Bush Gives $17 Billion to Zombie Automakers

Unsurprisingly, George Bush today gave GM and Chrysler a massive loan to allow them to continue to pay their UAW employees not to work. Even though sales have plummeted, Chrysler is shutting down all plants for 1 month, and GM has a negative $60 billion balance sheet, we are expected to believe that this "lifeline" will allow the companies to restructure and become profitable again.

The fact is these companies are dead, they just refuse to admit it. It may be years before auto sales begin to pick up again, especially now that banks are no longer giving no money down car loans to anyone with a pulse. GM has abandoned plans to build a factory to make the engines for their new electric car/pipe dream the Chevy Volt, which was supposed to somehow reinvigorate the company.

The best thing for the automakers would have been bankruptcy, despite the fearmongering claims that "no one will buy a car from a bankrupt company" and "the country will lose 3 million jobs if they go bankrupt". I don't think being on government life support will exactly inspire confidence in consumers, and massive job cuts are a necessity if these companies want to continue to exist in any form.

I am no business expert, but it seems like eliminating several brands, (Pontiac, Buick) and spinning off more successful ones (Hummer, Jeep) would be the most effective way to restructure. Instead we will hear the usual drivel about making more energy efficient vehicles, despite the fact that oil prices have dropped 60% and there is no market for them.
Meanwhile the automakers are still based in Detroit, a disgusting, corrupt cesspool that no engineer or executive in his right mind would want to live in or around. Other than these issues, they should be back on the right track in no time.

Hopefully this is the last disgrace Bush can thrust on the American people before he hands the reins to Obama, who will most likely be the FDR to Bush's Hoover. And, no I do not mean that as a compliment.