No bailout for you

Today I’m introducing a new blog category: Simplistic solutions to complicated problems (SSCP), where I’ll propose my solutions to the big issues facing the world and then you all can tell me why they wouldn’t work or even better, what it would take to get it to work. I generally have only a superficial understanding of things so hopefully this won’t devolve into name-calling too quickly.

This whole auto industry bailout thing has been bugging me lately. Some up front disclaimers: First, I live in Hawaii – there are no automobile manufacturers here, except the guys that build drift cars in their garages. Second, I have never owned an American automobile – the ones that I have driven as rental cars convinces me that this is not likely to change anytime soon.

Accountability is a big thing to me – you make a mess, you fix it or suffer the consequences. (The shorter version of that is one of my mantras: “Plan ahead or suck it up”.) It seems to me that these companies screwed themselves up by designing and building vehicles that people don’t want. Even though gas prices have fallen, people have realized that rolling behemoths aren’t sustainable and are a bad idea in the long run.

For any other company, if you’re selling something no one wants to buy, you go out of business. Instead, the big three American auto makers are asking the government for $34 billion dollars to allow them to keep on doing what they’re doing, just for the sake of staying open. Even if they get the money, they still need to sell cars to make money to pay the loans back. Last time I checked, economy still sucks – who’s going to buy any cars, especially ones the public has already shown they don’t want?

I get that there are a lot of jobs on the line, but how is that different from everyone else’s risk when they choose a profession? Say you’re an accountant and your firm goes under – you find another job. Same thing if you’re a mechanic, or a pilot or whatever.

So anyway, my simplistic solution to rescuing auto companies is this: Instead of handing over money to the companies that have already demonstrated poor business sense, the government offers rebates to people that buy vehicles that meet some fuel efficiency standard from said automakers.

To put it in perspective: For $34,000,000,000.00, the government could rebate $20,000 per car for 1.7 million cars.

This would incentivize people to buy American cars, make purchases that they may have been putting off, as well as make more sustainable vehicle choices. While not getting free money, the auto companies in turn should see increased sales and have incentive to design and produce more fuel efficient vehicles.

Yes? No? (Putting on my asbestos suit…)