I think it is absolutely fact that there is a quality difference between american cars and japanese or european cars. I'm pretty sure that this could be backed up mathematically/statistically based on expected life and miles out of vehicles.

Blaming the state of affairs of today in the US automotive industry on any number of factors, however I believe is nothing but a matter of opinion. Certainly there are a number of contributors and many things can be blamed. But how much effect did each factor have, and how do you know?

That's eventually where all of these discussions go. They start with facts, and then pretty soon opinion creeps into it and we wind up with people from both sides pointing fingers and assigning blame. Bor-ing!

My second point:
Bandit... it isn't YOUR government. It's OUR government. Sometimes you will find yourself in the minority and will have to live with what the majority wants. That's the way it is designed. It you don't like it, become more active in your government. Call your Senators and Representative.

And you already have had the scenario you just described happen during the Financial and Insurance bail outs. Furthermore, there are relatively no restrictions put on what can be done with that money, and it is already being used for purposes other than what was originally proposed.


I don't support the idea of bailouts... as it contradicts the theory of our entire economic theory: survival of the fittest. Bailout to me is the same as debt socialism. Bailout means privatize the profits, socialize the losses.

But I think it is just plain silly to support a bailout of financial and insurance companies but not of other companies. What is the essential difference?

Personally, I think that America has become too much credit dependent. Not only will people go out and buy things they can't afford on credit, but businesses are depending on credit just to pay their employees from week to week! Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that to run a business you must incur *some* debt. Just like when you buy a house you incur some debt. But I don't think that it's a great idea to incur *more* debt just to pay your mortgage and then hope that you can make enough money down the road to cover both expenses. This, to me, is essentially what borrowing money to pay employees is doing as well.

Well, eventually we reached a tipping point. The lending stream is much like lake with several rivers running out of it. The rivers are "borrowing" water from the lake and then returning it downstream. Well, we reached the point where there are too many rivers that don't even get back around to refill the lake, and as a result the lake dried up!!

I think we need a serious recession to put people back into a save first mindset. It's ok to incur a little bit of debt, but we a lot of us got wayyy over our heads. Personally I didn't, and it would stink to have to suffer the consequences of other peoples actions... but I think in the end it would be better for us all.