Car Companies

OK, I'm going to say something about the car company bailouts.

First, I'm disgusted with the car companies in general. Probably with most publicly traded companies, in fact. No one seems to look at the long term. If the Big 3 AND the unions had looked ahead, they may have realized that sooner or later we need to develop alternate fuel vehicles, concentrate on economy, and maybe not commit to continuing to pay people from current revenue streams long after they're retired and not contributing anything to the company any more.

Now, with so much debt that it can never be serviced, they're asking for $34 billion worth of LOANS (more debt) to get them out of the current situation. How exactly is that going to help in the long term? My opinion is that it won't. It'll just prolong the problems for a while.

We have some pretty good bankruptcy laws in this country that would allow GM to restructure, get rid of a lot of debt, etc. Would it hurt? Sure. The shareholders would lose all their money. But they've lost most of it already, so that's just going to finish it off.

Meanwhile, our governor is busy lobbying for the bailout. Of course she is. She's governor of a state that hosts the automotive industry. She keeps asking who would buy a car from a company that's in bankruptcy? Remember United Airlines? Who would fly on an airline that's going bankrupt? Silly question, right? United went through the process, the shareholders got wiped out, but the company is still in business and moving in good directions.

I expect the Congress will bail out the car companies. Oh well. I hope it works if they do.

Meanwhile, let me talk about something cool the car companies do. They all have agreed on how far apart to space the holes so that we can screw our license plates to them. Then all the states agreed to make license plates with holes the same corresponding distance. Pretty good, eh? The whole freakin' country agrees on something. How often does that happen?

Imagine a state like Wyoming deciding to make their license plates with holes a different distance apart. That could be an effective way to keep people from moving there.