Bailout Watch 411: Ford Fan Boys 411 on GM/ChryCo Trough Snuffling

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

I caught the following on fordmuscle.com. The author agreed to let me republish it here:

There’s an old saying, “Everyone is a capitalist on the way up and a socialist on the way down.” While GM’s circumstances are tragic, we need to let capitalism take its course. Propping up GM hurts the competitors who aren’t asking for handouts. It makes the playing field un-level. Ford is the fittest, and when resources are scarce, the fittest shall survive and the weak potentially go extinct. Ford stands to increase its market share dramatically if GM (and Chrysler) were allowed to fail. By doing so Ford would be able to make more cars, hire more workers, and be a better competitor in the global automotive market.

The US is better off with one strong company rather than three weak, government supported entities. No democratic government should pump $30 Billion of taxpayer money into a single company, let alone one that is otherwise destined to fail. It is a horrible investment of gigantic proportion. Look at it this way, the government could distribute $1 Million to 30,000 small and entrepreneurial businesses—sort of a Treasury backed Venture Capital effort—and just about be guaranteed of an economic turn around.

Robert Farago
Robert Farago

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  • Anonymous Anonymous on Feb 20, 2009

    "Ford stands to increase its market share dramatically if GM (and Chrysler) were allowed to fail" If that was at all true, Ford would not have been in congress...next to GM and Chrysler asking for money. I know that Ford made it seem like they didn't take any money...and are using that falsity as a PR booster, but the fact is (and Ford has said as much): If GM or Chrysler fail, then it will bring Ford down with them. So, indirectly, Ford was asking and took that money. Ford will need money by the end of the year. They don't have the brand perception (or product really) to survive and gain market share. Remember we are talking about the same Ford that said that Mazda and Volvo were not for sale...

  • Rjsasko Rjsasko on Feb 20, 2009

    How about a little honesty here?! True, Ford is light years ahead in the management department due to having brought in Mullaly from Boeing. False as false can be that Ford won't be sucking Uncle Sugar's teat very, very soon. Mullaly hocked everything Ford had including the silverware and managed to dump off a couple of brands before financing was cut off. GM and Chrysler waited too long to do it. Ford has a bit more of a cash cushion than GM or Chrysler but is still skydiving without a parachute. Considering the acres of finished iron parked around all of the domestic auto plants AND the overflowing import storage yards around all of the sea ports even if GM and Chrysler folded tomorrow Ford would run out of cash long before all of the mountains of existing inventories would be sold off. But if GM and Chrysler go through bankruptcy reorganization and shuck their high labor/healthcare/retiree costs Ford will quickly find itself being the highest cost producer and facing bankruptcy liquidation due to being too late to the reorganization party. The only way for Ford to survive may be a simultaneous BK filing with GM. The only way Chrysler survives imho is if all three go bk and they skulk through quietly and unnoticed.

  • KeithF KeithF on Feb 21, 2009

    @Flashpoint: Sam Nunn *was* a Democrat and *is* advising Obama as we speak. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Nunn) The original point was correct that the F-22 had bi-partisan support, as did the Afghan and Iraq Wars. Mouth frothing is more effective when you get your facts straight...

  • Don1967 Don1967 on Feb 21, 2009
    It seem that the exact same thing can be said about the rapacious capitalism which marked the last few years. Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme is the ultimate poster child for this behavior. If Bernie Madoff represents capitalism, then Adolf Hitler represents socialism.
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