Monday, June 01, 2009

What's Good for General Motors is Good for America?

I awoke to sad news this morning. Not that I wasn't expecting it, but the announcement made it so real and so final, it just hit me harder than I thought it would. I've read some of the debates and commentaries on the topic, but it doesn't change the fact that General Motors is now, officially, just another part of the Government Machine. The Government says GM only gets $30B more and the CEO says they won't need a second chance! Excuse me . . . all this bail out was for corporations "too big to fail" and yet bankruptcy seems to carry an element of "failed." Lehman Brothers didn't receive any bail out, filed bankruptcy, were taken off the stock exchange, and the company no longer exists. General Motors is off the exchange, received billions of dollars, already, filed bankruptcy, and yet, still exists, supposedly to make Chevrolets, Cadillacs, GMCs, and Buicks. Sounds like a second chance to me! So, if I follow the line of thinking that was proposed years ago in advertising, and used in the title of this blog, just where does this correlation leave America? Is America too big to fail? Our government can print more money . . . so bankruptcy can perhaps be avoided, unless of course other countries call in their notes. Has America already parted and sold herself out? I think, rather than remove the liabilities like GM says they have done with Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Hummer, and Saturn, America has maintained the liabilities in government programs and parted out the assets, as in businesses going overseas or bankrupted, and jobs being outsourced.
President Obama said Monday he was confident that the additional federal help was justified by the changes being made at GM.
"GM and its stakeholders have produced a viable, achievable plan that will give this iconic American company a chance to rise again," he said.
"But GM can't put this plan into effect on its own. Executing this plan will require a substantial amount of money that only a government can provide."

To be government owned doesn't seem like a good plan for General Motors, and I don't think most Americans want to be owned, either.
And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: the Revelation

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