“It may be that General Motors, Chrysler and Ford are lumbering, Jurassic 
beasts that deserve their looming extinction. But only a free-market fundamentalist, a lunatic or a Senate Republican — perhaps that’s redundant — would conclude that now is the moment to hasten Detroit’s demise.
“To recap: We’re in the midst of a global financial crisis. The housing bubble has burst and prices have collapsed. The economy has been in recession for a year. Unemployment has risen to 6.7 percent, and if ‘marginally attached’ workers are included — those who have given up even looking for jobs — along with those who want to work full time but are forced to accept fewer hours, the rate is 12.5 percent.
“Even if the Big Three deserve to die, they shouldn’t die now. Economic theory notwithstanding, it would be insanity to throw hundreds of thousands of auto company employees, and maybe a few million others in the supply and sales chains, out of work — leaving them and their families at the mercy of an economy that has no replacement jobs for them. Public funds would end up supporting these people anyway, except that we would have lost our domestic auto industry — which, despite its many failings, is the only domestic auto industry we’ve got.”
“Lemmings on Wheels,” Dec. 15, 2008
Excellent column, well written and bristling with good, common sense from start to finish. We have just one nit to pick.
What does Robinson mean, “perhaps that’s redundant”? There’s no perhaps about it.
A “redundancy” — No, I think it’s an insult to lunatics.
>>>>bristling with good, common sense
I’m not sure common sense has us tossing money at things that are going to fail anyway. I’ve heard serious comments for many years that the only way for the auto companies to restructure is through a chapter 11 bankruptcy. It seems the time is at hand. Tiding them over for another 6 months with gov’t money is not a good choice. We’re looking at airline industry redux.
The choice is not “bailout or no industry”. We’ll still have an industry after bankruptcy.