Quote:
Originally Posted by MerF
This isn't a response to Justin, just my thoughts on the quoted comment. The people who argue that it's not the Government's job, I whole-heartedly agree, EXCEPT for the fact that they forked over $350 BILLION DOLLARS to some already FOR FREE. Any more rebuttals about what the gov't can and can't do are out the window now. That's my take on the hypocrisy of that.
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I agree that it is vital for the government to protect the people and their interests. Recently, they've been protecting the rich people more than the people as a large mass. That's bad. The auto companies are important for more reasons than just the people they employ, however. They also provide national infrastructure that would be necessary if the US were ever to enter a state of total war. They also fund the federal budget heavily with taxes from wages and sales from the Detroit automakers, their suppliers, their employees, their suppliers' employees, their dealers, their dealers' employees, maintenance companies that service car, the employees of maintenance companies, aftermarket companies, the employees of those companies, and so many other industries that one wouldn't expect. Each of these people spend the money that they earn on clothes, accessories, technology, and other items. The places that they buy things will not be as successful because their clientele will be unemployed, causing them to reduce incentives and personnel. As a result, there will be more people that are added to the mess of unemployed. The companies offering incentives, like insurance, to businesses will have less clientele because businesses will cut costs. That will lead to more layoffs, leading to more unemployment. Eventually, you've got people at hotels losing jobs because no one is going on business trips or vacations because they are unemployed. You could safely argue that saving the auto industry is saving any other industry. An influx of unemployment injected into the current market would cripple it for years. The government, by helping GM, Ford, and Chrysler, protects those aforementioned employees and their own tax resources. Without wages and purchases to tax, the government won't have resources for coming years.
On the flipside, helping the likes of AIG stay afloat only allowed them to continue loaning at a 40-to-1 ratio when it comes to money that they actually have. They will grow rapidly after this and fail again in a certain number of years depending on how the market develops, speculation, and what expert economists say. It's all ridiculous. They should have tried to buy up the bad debt like they said originally. At the very least, speculators would have seen something positive for their gambling and the American people would have restored faith in their government as one that truly serves the people. I still believe that it does serve the people, but sometimes the problems the government resolves are so abstract that the average American simply would not care to investigate the depth of the problems. Unfortunately, that sort of abstraction and confusion is exactly why we need the government to help us when things go wrong. The world is far more intricate and complicated than the average person is willing to accept. Hopefully, the decisions of the US federal government and other powerful economic leaders will reverse the turmoil that has inexplicably damaged so many lives.