Ask The Conscience

Henry Ford, talking about the banking system, said on February 11, 1934:

“Let them fail; let everybody fail! I made my fortune when I had nothing to start with, by my own ideas and myself. Let other people do the same thing. If I lose everything in the collapse of our financial structure, I will start in at the beginning and build it up again.”

What a novel idea that Henry Ford had. I wonder if the Big 3 read this before they starting whining like spoiled brats. Some upper manager at Ford must have read the above quote in a Ford Company History Book and decided that it would be hypocritical to go against their founding father’s wishes. So, Ford says they can make it, as long as the other two get some assistance.

In exchange for accepting federal aid, the automakers would be required to submit to significant government oversight. A cabinet-level “Car Czar” appointed by the White House would oversee the companies’ recovery efforts, with veto rights over any transaction totaling $25 million or more.

The average Joe and Jane don’t have a bailout option coming in the foreseeable future. Hey – I could use about $500,000 and I’ll be fine – pay all my bills, grow my businesses, buy a new car and have some change left over. Wouldn’t a bail out of Jerome be paramount to stimulating the economy? I would think so. I would pay it back with interest and I will accept an oversight of a government task force. They can even veto any transaction over $50,000. (I know how to spend $49,999 x 10 very easily.)

I understand that by bailing out the Big 3, we are keeping people working a few days more so that they don’t become homeless, especially during the holidays – but really. How can the Big 3 even fix their faces to ask for a bail out, when they don’t have the infrastructure to restructure, realign their business models, and keep employees working?

I can tell you who else needs a bail out since we seem to be so free at giving them out these days. How about my mechanic Carlos? He’s a great guy, does a fine job fixing cars and is experiencing upper management depression. When I asked him if he was going to make his traditional Christmas pilgrimage to Mexico, he said, “No, not this year, I can’t afford it.” This is critical. Carlos has gone to Mexico for 2-3 weeks every year for the last 10 years. This is a travesty and we need to call an emergency session of the lame dick Congress to make sure that Carlos doesn’t suffer any more. Carlos went on to tell me that on top of having fewer clients, he is also dealing with increasing cost for material and parts, which mostly come from…yes, you guessed right, the Big 3!

Now back to my bail out. I really need one, since I was at Carlos’s garage in the first place because my fissure valve (little round thing that helps hold all the fluids in the engine in) was cracked and I need to have it replaced. I am not even sure how much it’s going to cost. Carlos is always been fair in his pricing, but I am not sure now because he might be thinking about that trip to Mexico.

Carlos went on to say.

“People use to come in for preventive maintenance, it’s now just more or less the emergency or required fixes.”

I sure wouldn’t have been there today if I could have figured out how to keep my coolant from running out of the engine the minute I put it in. I tried lame duck tape but it didn’t work. Where is my bail out? I looked around his lot, and there was room to park my car pretty much anywhere. Just 3 months ago, I would have had to squeeze by big 1989 Lincoln into a corner somewhere, but today, I could park wherever I pleased.

I would have thought that the car repair business was recession proof, but I can now see why it’s not. There are more people who are stretching out the oil change to 5,000 miles or not at all, or doing it themselves. New tires? People will probably wait until the ones they have just blow out. More people are holding on to their old cars. Mine is a beautifully running 1989 Lincoln that I call “Hombre”, that is a paint job away from being a new car. When gas prices where up to $5.00 a gallon, it required a lot of faith to take a 10 mile trip. Now with prices down to $1.80, I can feel a little bit more freedom to drive around.

The thing that strikes me the most about Carlos is that, unlike the Big 3 and Wall Street, he is not making me feel bad because he can’t take his trip to Mexico this Christmas. He is upbeat and positive. His customer service has always been very good and he stands behind his work – which is something that not many businesses do even in prosperous times. I must say that Ford did a pretty good job with my 1989 Lincoln and it runs very well, better than their current cars, which is part of the Big 3 problem.

If the Big 3 are getting a bail out, Carlos and I should get one too. Oh, hell, let’s just become socialist and bail out the whole country. Wouldn’t that be European of us?