Editorial: Bailout Watch 431: Bailout Nation Must Die

The president who did more to expand the federal government than any other in modern history began his first term assuring Americans that the only thing they had to fear was fear itself. Flash forward seventy-six years and FDR’s spiritual successor wants his fellow countrymen to live in fear—so his administration can achieve the same Big Government goal. Lets call it the Fram filter doctrine. Remember the old Fram filter ad? “You can pay me now or you can pay me later.” There’s your philosophical justification for the Detroit bailout. We have to bail out Motown (and everyone else) NOW or the whole economy will go to hell and we’ll WISH we’d made the “investment.” Rubbish.

There’s only one way Bailout Nation makes sense: if you accept the supposedly “inevitable outcome” of failing to prop-up failed enterprise. Oh, hell. You don’t even have to accept it; you just have to be afraid that it’s true. If GM catches a cold, Americans will die of plague. Are we really that stupid?

Cravenly, disgustingly, to their eternal shame, GM and Chrysler Gulfstreamed to Washington to flim-flam the fruits of their epic mismanagement as a threat to all taxpayers. Their CEOs testified that if we didn’t hand them $19.4B worth of taxpayers’ money, the “ripple effect” of a Chrysler and GM Chapter 11 would kill the economy dead.

No! Worse! If we “let” GM and Chrysler slide into bankruptcy, it will destroy America’s entire industrial base. Foreigners—foreigners!—will steal our middle class and, eventually, turn us into their bitch.

So we paid up. And now the zombies are back, using the same tactics that loosened the public purse strings the first time. Pols and press are busy perpetuating the same flawed, fear-based logic which obviously, catastrophically, nearasdammit immediately failed. In fact, we’re post-Fram. The new thinking: we can pay them MORE now and we can pay them MORE later. And… that’s it. Oh yes, we eventually get electric cars.

Here’s another idea. How about we pay Chrysler and GM NOTHING now so we don’t destroy the entire United States economy later? I’m serious. Forget debtor-in-possession financing. If the markets won’t embrace Chrysler and GM’s C11 turnaround plans why should the American taxpayer?

If America wants to clean up the aftermath of a Chrysler and GM C11 by creating a new health care, pension and unemployment safety net, if John Q. Public feels sorry enough for displaced auto workers to spread boondoggle billions over the bankruptcy-blighted landscape, go ahead. But for God’s sake, let these automakers die. It’s gonna be ugly. But over-capacity is over-capacity. There’s no way for GM to avoid the consequences of its inability to make itself indispensable. None. When the bailout music stops, GM still won’t have a chair.

If we continue to bail out Detroit, and extend that largess to automotive suppliers, dealers, etc., we’ll screw-up the economic fundamentals that made this country the world’s greatest economic power: minimal government intervention in fair, free and open markets. We’ll be stealing food from the tables of those companies and workers that didn’t end up in DC. Who didn’t use threats, bribes and extortion to avoid the consequences of their own actions. And we’ll be running-up the price of transportation for the average consumer.

Bankruptcy was designed for this exact situation. Do we really have so little faith in our existing institutions that we want to create some special exemption for a gang of bombastic millionaires that somehow got the idea that they deserve a pass that we, the people, would never receive? What’s wrong with Chapter 11 anyway? GM and Chrysler are afraid of that no one will buy a car from them in bankruptcy. And they want us to “take ownership” of their fear. With our cash.

Someone needs to stare these fear-mongering whiners in the face and tell them to man up. If it’s true that consumers won’t buy your products after you’ve declared bankruptcy, it’s your fault. Not ours. YOU killed your brands, not US. Instead of holding a gun to our head, why don’t use your valuable—make that expensive—time devising a way OUT of bankruptcy. Find some way to come back from the dead that doesn’t steal money from the mouths of productive citizens and taxpayers.

Yes, we’re afraid for our economic survival. Yes, we feel for others who will suffer for their boss’ incompetence, arrogance, short-sightedness and greed. But we must not abandon who we are as Americans and what we believe in.

Faith, hope and charity are wonderful, noble ideals. But they’re not what makes America strong. That would be independence, creativity, hard work, determination and a deep-rooted belief in fair play. Now is not the time to abandon our principles. Now is the time to embrace them, come what may. Yes, we can pay Detroit now. But mark my words: we will pay for it later.