📰 Auto News BREAKING: GM CEO Wagoner out at Obama's request

[sickmint79]

Here is my issue with this - at what point did we put the onus on the government to bail anybody out? They gave a handout to the financial institutions... why shouldn't the automotive companies believe that they deserve to have a piece of the pie too? The critical error was in allowing this cross-pollination of free enterprise and government interest to exist in the first place.

agreed, but the banks were bailed out because some believe they pose a systemic risk to the financial system. GM of course does not.

 

[James]

Wholly agree with you rocket69GTP!
And forgive me if you took my smilies the wrong way.

No automaker bailout would have ever started last fall except that we were already bailing out financial institutions....and the money given to automakers was a blip on the radar/least of our worries. It wasn't really reported in the media also.

This is just a perfect storm for automakers, rising wages, high gas prices, steel costs, models people don't want to buy, people unable to buy cars because of layoffs/no financing etc etc....my point is to a very small extent it's not the executives total fault.
Ford was just ahead of the storm because they were cutting/selling brands and took huge loans out with the whole company as collateral.

The Obama government sort of had to continue the Bush bailout trend with more money and not be seen as not caring about the Michigan worker. Definitely had to play their cards right....and now they can be seen as having tried, but now it's "tough love" time.