Federal Government to Loan Automakers $17.4B
The $17.4 billion in low-interest loans will be drawn from the $700 billion Wall Street rescue fund but it will be called back if the companies are not viable by March 31.
FOX News
The federal government will help Detroit’s ailing automakers survive at least another few months by offering $17.4 billion in rescue loans in exchange for concessions from carmakers and their workers.
The government will have the option of becoming a stockholder in the companies, much as it has with major banks, in effect partially nationalizing the industry.
At the same time, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Congress should release the last half of the $700 billion from the Wall Street rescue fund that it approved in October to bail out huge financial institutions.
Tapping the fund for the auto industry essentially exhausts the first $350 billion of the fund, he said.
President Bush said Friday that a bankruptcy was unlikely to work for the auto industry at this time because it would deal “an unacceptably painful blow to hardworking Americans” across the economy.
Automakers will get $13.4 billion of the money this month and the next, $9.4 billion for General Motors Corp. and $4 billion for Chrysler LLC. An additional $4 billion will be made available to the companies later. Ford Motor Co. has said it does not need immediate help.
Bush said the loans will be called back if the companies are not viable by March 31.
“The time to make hard decisions to become viable is now, or the only option will be bankruptcy,” Bush said. “The automakers and unions must understand what is at stake and make hard decisions necessary to reform.”
, “I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.” said Bush.
Bush’s plan is designed to keep the auto industry running in the short term, passing the longer-range problem on to the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama.
Wild Thing’s comment…….
The saying goes……..“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. “
I think we have arrived at the gate and the gates are open wide.
“I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.”
The government cannot save the economy. The government doesn’t know how. Taking over industries, or guiding the business community according to an overall “recovery” plan is nothing but socialism and socialism doesn’t work.
President Bush excuses himself by saying, “I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.” Oh ye of little faith! The free market doesn’t need you to save it! Even if it happens to collapse, it will recover if you leave it alone. The habit of government expansion and intervention has now reached this final absurdity – that of being “saved” by those who are choking the life out of it.
We can thank King Jorge for this one!!!
LMAO, “Bush said the loans will be called back if the companies are not viable by March 31.”
I said yesterday that this was a grant not a loan, anyone believe otherwise?
At least those little guys in India will get their Ford and GM engine, parts and small car plants now. For a moment I thought they might go under. Thank you Jorge, oh benevolent one!!!
When can we demand that the government stop giving out money like candy? We can’t. This is ridiculous. If they want to hand out candy, let them give it to those of us who are really struggling to make ends meet, those of us honest citizens who, due to no fault of our own, fell on hard times and now have no ladder to get up out of the hole we fell into. That’s who the government should be helping–not those who fail to do better, but those who really tried and got everything yanked away each time they reached the brass ring and were sent tumbling into the abyss again–like they need to suffer over and over again, like Job.
Let the automakers file bankruptcy, like the airlines had to do. Start over. And the way my brother who works for GM acted the other day, maybe bankruptcy would be better. He’s starting to get that Detroit bad attitude and told me to (bleep) off and leave him alone.
Absolutely the wrong thing to do. Sadly, part of George W Bush’s legacy will be the nationalization of banking and the auto industry and a growth of national debt that reaches unfathomable proportions. What we need right now is a lifting of the corporate tax, not the giveaway of people’s income taxes.
These bailouts also open the door for Obama’s socialistic policies. Obama will be able to refer to Bush’s policies as the cause of the reccession and the need(excuse) to nationalize the American economy.
I totally disagree with George Bush’s short term bailout of the UAW (that’s what this is all about) that will do nothing to improve the Detroit auto industry’s failed and functionally bankrupt companies. However, he did make a decision and takes full responsibility for it. This skillfully just punts the ball into Obama’s court after he becomes President. Obama will then have to make a decision on what to do next and take responsibility for it. No more campaign rhetoric of ‘It’s George Bush’s fault’ and ‘I didn’t know how bad the problem was”. After January 20th, it will be the Obama economy and all the criticism justifyably gets directed at him whether he likes it or not.
Let’s see how much more money that Obama will print to save the UAW and repay them and other unions for the support that they gave in getting him elected President. Americans will continue to need new cars because they can afford them or to replace vehicles no longer running or worth repairing. The question is whether they will buy them from US workers in auto companies from the South or US workers from reorganized and competitive auto companies in Detroit. Either way, the cars will be from US workers.
President Bush excuses himself by saying, “I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.” Oh ye of little faith! The free market doesn’t need you to save it! Even if it happens to collapse, it will recover if you leave it alone. The habit of government expansion and intervention has now reached this final absurdity – that of being “saved” by those who are choking the life out of it.
The government causes the problems. They then ask you to fix it but refuses any way to do so and then makes their own way that only makes it worse.