After days of fussing, fighting and fretting, the Senate has failed to pass the BailOut for at least GM and Chrysler (Ford says it is fine for now) and, echoing the famous headline when President Gerald Ford told NYC it would get no BailOut ("Ford to NYC: Drop Dead"), they may have condemned us to an even worse economy – right in time for Christmas.
As I write, the stock market is about to open – bang – down 213 points on opening on lousy futures and bad Asian results last night. The Bush Administration is making noises about finding some TARP money for the AutoMakers, but, that may not save this Friday’s market, which may be headed for even more trouble.
Did the Senators who opposed this do so to favor their foreign AutoMakers resident in their Southern states, who are not exactly CarpetBaggers, having been there already some 20 years. When does a foreign AutoMaker become a US AutoMaker? Can they apply for a Green Card?
And now the dire bankruptcy talk begins – what will happen to all those GM car, SUV and truck warranties? What will be the ripple effect on job losses throughout the economy?
Or, is this another Cry Wolf exercise like the one that Paulson and Bernanke used back in September to pick up that nifty $700 or $750 Billion BailOut because, without it, the sky would fall? Will the AutoMakers survive when they take them off life support? Can they breathe without the machines?
Now it’s only down 122 points – maybe we are not going to have a day of huge losses? Maybe Wall Street really doesn’t care?
As the NYT Editorial says, ‘What is Plan B?’ As we all sit here and wonder what will become of California’s multi-Billion dollar shortfall and our imminent running out of money, say next February, are we also watching the death throes of at least two of the US AutoMakers? Or is there still time to find them some money?
Note carefully that none of the financial titans, the Buffetts, the Soroses, the Kerkorians, have jumped in to help the US AutoMakers – Kirkorian even sold his Ford stock some time ago after holding a large position for a while. Ford traded for a little over three ITunes songs per share yesterday by the way. If there was money to be made, those Old Boys and lots of others, who can smell the greenbacks miles away, would be circling and howling like the coyotes up on my hill on the night the trash barrels go out.
Still no talk of the Fed just buying the US AutoMakers and running them as part of their growing portfolio – aside from being real-live Socialism – nobody seems to want to touch these Pariahs of the financial world right now.
As we are deluged with holiday sales, Christmas lights, and all the sometimes forced good cheer, the ones who I really feel sorry for are the people who are employed by the Clowns who run these US Auto Makers. They are in line for one lousy year-end Holiday season.