ORIGINAL: Albeeno
Just wondering - How many educated consumers out there do you think will purchase a car from a bankrupt car company? I am guessing not many...
Bankruptcy of any of the "Big 3" would send this economy into a tailspin not seen since the 1930's.
An educated consumer understands that filing for bankrupcty doesn't mean out of business. On top of this, why would a consumer have to worry anyways? Repair parts for Big three products are very plentiful by third party companies. If there is a demand, there will be a supply for the parts. There will be a sales freeze for a while out of fear, but can you ask for a better time than now when they can't get rid of the cars they have already produced.
You don't seem to understand that doing what the Big Three want the Government to do is closer to what caused the Great Depression continue as long as it did. There is no guarantee that a loan/bailout will work which means we have to pay for their mistakes AND have them file for bankruptcy later, this happened with a British car company back in the 1970s and it failed miserably. The supply of money that they are asking for will only get them to May 2009 and the problem is if they don't make the dramatic changes THEY NEED TO MAKE it will only prolong the inevitable. We've heard the plan Chrysler has and frankly it will not resolve the problem. On top of this, the problem is costs of workers at all levels and everything associated with it is simply too high. They need to take advantage of the situation right now when there aren't going to be many sales due to a slow economy and restructure themselves and by the time they get their act together, the economy will be ready.
The issue is that we need to become realistic on the fact that sometimes companies fail and we are all going to feel the pain from it. The idea that we should do anything and everything to prop them up and use a pipeline to flood water from a rapidly sinking ship into another ship, instead of fixing the hole is illogical. The solution is to eliminate the aspects of the problems that are adding to this problem. They need to eliminate a lot of the regulations that make the Big Three uncompetitive.
Another problem with doing this is it encourages more companies to do that same things that lead to these mistakes as well. I frankly am sick of seeing that we have to save people who were fools. I believe in letting nature take its course with this situation.