Auto Bail Out

So now it appears that an agreement might be reached for a bail out of the auto industry. After struggling for days to come up with a concrete reason why we, the taxpayers of the US, should bail out this failing industry, I have decided to stop fighting myself and say "No. We should NOT bail out the US auto manufacturers."

I think these days I would be hard pressed to find someone who disagrees with me. (If you do disagree and can convince me to reconsider my position, please send me a note).

This concept of a car czar might be a good thing. Finally there would be a bit of oversight --but wait. We are talking about a private industry and should we really regulate them the way we do public sector businesses? This also means more government bureaucracy.

So they (the US car manufacturers) made poor decisions and chose to make gas guzzling vehicles (SUVs) for the US market. They were doing great when fuel was plentiful, cheap and secure. Heck, I think that I am the only person who has never owned a SUV or an American car since the mid 90's. Now that gas prices and the environment have changed, despite this short stint of $40 barrel crude, the US market demands more fuel efficient vehicles. Detroit should have planned much earlier for this.

So a few pieces of advice to this new car czar would be this:

1. Make the manufacturers pay by requiring them to build vehicles that get better gas mileage and require that the CAFE standards be raised by the end of the next two years. If they don't meet these requirements, have guidelines that outline a penalty system.

2. Make them develop a plan to recycle gas guzzling, air polluting heaps of junk with newer, more fuel efficient vehicles. Perhaps the government should just buy out all jalopies and replace them with more efficient automobiles.

3. Make their CEO's government employees, who are not eligible for bonuses.

If you think the US government should bail em out, let me know why.