Accountability Should be Escalated

There is much to think about. A market that begins capitulation, and rises almost 600 points in a day, after dropping 200, and the next day dropping 300 points, all in a 10 minute close sell off.

An economy in shatters. A government that has borrowed 700 billion from its citizens, and already changed the rules on where the money will go.

And on and on.

We are now a world led by fear, and the fear of money is affecting our psychological psyches. Smart citizens worldwide are fearful.

"Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp., burning through cash as sales slump, would cost the government as much as $200 billion should the biggest U.S. automaker be forced to liquidate, a forecasting firm estimated.

A GM collapse would mean ``more aid to specific states like Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana, and more money into unemployment and extended benefits,''Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts, said yesterday in an interview.

Behravesh's projection of $100 billion to $200 billion in costs dwarfs the $25 billion industry bailout plan that will be debated in Congress next week to prop up Detroit-based GM, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC. The drain on taxpayers from a rescue or a GM failure is a central issue for U.S. lawmakers."


Floyd-There is no choice here. If we let free enterprise reign each of our American car companies will bankrupt, sending ripples through the American economy we cannot imagine. Conservatives will argue that former tariffs or lack of tariffs allowed foreign cars to enter our mainstream; realists will compare a Toyota Camry Hybrid to a Chevy Tahoe, or better yet, the "I wanna be a soldier car", the Tahoe camouflaged as a a Hummer, to drive the city streets to buy bottled water, and we will know.

After Paulson is fired, in my dreams, each President and all senior executives of American car companies should be fired, and the executive level staffed with new faces. A true "board of directors" (what the U.S. is) would not allow the people that got us into this to remain. Accountability should be escalated.