So now we’re considering a bailout of the automakers as well, which on the surface seems like a terrible ordeal.  I mean how much money do they need at this point in the game?  Of course this is coming from someone who didn’t feel that the banks should be bailed out either. But I’m not a politician or an economist, and aren’t sure what the real extent of the damage would be if they weren’t.  Also, I have to ask myself, “are you taking what works for yourself, from a self-righteous perspective, or what is truly good for the rest of the country”?

Yet it troubles me, and angers me, to consider a bailout of the automakers.  First off the banks have only gotten themselves into trouble as of recently, the automakers, on the other hand, have been producing garbage since the seventies.  The writing was on the wall then, and the Japanese were making better cars that got more mileage at that time. 

The automakers have pushed for legislation and reforms and all other manner of means by which to avoid any type of regulation, like the banks, for decades now.  The automakers were able to effectively prevent the government from putting any real regulation on gasoline efficiency, for example, but still failed miserably at the end of the day.  There was a time when the automakers had the cash to at least develop new technologies, but now if those technologies aren’t already in development chances are they would never get around to developing them.

I should buy shares of Ford for $1.91, just for symbolic reasons, as a true American.  Yet the automakers, again, allowed individuals doing the same job, repetitively, to be paid like $30 an hour some up to $100 an hour because of elaborate union contracts and agreements.  In no other industry, not even in construction, can you expect to make those types of wages without really banging your head up against the wall, just to do labor. I’m not saying that the labor was easy, I sure as hell could not work in an automobile factory, but it’s still labor nonetheless.

I can appreciate a construction worker making $30, even $50 an hour to improve infrastructure and build roads, office parks, hospitals, etc.  This is something I may have to use but an automobile, that is something I do not want to have that I would be a lot better off without.  It is a luxury, unless I live in an area that truly does not have public transportation.  But regardless of what I think of what they make, because quite honestly people are willing to pay for the automobiles and the money was there; it’s akin to complaining about what atheletes make when you pay hundreds, if not thousands, to show up for a Super Bowl or to watch games on TV.

Automakers went from paying really good money for people to not just live there, but to enter the middle class to hiring people on a temporary basis at like $7 an hour never to hire them on full time.  Get rid of them during the off season.  You would think that would have been enough for them to save money, yet it wasn’t.

The dispicable state they’re in now, even if they were to get rid of the unions and everyone was making like $10 an hour it woudn’t matter.  They have to switch things up a bit.  Not everyone wants a supercomputer in their car, create simpler vehicles that can get like 70 MPG for those who want it that don’t care about the latest technology, create those fuel wasting vehicles for those who are okay with like 12 MPG and something inbetween for the rest of us. 

I have tried to support our own though; hell automobiles are about the only thing remotely made in America that is left.  All manners of unusual problems I did not know that you could have with an automobile, like power steering going out, electrical problems, so on and so forth.  American automobiles will run forever if you have the money to throw into them, even Ford/Mercury.  But if you’re on a tight budget and just have enough to make the payments and skip on insurance to get by stay away from them at all costs. 

It really is the luck of the draw.  I know people still riding in Fords from like the mid nineties that never had any real trouble, and others that had problems as soon as they purchased the vehicle.  I had a car with a dead thermostat; car was always cold never would warm up, though it would drive it was just real shaky.  Was it a computer problem, or was the actual thermostat itself dead I’ll never know.  I eventually solved that problem only to have issues with my rack and pinion, which was more than the car was worth so I just kept a lot of power steering fluid around.

It’s no wonder that the automakers are in the shape they’re in.  Should we bail them out, well yes only so that like a million more Americans won’t be out of work.  But we won’t like it, and sure we’ll complain about that much be added to our tax burden until this mess gets resolved …