Councilwoman Says Saving Detroit 3 Not Enough, Detroit Needs A Bailout Too!

just salvage the hockey arena ... I kinda like the Red Wings (although not my favorite team)

OUCH!!

It seems to me that these people that left, did so for a reason. Poor product performance leading to poor sales, to poor profits, to layoffs. The free market has spoken. Why in the world would taxpayers rescue something that cannot on its own maintain its survival? Are we to agree to yet another socialist bailout? Maybe, I'm the only dumb one here, I should perhaps quit my job and demand a bailout from the government too!

The GM bailout in itself was the most infamous government failure yet, add to that the precedent it establishes for people like this councilwoman who feels entitled now to free money as well (lets be honest here, a big percentage of GM's bailout will never be paid back because the government awarded it to GM for free-read up on it yourself).

To deserve help you first have to help yourself.

MeanVulcan asks "...Why in the world would taxpayers rescue something that cannot on its own maintain its survival?..."

Because the Federal Government spends the taxpayer's income, and goes into ever deeper debt, on behalf of the taxpayer. I'm sure if American citizens were asked to make a donation to save the Big Three, these "bailouts" would have been much, much smaller.

Steve, I believe what you are saying is pretty evident, at least to people in this forum. I cannot speak for the government because as we all know they DO NOT act in the best interest of the taxpayer. However it is OUR JOB to make our voices heard with our respective congressmen (even though that also seems to fall on deaf ear many times).

The city is at faulty for not diversifying the business base.
Texas for instance is always the last in and first out of an economic downturn due to the diversity of the business base. One sector can experience a downturn and can not devastate the local economy with it. Look no further that the dot com, and telecommunication collapses. Yes it hurt, but not to the degree that other areas were.

Be smart and plan rather than ride your gravy train.

Texas has OIL interests, Agent...and those famous links to the UAE!

Democrats love spending other people's money.

If I remember correctly? Wasn't the bailout a Republican initiative done during the Bush term? And you claim than the Dems love spending other people’s money, Yet don’t mention anything about the Republican’s spending? Why is that? Double standard much? Or Are you hoping that people cannot remember back till 2008?

TARP was passed under President Bush and a Democratic House. However, the auto bailout of GM and Chrysler (at the expense of the private bondholderS), healthcare reform, the stimulus, and the huge deficit spending under the Democratic Congress and Presidency from '08 to '10 should be counted as well.

Lets not forget about Bush turning a surplus into a deficit. Or does that not matter anymore?

As a fiscal conservative, I do believe Bush spent too much. HOWEVER, Obama's (along with Pelosi and Reid) spending dwarfs that of his predecessor (and in only two years).

Bailout is EXACTLY the word the American people want to hear again. Let me guess, Detroit is "Too Big To Fail"?

I'm sure a bailout will fix the problems of Detroit. Forget the 40+ years of entitlements that put Detroit in the situation it is in right now, throw more money at the problem. Detroit's entitlement program was once hailed as the model for other large cities, aren't those cities glad they didn't follow suit?

-00J

I guess they want a slice of the pie too!

Not going to happen...

Give a man a fish (bailout) and he eats for a day; Teach him to fish (be sustainably profitable) and he eats for life. Detroit needs to learn how to be sustainably profitable, rather than developing their handout acquisition skills. Call me strange for thinking this way, but there you have it.

Bailing out is never the solution people, it's just a way to get free money and be compensated for their failures. A good entity with a good and solid product will NEVER fall, even in the worst economic times such an entity will adjust itself to the bad times and still shines. None of the GM/Chrysler nor any other entity that got the bailouts are such entities. Please, stop asking for more bailouts, you're just emptying the government as a whole, when the government is completely bankrupt, then who will bail it out??

We should have left these companies fail. Were they too big to fail? nothing is too big to fail. Economic crises demands tough changes. Holding on to these failed models (e.g. GM) only delays the inevitable outcome. GM's bankrupcy should have initiated a market correction, instead it ballooned out of control and affected not just GM employees, but all of us!

Our economic troubles are partly due to this "too big to fail" mentality. There is no corporate accountability and the only ones paying the price are tax payers since CEOs seem to get as large a bonus when the get fired as to when they perform.

She's right about inventing the middle class, although that was more the automakers in general.
Inventing the middle class was also the downfall of the Big 3. Their workers had good salaries and medical benefits and ended up outliving the pension benefits.
Chrysler had a huge pile of cash in the 90's but still sold out to Daimler because they knew it wasn't enough to handle the pension benefits that were going to catch up with them.
We're the only game in town mentality didn't help, either.
They refused to recognize the non Big 3 competition.

OMG this is so frustrating. When will the hand outs stop in this country. Its killing us!

Maybe Eminem should put up a lemonade stand to raise some cash for Detroit. I mean, if he can resurrect sales of the 200, then he can do ANYTHING!

B*tch you crazy!