Romney And Obama Spar On Auto Bailout - But If YOU Had To Do It Again, Would You?

Romney essentially has flip flopped his position on this as he has done on so many previous positions.He also indicated that the private sector lending insitutions should have been allowed to invest in the failing 2 car companies. The simple case there were no private equity firms or lending institutions that would have or were ready to invest in GM and Chrysler in 2008. Both would have gone into liquidation bankruptsy taking Ford and all the auto parts suppliers with them.

Obama made the right call and after visiting Detroit earlier this year for the auto show, and seeing the proud hard working families gratefully welcome all the visitors to the show, diners, and shops I could NEVER vote for a man who basically said let them fall.

This nation would have witnessed a catastrophe surpassing the great depression.

Although Obama still has a lot of work to do as every president has and will, I will forever be grateful to his decision to keep the American Auto Industry a float.

Romney...apply for a job in Obama's cabinet and take a seat, while i respect you as a business man, I can not see you as a leader.

Thank you!

While I feel they should have fell due to the crap products they were building, fact is we can't afford to let that happen. Too many jobs are at stake. And they are building some good and very competitive products now, problem is the damage is done from the cars they built in the 80s-early 2000's. We need GM to stay.

Thank you!!

Sustainably profitable businesses know a number of "Holy Truths":
1. You must earn more money than you spend to be profitable.
2. You must always attract new customers to be *sustainably* profitable.
3. There are a number of ways to achieve #1 and #2. You need creativity here.
4. You need great leadership.
5. If you f*ck up, ain't nobody gonna save your ass!

That's the way that private business works. The way government works is entirely different. They deliberately budget, knowing they're spending more than they earn in a taxes (deficit spending), and they just add it to the tab (The National Debt). They just raise taxes, knowing their customers (citizens), for the most part, don't have another place to shop (few people leave the country to pay less taxes).

Similarly, huge Giga Enterprises work more like a government than a private business. They spend more than they earn, accumulate enormous losses, create irrelevant products few people desire, and when they file for Chapter 11, they get ginormous bailouts from the government to let them repeat their folly (remember Chrysler has been at the trough before).

No, I would not throw good money after bad. But that's just me.

Just to clarify Steve, Chrysler first round was not on the taxpayer, It was private funding the Gov just backed the loans plus Iacocca had an ace in his pocket with the mini-van and K-cars. Second round was due to Diamlers mismanagement and pillaging of Chryslers profitt to fund MB products.

Obama bailed out the unions and may get a chance to do it again (sic). If GM had gone bankrupt on its own it would have been restructured and back in business again...only differences are the ground rules for going forward would have been set by a judge and the financial backers not the government and the unions would have had to make greater sacrifices. One of the problems in our society today is that no one is responsible for their actions. The fear of failure has been and will always be the greatest incentive to succeed...take it away and you take away substantially from efforts to succeed.

If Gm and Chrysler had gone in to bankruptsy on their own it would have been chapter 7 liquidation, not Chapter 11 restructuring.If you recall in 2008 the economy was in a financial free fall. No banks were lending any money and no financial firms were offering to buy GM or Chrysler.In Chrysler case Fiat was the only option. If both GM and Chrysler went into chapter 7 liquidation they would have taken Ford and all the auto parts suppliers with them.This would have also affected the foreign implants like Toyota,Hyundai, Honda,Kia etc.An alful lot more people would have lost their jobs.Further those pension funds from both GM and Chrysler would have been dumped into the lap of the US government. The cost of those would have been a lot more than the 25 to 30 billion that the government spent on the bailout.If the 5 major banks and AIG were too big to fail why wouldn't the auto companies be too big to fail as well? However, the unions would have been knocked out completely, including Canada.

Assuming that the suppliers would also have gone bankrupt means that GM and Chrysler's market share would not have been taken up by someone else. Someone has to supply the manufacturers of these vehicles that would stiil be sold. Also mergers are quite possible as a path out of bankruptcy, just look at the airline business. The Chrysler/Fiat tie up coud have been replicated at GM.