Stabenow and Gettelfinger plead for bailout
December 5, 2008 – 10:34 am by JohnOn the radio this morning I heard a clip of Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, presumably in Washington, talking about the desperate need for a bailout of the automotive industry. I can’t find an article or video with her dialogue, but this is very close to an exact quote from Stabenow’s remarks arguing that a publicly funded bailout of the automakers was preferable to bankruptcy: “People aren’t going to buy cars from a company that’s in bankruptcy.”
Yes, that’s the point! The reason they’re in dire straits is because the people don’t want their products at their prices! If the State allows money, people, and capital to remain in unprofitable production, via newly created money that forcibly erodes the public’s real wealth and purchasing power, then it is preventing a correction from occurring, not a disaster!
In searching for a verbatim quote from Stabenow’s address, I came across this vacuous opinion column by UAW President Ron Gettelfinger in the Detroit News.
[W]hen former GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney launched a misinformed media blitz claiming that bankruptcy was the best route for the domestic auto industry, former Sen. Spencer Abraham, a Republican from Michigan, stepped forward to rebut him. As Abraham pointed out, bankruptcy is an absolute dead end for companies that make cars and trucks—and we want our industry to live.
And the rest of the world doesn’t, you dimwitted twit. If enough people wanted it to survive, it would survive because it would make a profit! Forcing an entire nation of people to help an industry survive because YOU want it to is the epitome of destructive socialist snobbery. Decades ago, they should have changed what they were doing and started doing less of it. They haven’t. They have received public funds before and they will be back clamoring for public funds again. This won’t save them; it will only delay the final crash of the Big Three, impoverishing Americans more rather than less along the way. And it won’t save the industries that are so dependent upon and integrated with the automotive industry. THEY NEED TO LOSE MONEY, JOBS, AND CAPITAL BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THE VOLUNTARY CHOICES OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE HAVE INDICATED THEY SHOULD DO! Arrogant interference and dirigiste planning by obstinate morans like you is EXACTLY what gets workers, companies, and entire economies in the quandaries they are in right now.
