Auto Bailout

Here are some thoughts that me and my man talked about a few days ago...

Should we bail out the automakers? That's a tough one. The reality is that American automobiles cannot compete with foreign automobiles. Generally, foreign automobiles offer the best value for the money. I mean, for the most part, they are more reliable (they run forever and require less maintenance)and are more fuel efficient. So saving the American automakers would not spark consumers to go out and purchase more American automobiles, that's for sure. American automakers need to re-engineer their product lines. If anything, they are the reason why our economy is in this slump in the first place. If U.S. automakers produced better quality, more competitive products, America would be in a much better place. If the government does give them money to fix their problem, it has to be a conditional credit. They would have to prove they could compete with the rest of the world, even if it means spending the money on research and development to improve product lines. However, this probably would take too much time and not boost the economy when we need that boost the most. One could argue that the American automakers made their bed and they should lay in it. However, at the expense of America's and the rest of the world's decline? Should the world economy crumble as a result of some lazy American profiteers? Maybe it's the American consumers' faults because we have become too highly dependent on foreign products and services. To save a buck, we've declined ourselves. How many years has the U.S. automarket been behind? Plenty long enough to learn from the many mistakes and develop better products. Did American automakers honestly think that their bland designs and lackluster quality would last? They better have a darn good business case in the works for what's going to be changed, because something has to-- most definitely.