Bush Bails Out The Big 3 Losers

Worried that $78/hour UAW workers would be out of a job, President George W. Bush agreed to bypass Congress’ decision and give Ford, Chrysler, and GM $17.4 billion in bailout money from the $700 billion earmarked to “save” the financial industry. No word on how the money will be split amongst the three pigs, but the money’s been dumped in the trough, so I guess we’ll soon find out.
The bailout also allows the government the option of becoming a stockholder in the companies, which reeks of nationalization. The government can’t even take a profitable whore house in Nevada and keep it running profitably. How’re they gonna do it with huge businesses like this? The answer: they’ll screw it up even more and probably spend more of our money to do it. (Money we don’t have.)
Chrysler, of course, has been quicker than the other two to try to make some green cred for themselves. The company announced on CNN that they’ll be rolling out EVs based on current vehicles. In an earlier article, we talked about the EV Town and Country minivan and Jeep. Supposedly this will lower Chrysler’s cost as the same production line, with few modifications, can make both version of a vehicle: the gas engine and the electric.
Makes sense, in a way. It wasn’t long ago that I lauded Mercedes-Benz for the same idea, though theirs was a little more…well, engineered. Oh, and don’t plan to see any of these Chrysler EVs before 2012. I’m sure by then they’ll have burned through their share of that $17.4 billion and be asking for more to “bring these to market.”
On the other hand, at least Chrysler has delivered a realistic plan to begin producing EVs and hybrid vehicles. So far, all Chevy has is the Volt and Ford has…well, canceled most of their hybrid lines, so they’ve got bupkiss.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go fill out this application for United Auto Workers and get me a government job.





