The government tells us it needs to gives gobs of money (the technical term) to help Ford, GM, and Chrysler or else the sky will fall. Or something equally bad.
Let us compare Toyota and GM and see if all the car companies are struggling as much as the American companies.
Toyota sold 9.3 million cars worldwide last year. Just a few thousand short of GM, so essentially the same number. Toyota made about 17 billion dollars, where GM lost about 38 billion dollars.
Toyota has certain advantages that helped it make money, but GM has different benefits yet managed to lose the equivalent of 65% of Bill Gates fortune. That is a lot of money. And now the taxpayers are supposed to write a blank check for them as well as the banking and insurance companies.
On second thought, maybe it is not fair to compare the two companies.
Oh well, life isn't always fair, is it?
What industry do you think will be next to ask the gov't for a bail-out?
ReplyDeleteAirlines maybe? Fuel prices are helping them now, but if prices surge again they will be hurting even more.
ReplyDeleteDepending on how aggressive the new administration is going to be regarding green types of energy, the power companies may need money to meet the demands of the government. Lots of solar and wind generated electricity would need some subsidy to be affordable for Americans.