Michael John

The Truth About Bailouts

If I read his article correctly, Mr. Schriff advocates restructuring our economy by shrinking the service sector and expanding manufacturing "... to fill the void". Unfortunately, Mr. Schriff also suggests destroying one of the largest American manufacturing high tech centers, namely the American Automotive manufacturing complex, through denial of emergency bridge loan funding.

Rarely have I encountered such colossal and insanely stupid expressions of illogical reasoning from a professional columnist. Allowing the Big Three to fail would not expand the manufacturing base of this country "... to fill the void", either in the short term or the long term.
Mr. Schriff also suggests or reasons that granting emergency bridge loan aid to the American Automotive Companies would not be repaid and that this action would be akin to "throwing good money after bad". However, the only relevant historical precedent regarding Government back loans to an American Car Company proved otherwise when the Chrysler Corporation repaid their emergency Government loan (with interest) a few years after being granted such aid. History showed that the Chrysler Corporation went on to produce innovative products for the next twenty plus years while sustaining a local and national tax base in the process. History also proved Mr. Schriff's 1980 colleges were wrong in their arguments advocating a ban on government back loans to private companies and history stands a fairly good chance of proving Mr. Schriff's similar arguments equally wrong for this current crisis.

I wonder if Mr. Schriff ever heard of the expression "... throwing the baby out with the bath water". His arguments advocating loan denial to the American Automative companies would amount to doing exactly that.