I generally do not have too much in this blog that may be viewed as “political” however, I read a blog post that I thought was particularly provoking and feel compelled to spread the word…… In the “edge blog” (a blog about business and technical issues critical to manufacturers) the author Jeff Moad, an editor at Managing Automation, makes a point in “GM: Why the Double Standard” that I must agree with “While many of GM’s problems have been self-inflicted, its current crisis has been caused, in large part, by the recession brought on by the misbehavior of banks and other financial institutions. There’s no reason why a restructured, properly capitalized GM can’t compete with other automotive manufacturers from around the world when the recession ends and demand for cars rebounds. GM may very well need to declare bankruptcy in order to finally get its house in order. But simply giving up on GM — and, by extensions, thousands of suppliers that do business with the company — would be a big mistake.”
We need manufacturing in this country for many reasons. GM “needs work” may be a real understatement, but why destroy them while the firms (and the government that made the rules that allowed, and even encouraged the insane practices that caused our current sitaution) as well as the people that caused this situation seem to be getting “bailed out”. While I do not favor a “bank-like” bailout of GM; it seems a particularly bad idea to have government telling manufacturers how to run their business when they really do not know what they are doing. Hey, how about “Lean Government”, how’s that for a concept? GM may need to go through bankruptcy to get through this, but let’s not let government run or direct yet another sector of the economy they know nothing about.
What do you think?
