It is easy to pick on the car companies. The truth is usually more complex, and harder to face.
The US auto industry has had its ups and downs. In the end it could have survived and thrived but for one simple fact: our health care system is broken, and its entrenched interests have been able to overwhelm any effort at reform.
We sacrificed the auto industry to health care.
As more baby boomers retire, however, health care costs will begin to really decimate pocket books, medicare ... and we may build enough resolve to inject some reasonableness into our insane system.
I've lived in several foreign countries and I will state a simple truth: US health care, as delivered, is, hands down, a grossly inferior product. It is garbage for Americans except for the perfectly healthy, or the extremely rich. Socialist policies have a place in a capitalist system, in fact makes a capitalist system stronger, more just, a better meritocracy. Even the doctors will say as much.
Beating up the auto companies misses the point. That said, there is no point saving them if we have no realistic prospect of reforming health care for the foreseeable future. Just gives you a sense for how f*cked up the US is, and how every f*ck up, in turn f*cks up another industry or sector. We've been in love with ourselves for too long. Time to clean up this mess.
Its too late for the autos though. We will need to build new companies from scratch. Better to let entrepreneurs buy the scraps of GM, F, and Chrysler out of bankruptcy.
