Friday, October 3, 2008

Meanwhile, A Lube Job

While attention was elsewhere, congress voted to give lend GM, Ford and Chrysler a $25B bailout all their own. I can remember a time not so long ago when that would have been considered real money. Critics protest: why should we prop up Detroit? What about Toyota and Honda, for instance: they produce in this country too, no?

But this misses the point. Toyota and Honda don’t need the money; they’ve been designing and building fuel-efficient vehicles for years. We should reward the Big 3 for binging on SUV’s and starving their research engineers.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Does such an action mean that the government is participating in a restraint of fair trade? Does a free market economy actually mean that a select group of market participants are free of rational constraints of the free market?

'Lube Job? I work in the trade and in the trade we have an expression to describe the action taking place as it applies to the individual who is bearing the brunt of the action. "Bend over and I'll drive you home." It's not polite, but to the point. A genuine 'lube job.