-By John Armor
As I write this on Thursday, December 4, I’m watching the Big Three auto presidents talking to the Senate Banking Committee, chaired by Chris Dodd, Democrat from Connecticut. In the interests of accuracy, GM, Ford and Chrysler should instead be called the pathetic two and a half.
Normally, the questions asked by Committee members at these hearings are as self-serving and vacuous as the prepared remarks of the high-level witnesses. Today was an exception. Chairman Dodd’s first question went right to the point.
“No matter what we do here, nothing happens until people go into dealerships and buy cars?” The auto presidents had to agree.
The Ranking Minority Member, Senator Shelby of Alabama, followed with an equally pointed question:
“If you made this presentation to a banker, it would be summarily rejected, wouldn’t it?” Again, the auto presidents had to agree that they had not supplied the detailed information that Chrysler had provided, before its successful bailout loan decades ago.
The people who are selling the idea of bailing out the (formerly) Big Three are referring to the $38 billion in taxpayer money as a “bridge loan.” Well, in the case of Chrysler, long ago, it was a bridge that went from near bankruptcy to profitability. What about the situation now?
The American auto companies are failing, fast. They are bleeding to death financially. All will be dead within a year without a transfusion from the taxpayers. But there are other auto manufacturers in the US who are succeeding. They have American factories, employ American workers, turn out Toyotas and other foreign cars, are succeeding in the market, and are making a profit with every vehicle sold. They have non-union employees. Detroit, on the other hand, is losing money with every vehicle sold, except for the heaviest of their vehicles, the ones with the steepest decline in sales.
As Lord Acton famously remarked, “You cannot cross a chasm in two small leaps.” Two experts who testified this morning, not employed by the auto industry, said a bailout to get these companies from imminent bankruptcy to producing cars that will sell, for a price that is profitable, will take upwards of $125 billion, if even that is enough.
Several of the questioners pointed out that the auto executives, and the President of the United Auto Workers, who is also involved, are using tentative verbs. In their testimony and their answers they are “thinking about” or “considering” various options that might lower the costs of production, or increase the market acceptability of their products.
None of the Senators who asked questions was quite this rude, but when your house is burning down, it is too late to “think about” getting a fire hose, or “consider” where to find a source of water. Several of the questioners did raise the point that the voluntary restructuring the witnesses repeatedly offered, would become mandatory if the companies went into bankruptcy.
And, all the blather about “no one would buy a car from a bankrupt company,” is said in utter ignorance of the recent history of the airline industry. Most major airlines have gone into bankruptcy, and most have then emerged from that status, leaner and more successful or paired with a successful airline. In the meantime, people trusted their lives to bankrupt airlines, doing what customers from time immemorial have done, looking for the best bargain to buy.
In short, the critical question about a bridge loan for the Big Three is, where is the other end of that bridge? Unlike Chrysler, long ago, this time there is no other end. Congress might as well go down the Potomac to the Atlantic shore, and say “Let’s build a bridge to Europe for $38 billion.”
The answer is quick and simple. You can’t get there from here. It would be a waste of money. For once, it seems like the Senators understand that.
Let’s review. A bridge has two ends, both of them on dry land. If it only has one end on dry land, it’s called a pier. It seems like, just maybe, Congress is not going to take a long walk on a short pier, this time.
Common sense just reared its ugly head in the halls of Congress. Who’d a-thunk it?
____________
John Armor is a graduate of Yale, and Maryland Law School, and has 33 years practice at law in the US Supreme Court. Mr. Armor has authored seven books and over 750 articles. Armor happily lives on a mountaintop in the Blue Ridge. He can be reached at: John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
Fair Use: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research, educational, or satirical purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site/blog for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.