The Endicott Enquirer News from the Southern Tier

Bailout Detroit? I Think Not.

Let the Detroit auto makers fail, let them go into bankruptcy and fail just like any other American company does when they have mismanaged themselves into a financial nightmare.

Why is it that as soon as a big company gets in trouble now all of the Senators in Washington and the Representatives in the House all want to bail them out? There is no need for it and it goes against every free market principle that the country is built on. GM, Chrysler and Ford vehicles have been terrible for years and now we want to save them and postpone the inevitable? They did not respond to industry forces when they should have, they completely ignored America's pleas for more fuel efficient vehicles and failed to improve the quality of their existing fleet of vehicles when they could have. By failing in these areas did they not expect companies like Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, Daewoo, Kia and others to move in and take their market share?

So if you can't back them up because of sound business practices then the argument becomes that they are too big to fail, especially in this economy. Why is that? Because so many people would lose their jobs? Let me tell you Washington, another 20,000 at this point seems to be a number of very little importance from this perspective. Why don't you tell the hundreds of thousands that already have why you didn't bail their companies out?

Not only are they not too big to fail (any company can) but if they go into bankruptcy, there is a strong chance that better managed automaker will buy their assets and keep the brand alive. The GM, Chrysler and Ford brands still carry a very iconic stature in the US and any other automaker would love to add them to their portfolio. These new investors might also actually bring in the new ideas needed to turn the brands around as well which is what the autoworkers need more than anything else right now since even with the bailout thousands more get laid off each year.

So Washington, keep your nose out of the free market in this case. The banks may have been a special case, but companies that do not control the entire financial system should not carry any special clout when asking for a bailout. It will be hard when they fail initially but I can tell you now that it needs to happen in order to make our economy stronger once again. The last thing we need to do is face this again later on, we might as well get the pain over with now.