May 15, 2009
"Auto bailout is wrong"

As someone who was employed on automobile-showroom floors for 13 years and got out, I know a little about pushing iron. And I think the auto bailout is wrong. If you drop the price of a car enough, eventually it sells. I remember having an AMC Pacer on a showroom floor that had a two-year anniversary. It sold, of course, but only because the dealer finally got so disgusted that he lowered the price enough and gave salespeople sufficient incentive.

The current proposal to give customers a $4,500 allowance for their scrap heap would have the same result at taxpayers’ expense. What is being ignored is good old-fashioned supply and demand. And if a company goes bankrupt, then just maybe they are making the wrong product for the wrong person, in the wrong country at the wrong price.