Sunday, September 7, 2008

Problems for the Auto Industry...

...continue to get worse according to this CNN Money article:
Thus, the automakers have deployed what one industry official describes as a "surge" of lobbyists and executives at both the Democratic and Republican Party's political conventions. The Big Three's hope is that if they can win speedy passage of the loan package, they can move more quickly to retool their plants to produce more smaller cars.

The $50 billion loan package, first proposed by the auto industry last month, has won the support of presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain as their campaigns eye key votes in Michigan and Ohio.

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino signaled the outgoing Bush administration was open to approving the loans.
This is one of the worst examples of blowing good money on a very bad idea. The fact is that the U.S. government cannot keep bailing out corporations that a) have poorly management themselves into near failure and/or b) build a product or provide a service that is increasingly less viable in a post cheap energy era.

If the federal government ignores this fact, then mark Daily Sprawl's word--it will be the government itself that will require the bailout.

This could well be the beginning of the nastiest part of the current downward spiral.