The Detroit 3: DNR

Over the past few days the pundits and analysts have taken to using medical terms to describe the bailouts for the Detroit 3 automakers. Or as I am starting to call them, the "Beggar Three".

"This report says that Canada is better off providing life-support to GM and Chrysler, because the demise of auto in Canada is the economic equivalent of a nuclear freeze, with catastrophic effects that would knock us into a deep recession," Bryant said Tuesday.

"We are talking about CPR, literally, CPR for a company to avoid it from going under and causing a chain of events that would be catastrophic to the economy."

Perhaps invoking medical terms is meant to bring out an emotional response?

Well, I think the beggar three need to have a big ol'DNR tattooed to their chests. If they croak, they croak. Whatever governments do, do not resuscitate them. Bad corporate decisions should not be alleviated with taxpayer dollars. Auto bailouts don't exactly have a track record of success either, at least when they were attempted in Great Britain in the seventies and eighties.

Instead of giving billions to companies that are failing, partly subsidized by you and I, and partly subsidized by actual successful companies focus on

• EI program improvements
• Skills training
• etc

not industry specific bailouts. Where will it end? Forestry? Fishery? Mining? Perhaps with falling oil prices, the tarsands?

I also don't really believe in that 582,000 job loss figure either. It doesn't make sense. It only makes sense if everyone stops buying cars when/if the big three go down.

The big three sell (which aren't even the big three anymore) about 750,000 (estimate based on car and truck sales from June 08 rounded down a lot) cars and trucks in Canada every year. Someone will have to make these cars if they big three go belly up. That means the successful companies like Toyota will have to start to make more cars, they will need to hire more people to build these cars. The plants and the people are here in Canada and in the US, they will hire most of these people back.

I agree that there will be a lot of short term pain, but I can't see how prolonging the pain is any better. Some of these people will need to retrain regardless of a bailout, might as well start now. Ontario needs to diversify it's economy to survive long term, might as well start now. I agree it can seem cold hearted, but it is required.

DNR the Detroit Three. Don't bailout incompetence, job guarantees are meaningless if the company itself dies in a year or two anyway.