Bailout Watch 141: DetN Says Motown's Too Big Too Fail

Here’s it comes. Here it comes. Here comes Detroit’s nineteenth nervous breakdown. Will it be their last? Obviously not. But just in case you thought there was a hope in Hell that GM won’t transform itself into American Leyland, sucking taxpayer cash into a black hole for years to come, the Detroit News’ reporter/cheerleader Alisa Priddle presents “Analysts: Big 3 woes imperil U.S. economy.” Otherwise known as rapper 2 Big 2 Fail’s ode Obama’s Your Mama. Priddle assembles the usual chorus of backup singers. “Every direct job at an automaker in the United States creates five more jobs, said Sean McAlinden, chief economist and vice president for research for the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. Two of the five are related to suppliers or dealers; the other three are spinoff jobs at businesses where auto industry workers spend their paychecks… By contrast, one Wall Street position creates a total of about 2.5 jobs, yet Congress expedited aid to the financial services sector this year.” Yeah, fuck them banker bitches and their $700 bil. “Declining auto sales have contributed to the nation’s economic downturn, but that hasn’t diminished the industry’s importance, said Charles Chesbrough, senior economist for CSM Worldwide in Northville, an automotive market research firm. ‘We won’t see a turnaround in the economy as a whole,’ he said, ‘until we see improvement in the auto industry.'” As Mad Max said, “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll drive that tanker.” Hang on; what’s this? A dissenting voice?

“‘I don’t believe the auto sector deserves special consideration,’ [chief economist for Comerica Bank in Dallas Dana] Johnson said. Bailing out financial institutions was necessary to prevent “terrible contagion effects that could collapse the economy,” Johnson said. ‘That should be the standard. To argue national prosperity depends on them (automakers) operating, to me, is much more of a stretch.'”

Priddle sets ’em up. Priddle knocks ’em down. “It’s not to those who have seen the Big Three eliminate more than 100,000 jobs in the past three years. Allowing an automaker to go under would wipe out portions of the supply chain, dragging down healthy foreign automakers, as well, that would have to scramble to find other suppliers to provide their parts. Automakers also buy $15 billion a year in advertising, not counting the huge amount dealers spend.”

Look for the jobs, jobs, jobs “debate” to heat-up this week. BIG STYLE.