Governance readers: it is the duty of a governing board and top management to create a viable company and keep it viable. That means understanding the needs in society, and the wants of the people who buy things, and delivering what will sell.
The Honorable Allen Boyd, Congressman, 2nd District, Florida:
I appreciate how difficult it must be to vote against the bailout for automakers. It's a tough stance knowing that many consumers may be out of jobs if we don't help. Workers "vote," in a way, by where they choose to work. We would still have coal-driven locomotives if we allowed workers to demand their right to shovel coal into their boilers. The goal to protect jobs, companies and industries impedes progress.
In a free market economy, any company, no matter the size, needs to make it on its own. The answer is not the socialism that waits at the bottom of the slippery slope of government bailouts for corporations.
Ultimately, every business owes outcomes to societies (e.g. improved standards of living) that exceed the cost of the resources it takes from society (land, labor and capital).
It is apparent to me that the U.S. Consumer has voted against our existing auto industry in the most effective way they can, by buying someone else's products. Would you or I invest in a company that makes poor-quality goods? Why then, should the U.S. Government "invest" in our automakers through a bailout? You have answered "we should not." I agree.
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