President Barack Obama today told workers at a South Side Ford plant that his bailout push helped save an “industry on the brink.” More ยป
“I put my faith in the American worker,” Obama told a throng near the plant’s assembly line. “All three automakers are now operating at a profit. That’s the first time it’s happened in six years.”
Obama also announced a $250 million import-export loan guarantee for Ford, which he said will help the company export hundreds of thousands of vehicles.
His “plan” did what? Besides interfere with legal business practices and commercial law, it perpetuated production overcapacity, a high cost base, meddled with much needed dealer consolidation, propped up uncompetitive labor monopolies and saddled the US taxpayers with massive debt. The new models he touts were in fact already well into the validation phase when government motors took over so forget claims about “industry renaissance”. Rationalization of the Big 3 domestics would have been messy and disruptive but by no means any more “catastrophic” than bankruptcy was for various airlines or any number of enterprises. The real irony here is that Ford took no Obama money and instead turned itself around on it’s own just fine. Call the “plan” social engineering but please spare us the chest thumping.