Auto Industry Bailout?

Tell me it ain't so. We're considering an auto bailout?

My objection to the proposed auto bailout is that the auto companies were the ones at fault -- not funding the pensions correctly in earlier, good years. It is not the auto industry per se that is being hurt -- the companies can simply go bankrupt and then the Pension Guarantee Board or whatever it is called will take over the pensions and the taxpayers are still liable.

It is the workers who are being hurt by not having the pension they were promised. Recall that their wages would have been higher, all else equal (which it admittedly never is) if the company hadn't been supposedly funding their pensions.

The companies are at fault here, totally. They should have funded the pensions, they didn't. In those time periods, the management and BODs were probably paid bonuses by seeming more profitable by NOT funding the liabilities as they should have. It is inconceivable that we bail out the COMPANIES.

If the auto industry is not making enough to survive, they either need to raise prices or fold. Ugly times are coming, folks.

Regards,
Trond