Since taking office, President Obama has said some good stuff. He's got some serious issues to deal with like the Economy for one. Since I'm not an economist, I really can't say much about what I think the right thing to do is. He and his advisors recommend spending lot's of $ on bailouts. I just hope that the corrupt CEO's don't take all that money and run.
Here in Canada and in particular in Ontario where a big chunk of our economy relates to the shaky auto industry, our Premier also wants to hand over lots of dough to the big US car makers.
Personally I recommend offering to remove sales taxes (here in Ontario how about removing the provincial sales tax and/or federal tax) when citizens wish to buy these cars. By giving these pathetic companies that still can't make a good car after all these years, more money to squander, they'll just make more cars that are going to sit on dealer lots. We're in a recession remember? People aren't going to magically start buying these cars, are they?
I know I wouldn't. But if I needed a new car and was able to save say 10% on sales taxes on a $30,000 GM car, then maybe I would. The best part is that we wouldn't simply be throwing money at them. The more cars they sell (and that is the point isn't it?), the more money they make, the less money we'll have to give them and the more people will be employed.
I'm tired of bailouts. All I know is that if any one of us small to medium size businesses finds itself in financial hardship, no one is going to bail us out. But when Ford loses money all they have to do is threaten to close a plant somewhere and the government rushes to the aid in order to prevent massive job losses. With all the money that we've given to these companies we could have instead let them close and use the bailout money to help feed the employees for years.
A big part of the problem has been UNIONS. Once upon a time they served a purpose. But that purpose has been hijacked by ruthless, money grubbing thugs who no longer serve the real needs of the employee but instead are self serving. The unions in the end actually harm legitimate, hard working employees of these large companies by pushing for unrealistic benefits whereby the cost to stay in business by the employers becomes increasingly high. Eventually they can't compete in the world markets and end up closing. As long as we let unions run the show, those companies will suffer.
I hope our world leaders like Obama realize that bailouts alone are not the answer. Can you imagine how much it will cost just to monitor how those companies that get bailout money, spend it? If he truly is for the little guy, he needs to push the unions out the door.
In Ontario and elsewhere in the world various unions are busy doing what I'm doing. Commenting on world issues. Instead they should focus on doing they're job. We had a 4 month strike at York University in Toronto. But what was the president of the union here doing (Sid Ryan)? He was busy condemning Israel for the war in Gaza. While students in Toronto were dying to get back to school, while professors and other staff were trying to go to work and feed their families, their Union president Sid was pushing to continue the strike (what does he care, he still gets paid) and organizing Israel Apartheid rally's.
Employees that work at organizations with unions need to get more involved with them and to insure that their union leadership is apolitical and focus on the job at hand. For that matter, maybe they should vote them out and like ING says: Save Your Money.
