A discussion of the problems of the auto industry is going to be inherently political.
I've heard some wise men say that government has no ability to solve problems, only to create them. The problem is that when times get tough, people would rather support politicians who promise the government will come in and solve all the problems rather than work hard themselves to make things better. Then as time goes on we end up experiencing the law of unintended consequences.
Some people were irresponsible with their finances, and made inadequate income to afford a house, politicians stepped in and said, hey, everyone should have a house, banks should lower their standards and lend to these people. How nice, at least it was, until years later we find out maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all.
Tech stocks rose until the bubble collapsed and we all cried as we watched billions in our wealth on paper disappear. Government lowered interest rates to try to stimulate the economy and make everyone happy. Then came 9-11 and the economy really appeared to be going downhill. So the government lowered rates even more to help stimulate the economy instead of letting us experience a recession. They kept these rates too low for too long and people took advantage of the low rates to buy big houses they really couldn't afford and run the prices up into a big housing bubble.
Which eventually burst as all bubbles do.
And now the world's economy is in the worst recession in decades after the house of cards fell down.
So I would argue the government and politics created this big problem by trying to solve a bunch of smaller problems when they should have let the markets and the people deal with the problems ourselves.
Which brings us back to the automakers. Theoretically, I would believe the government should butt out and let the automakers solve their own problems. Unfortunately, many of the automakers problems today were caused directly and indirectly by the government, so maybe it is the government's responsibility to help resolve the problems they created. After all it wasn't the automakers fault that the financial institutions collapsed, making it difficult or impossible for people to get the credit they needed to buy new cars, or for the automakers to get lines of credit to keep their businesses running.
What a mess, I don't know the answer, and I fear that no one knows the answer.
However, that saying about the government not being able to solve problems only create them seems to be true, and it is apparent that we Americans have spoken that we demand our government solve all the problems. That means we most likely will just end up with worse problems.
As I said before, I hate thinking about the future, and for the automakers in particular, it doesn't look good right now.
