the auto bailout

I’m sure you’ve heard the news lately. Another bailout!? What has America come too? Well, surely our good democratic society will shake this neo-socialist trend in a little while, but for now lets get the bailin’ started! Up next… the Auto Industry! The Big Three! Detroit! Good old American cars. Now in case some of you don’t know why in the world the American auto industry needs to be bailed out, here’s a brief background. Think a few years back to when you or your parents went out and bought that brand new SUV. Comfortable, clean, luxurious… who cares about the gas mileage right? Well, it turns out we do care about the gas mileage when gas is $4.30 a gallon, so we stopped buying those gas guzzling monsters. So now, the Big Three has a ton of SUVs that no one will buy on their hands.
Now, the smart financial types and CEOs at the car companies are warning of bankruptcy if they don’t receive some sort of assistance. Lets think about what bankruptcy for just one of these companies would mean. One in 10 jobs are related to the auto industry, so immediately we would see a sharp spike in unemployment. We are talking about moving from 6%, which is high for the US, to almost 10%. Second, most of these jobs are middle class, blue-collar jobs. This means that an entire section of America will lose their ability to shop at community stores, pay their taxes, send their kids to school, and heftily contribute to the base of the American economy.
The House of Representatives has just churned out 14 billion for the autos, so its a step. But this bill is going to be smacked around the Senate till it has almost no life left in it. Why? Because the big time Senators (mostly Republicans) will claim that it is not in the American people's interest to give another industry a "blank check". First of all, why not let the government borrow the money if need be? Wouldn't that make more sense? On the downside, with huge sums of money being borrowed, we may see rampant inflation, but on the upside, thousands of people as well as the government would be able to payback loans upon loans with less valuable dollars. Now the financial industry is hurting but they've got their own bailout and we find our selves got in a vicious circle. The possibility that inflation would rise high enough to really hurt the American economy is slim at best.
So bail them out I say. And if you say it’s the auto companies’ own damn fault for being greedy and think they should burn in their own mistakes, don’t ask me why you’re burning too.