Big Three, Big Boi too big to fail

‘ ‘ ‘ I am glad this economic crisis has finally exposed one of the contradictions of our… ‘ ‘ ‘ I am glad this economic crisis has finally exposed one of the contradictions of our economy: that profitable companies continue unharmed and only companies that are losing money go bankrupt.’ If we ran our schools like we run our economy, probably less than half the kids would read at grade level. ‘ ‘ ‘ When a company does poorly for a long time, then it obviously needs money. But greedy bankers refuse to lend to companies that have been bleeding money, because they’re afraid the companies will go bankrupt ‘mdash; a self-fulfilling prophecy. ‘ ‘ ‘ Banks are like blood banks that will only give you blood if they see you walking around on the street, totally not bleeding at all, maybe even on your way to donate some blood yourself. But if they see you in the emergency room with an arrow in your neck, they’re like, ‘Ummm… I dunno, man.’ How messed up is that? ‘ ‘ ‘ Blood banks are perfect analogies for banks, especially now that they are always asking for emergency transfusions. ‘ ‘ ‘ Banks aren’t the only ones on life support, though. The Big Three are in dire straits. It’s like they’ve all got arrows in their necks from unlikely accidents sustained while shooting apples off their Adam’s apples. Meanwhile, banks and investors are giving them the proverbial empty IV bag. ‘ ‘ ‘ But the Big Three are too big to fail: ‘big’ is in their name. Big Boi is also too big to fail. Everyday Americans had been calling Chrysler, Ford and General Motors ‘The Big Three’ for years before the phrase ‘too big to fail,’ was born. And even if someone had never heard of The Big Three, if you said it, he or she would assume you were talking about Chrysler, Ford and General Motors. ‘ ‘ ‘ The Big Three are so important that I don’t know why consumers don’t buy more of their cars. A company’s importance is more than the extent to which consumers choose its products over competitors’. It’s the fantastic pride we feel every rush hour when we see the highway chock full of big, thundering, hungry American cars, idling like sleeping dinosaurs, spewing their mighty breath into the atmosphere. ‘Rooooar!’ they seem to say. Or ‘caaaaar!’ ‘ ‘ ‘ Soon, our mighty vehicles will fade as the real dinosaurs did, dragging their tails into the sunset forever. Then we’ll just have little Toyotas scurrying close to the ground like early mammals. And what did mammals ever accomplish? They just took advantage of how, after the asteroid, there wasn’t enough energy for the dinosaurs. ‘ ‘ ‘ Why are we, as a country, on the hook? First, the Treasury made huge mistakes in our financial bailouts. So for fairness’ sake, we owe other sectors an equal shake at the types of mistakes we made. Anyway, now that we’ve wasted more than $100 billion on AIG, there is much more leftover for The Big Three than if we hadn’t. ‘ ‘ ‘ Second, all the pundits hit the nail on the head in pointing out that we, as a country, dropped the ball when we didn’t require The Big Three to build fuel-efficient cars. It’s our fault. How are they supposed to know what cars we want to buy, unless we pass laws telling them to design those cars? It’s like the law that told Apple to make the iPod. That’s why marketing majors watch C-Span so much. ‘ ‘ ‘ One thing you’ll see on C-Span is a battle for American values ‘mdash; the bailout debate, raging like the Civil War and just as important. ‘ ‘ ‘ True to his namesake, Sen. Dick Shelby of Alabama is opposing the bailout: ‘They’re not building the right product,’ he said. ‘They’re a dinosaur in a sense.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ True to his namesake as well, Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts is using his imagination to rescue our dinosaurs. He’s got a plan to grant loans to auto makers if they can make a plan for long-term profitability. Congressmen are highly trained at evaluating plans for long-term profitability. In fact, Frank has a fortune teller’s track record for responsible lending ‘mdash; here he is opposing scrutiny of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2003: ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially … And even if there were a problem, the Federal Government doesn’t bail them out.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ Shelby is from Alabama, which is where a lot of foreign cars are made ‘mdash; Honda, Toyota, Hyundai and Mercedes-Benz ‘mdash; and which tried to be a foreign country not long ago. In his thick foreign accent, Shelby claims, ‘Companies fail every day and others take their place.’ Well, not in America they don’t! ‘ ‘ ‘ What Shelby doesn’t tell you is that the Alabama auto workers aren’t unionized and thus live on the edge of deprivation. Shelby would probably like us to go back to the glory days of the antebellum South, with everybody working out in the sun-baked fields, making cars and singing. ‘ ‘ ‘ Well, allow me to sing a different tune ‘mdash; ‘Like a Rock’ by Bob Seger. Because if we don’t bail out ‘The Big Three,’ that is exactly how this country will sink. E-mail Lewis at ljl10@pitt.edu.