I’ve been reading today news stories about the big three US car companies being potentially days from bankrupcy after the US government refused to sanction a bail out. It is interesting to note that like the banks, the huge profits gleefully announced in previous years have conveniently disappeared. I mean, where did all that profit money go? Lining the pockets of the rich few perhaps? And now they want the hard pressed and often low income taxpayer to bail out their extravegant lifestyles? Give me a break.

It really sums it up that the cheif people from these firms arrived in Washington on large company jets to beg for cash handouts. If they had come economy on a scheduled flight I might have had more time for them (as I suspect politicians might have too). But they did the equivelent of pulling up at the Salvation Army soup kitchen in a 58-plate Rolls Royce asking for free meals because they were strapped for cash.

It is said that so many jobs rely on the car giants that if they go bust so millions will be put out of work. However to me the sums do not add up. This assumes that the World stops buying cars because GM (Vauxhall in the UK and Opel in Europe), Chryslar (Who knows who they are in Europe) and Ford go bust. I can really see the world walking instead. Not. Market forces will ensure that some-one will still make cars. After all, the western world is determined to sit in traffic chaos rather than catch the train.

I think there is a lot of scaremongering going on. I also suspect that politicians are going to call the car companies’ bluff and say: “Well go bust then”. I don’t think they actually can shut down and disappear at all. Administrators would carve up the business, and better management teams and owners would move in and new cars will continue to be made because there will always be a demand for them. It will just be a case of being ‘under new management’. Well, about time. If only the incompitant and greedy elite who have shafted the world economy could be shut out so easily.