@hawkeye10,
I don't know if this has been mentioned, but I do not like the idea of the government meddling with car companies, as it affects people's investments. For example, if I am invested in Ford for various reasons, one being if I think they have the best chance of surviving of the Big 3, and in the event Chrysler or GM went belly up, surviving companies such as Ford might benefit from that. Just as Circuit City went broke, other companies that survive will receive their business.
For anyone even slightly educated on economics, this is merely a way of capitalism adjusting efficiencies of the market. Instead of the government artificially propping up failed businesses, they should instead see the situation as one of the reasons why capitalism works, it is simply a streamlining process of the market, by the market and its inherent forces. It is a winnowing process of the market, weeding out the weak and the inefficient, and keeping the companies that remain competitive as strong and efficient.
Perhaps there are just too many car companies right now for the demand out there, or too many big companies, perhaps they just need to downsize, or simply go out of business, leaving the more efficient companies to serve the people. But instead, government wants to preserve inefficiencies and failed business models, and then they ironically blame capitalism as failing. Nonsense, it is part of why capitalism works, and they are simply too ignorant or dumb to figure it out, either that or they know this but instead are using the opportunity to push their particular alternate economic model. After all, "never waste a crisis to get things done."
Another example of what I am touching on here is the Postal Service. I think technology is simply taking over alot of the business of using the postal service, there are simpler and more efficient ways of moving messages, mail, advertisements, doing business, etc. So will the government continue to prop up this bureaucracy indefinitely? I think the service is still very useful, but perhaps it should pay more of its own way, and perhaps the shear size of the organization needs a drastic downsizing, perhaps the volume of junk mail if it had to pay its way would virtually come to a screeching halt? I don't know the answers to alot of these questions, but it looks to me like increasing postage will only cut into the business volume more, thus continuing operating losses, but lowering postage would only increase operating losses, so something more sweeping and innovative needs to be done. I think perhaps a total revamping of size of the bureaucracy and days of delivery need to be reformed big time. In other words, the market should impact how this bureaucracy is run.
)