anyway.

Food for though: I am not working. I am unemployed. I am working on a
plan to do something that will employ me and maybe 10 or 12 others in the
course of the next 12-14 months if I am successful. There's about 11-13 new
jobs. Multiply me by a 100,000 which is a tenth of the number laid off in
the past two or three months. That's a lot of new jobs.

No, it's *not* a plasma energy generator. :-)

Eisboch