Big Bailouts for Big Mistakes
Monday, November 17, 2008
SEND Neil Cavuto, Managing Editor and Anchor
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I'm beyond debating whether the auto industry gets a bailout.
It will.
The only question is how big, and how soon.
And, most important, how different?
Here's the deal:
The auto guys are getting their deal.
A huge rescue.
And one, I highly suspect, without the smallest of conditions.
If so, it would follow a well-worn pattern.
Big bailouts for companies that screwed up.
But have no obligation to pay up.
In the financial rescue, the idea was that they'd lend the money they got.
Trouble was, we never demanded that.
So were we surprised when they didn't do that?
...when some took the cash to buy back stock, or even weaker competitors.
That's what happens when you throw money at a problem without addressing the problem.
Like when you throw tens of billions at auto companies, saddled with bloated costs, but demand they do nothing to address the real culprit of those costs...soaring union pension and benefit expenses that seemed fine when they were written into contracts decades ago when times were good, but now are woefully out of date, when times are not nearly so good.
Shocking that a newly emboldened Democratic Congress wouldn't demand auto bosses address these costs...just as it was shocking that Republicans would attach virtually no conditions to cash-happy banks and brokers to root out their costs.
No, we neither demanded banks lend, nor auto companies account.
Could you imagine them being so "understanding" with us?
Please. We miss a payment, they've all but got the police on us.
They miss a payment, and they're being bailed out "by" us.
Who knew bailout also mean logging your brain out?
...leaving taxpayers to rightly ask...
Is anyone looking out...for us?
