Flip flop Don

Sometimes I get an idea and before you know it I have put it out there for all to see. In my blog yesterday “Wake up Mr. President” I suggested that it would be smart to bail out the Big Three in America. Some of you immediately picked up on my error in judgement and I thank you for bringing me to my senses. You might have to call me a Flip Flopper after this but I really gave it a great deal of thought and research yesterday and I feel I was in error. First of all there are not thousands of jobs in the balance but when you add in the dealer network across America there are millions of jobs in the balance. My error was as follows; First of all the companies wouldn’t just go away, they would be placed in a reconstructive Bankruptcy where the management would have to renegotiate their big salaries down to a level of accountability. Secondly maybe in bankruptcy they could throw out the obscene union demands that add up to as much as $8,000 a vehicle over the nonunion Toyota shops in the South. $1,500 just for medical expenses is added to each vehicle. I can’t think of anywhere but in our illustrious Congress where such benefits are available. To flex their muscle the union struck a GM affiliate during the beginning of this crisis and caused the loss of thousands production units due to the unavailability of axles for many 2008 models. This would allow them to realign their production to products that better fit the needs of the consumer. This would also bring the base price of products down substantially. Working with their suppliers and their dealers a new company would emerge much stronger and it even could involve an ownership offer to their existing dealers across the land which would bring in much needed consumer input and confidence into the company. I still think the so called bailout is a total boondoggle benefiting only the big banks. The proof is in the pudding when it comes to AIG who laughingly took a vacation with our funds and then did it all over again as if to thumb their noses at us. Or the bonus’s that Lehman Brothers paid to their employees after the bailout. The real solution is in the business sector not as a bail out for every company but using the SBA and a rapid loan program developed to save small to medium business across the land. These people had nothing to do with the cause of the problem but have been hurt the worse. This could save thousands or even millions of jobs through out the country if moved on quickly enough. Many of these companies have been forced into layoffs and near bankruptcy because of the lack of funds available to them. This Countries economy is run on the backs of these small to medium companies. As I stated in my first article giving money to these big holding banks is causing more harm than good. They have been swallowing up community banks for the last decade and that has caused problems for all small to medium business’s. No longer is there any relationship between the business person and their individual banks. The days of a local banker who is able to make a decision on a loan based on his or her personal knowledge of the company or individual is non existent in today’s world. The big banks have been hoarding this money in order to takeover many of the remaining smaller banks as they get into trouble because of the economic situation. I really do apologize to the readers for my error in judgement and have sent this corrected article to the same folks that I sent the others to. I hope this has not caused you any problems and I will try to be more thorough in the future. And that’s my opinion, Don