Auto companies can survive without bailouts

Normally one of my favorite writers, Pat Buchanan, offered in his December 16, 2008 column on Human Events.com, an opinion markedly different than one I had penned just recently for my Canada Free Press readers. Buchanan based his opinion of the proposed Democrat/Pres. Bush bailout of the auto industry giants, GM, Ford and Chrysler on the condition that not to do so would be, in his words, “risking swift death” for those companies.

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My opinion, on the other hand, was based strongly on faith in the conservative wing of the Republican party who whole-heartedly opposed using yours and my tax dollars to keep afloat and in operation “business-as-usual” selfish and greedy, unashamedly gouging of more and more money for the labor unions and subservience to their causes by the auto industry executives. When I see senatorial names like Specter, Collins, Snowe, Gordon Smith, Graham, Voinovich and other RINO’s who are fiscally and socially liberal Republicans voting along with liberal Democrats and labor union bosses, I automatically defer to conservatively inclined leaders such as DeMint, Shelby, Ensign and Grassley who can almost always be counted on to vote with the bulk of the Republican party rank and file members. Pat Buchanan presents as his argument in favor of this bailout the fact that failure to do so will sound the death knell for American automobile manufacturers resulting in more Japanese models being on the roads. He claims that the loss of American models will be replaced by Japanese, German or Korean companies “like the ones lured into (Sen.) Shelby’s state of Alabama.” I have read that these foreign models are superior in many ways to the current average American automobiles, with far better fuel efficiency and lower up front costs due to better planning, better engineering and lower manufacturing costs, not the least of which are sensibly lower hourly wages than the obscenely higher rates the American auto labor union employees enjoy. In the November 2008 issue of Consumer Reports there is a list of the “Top Cars” and photos of the chosen autos are on pages 36 and 37, consisting of 11 of these “Top Cars”. Nine of these top automobiles have foreign names such as Volkswagen, Subaru, Honda, Lexus, Kia, BMW, Hyundai and Toyota. The two American autos were Cadillac and Chevy Malibu. When Consumer Reports listed the 7 most fuel efficient cars on page 38, they were totally foreign named vehicles ranging from a Hybrid Toyota up to a Mercedes-Benz luxury sedan. Imagine that, - a luxury sedan with better gas MPG’s than any American cars in this category. Mr. and Ms. American Automobile Consumer notice these things, and like me they would prefer to ‘Buy American’ but when the odds are heavily against such a practice, such as during a bad economic period, as we currently endure, they look for the better money-saving deals, leaving American automobiles trailing badly. Presumably, Buchanan notes, the companies that will "take their place," when GM, Ford and Chrysler die, are German, Japanese or Korean, like the ones lured into Shelby's state of Alabama, with the bait of subsidies free-market Republicans are supposed to abhor. Now if this is the scary part of the story, I think I’ve just found a better scenario and that is that we will still buy automobiles regardless of the name or logo on the hood, and someone will be needed to build them. Presto! The unemployed workers from the Big Three will be available, so there should be no serious job losses overall. Now if we can just figure out a way to keep the labor unions out of those efficient manufacturing plants, I think we’ll come up with a winner. Because just as sure the sun will shine somewhere tomorrow, continued union labor in the auto industry equals continued bailout requests. But Chapter 11 Bankruptcy proceedings could guarantee some, if not most, of the changes needed to compete successfully in the market against the foreign named vehicles. The labor unions will be forced to renegotiate their out-of-line contracts into more profit-friendly terms and conditions and maybe the auto makers will survive after all. I think it’s worth a shot.

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