Saturday, January 3, 2009

How the see us: Do U.S. carmakers deserve a break?

"Pity the poor Americans" says Jeremy Warner in Britains's Independent.
The American auto industry is now in the same position that British auto makers were 30 years ago.
The Big Three auto makers "pay themselves too much, they've failed to modernize, and they no longer produce the sort of cars that anyone wants to buy".
The US intends to do the same things that the British did when their auto companies were risked- handing out cash.
Howe this will not be enough as can be seen from the outcome of the efforts made by the British.
It is thought that by March, the auto makers will be back asking for even more money.
"Huge amounts of tax payers money were spent propping up this dying industry" in Britain and "very little was there to show for it in the end".
Jeremy Warner believes that instead of subjecting the American auto industry to a "slow death by a thousand cuts" which is what is believed to have been the what the British car makers endured, Warner claims that bankruptcy would do the auto makers better.
This is the only "long term solution".

However, there are indeed other opinions being spouted across the pond.
Quentin Willson in Britain's Sunday Mirror thinks that the US auto makers have done themselves in with "lousy management, kowtowing to unions, too many big-drinking trucks and SUV's, and an arrogant contempt for small acrs and green technology"- bold statements to be made by a journalist who reports for a country who is not directly tied to the US auto industries implosion. Or is he???
Willson thinks that allowing the US auto makers to enter into bankruptcy would have a "seismic effect on the US economy" but also "hurt Europe".
Chapter 11 would indeed allow the auto industry to reorganize and get back on track with out sucking billions of dollars out of the US government's pockets. It is thought that this might have effects more widespread though.
The auto manufacturers' suppliers would fail due to the lack of business from the US, and thus, the European auto market would also falter, due to their reliance on the very same suppliers.

No comments: