Romney: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt
November 19, 2008 by Stephen Anderson
Filed under Guest Articles, Money & Economics
By Mitt Romney (Boston)-The New York Times | IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.
Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.
I love cars, American cars. I was born in Detroit, the son of an auto chief executive. In 1954, my dad, George Romney, was tapped to run American Motors when its president suddenly died. The company itself was on life support — banks were threatening to deal it a death blow. The stock collapsed. I watched Dad work to turn the company around — and years later at business school>>>>Read the Full Article
I love ford, i dont understand why detroit would bankrupt.
I am glad to see that someone can see that feeding a broken system doesn’t fix the system. I hope the feds let the auto companies flounder. I feel for any whose jobs will be lost or jeopordized, but if we just bail them out, they will be back in no time at all with their hands out again because they are working under a business plan that can not sustain itself. The union strangle hold on this industry is breaking it’s neck, and the only way to peel the union fingers off the neck of the business is to put it down, and restructure If the union is really doing it’s job, it will make concessions to salvage the jobs of it’s members. I for one would rather have a job with less benefits than not have a job!