Rescuing the Big Three Is a Necessary Evil

Wow! Was I wrong last week when I wrote that stocks weren't going to go to zero? After the battering they've taken this week, you have to wonder. Seven or eight more pairs of big down days like Wednesday and Thursday, and we will, in fact, be at zero.

Obviously that's not going to happen. But when you're in the midst of it, you have to wonder what's going to stop it.

Congress certainly isn't. With the world heading into a severe recession, you'd think it would be a no-brainer to give the Big Three auto makers early access to $25 billion in aid they've already been promised, to help them through an intense cash-flow squeeze that threatens their very viability. I'm a conservative, and I hate the idea of bailouts. But it's clear even to me that this is something we should be doing under the circumstances, especially considering it's money that's already been committed anyway.

But, no. The leaders of Congress say that money is to help Detroit meet "green" goals of higher fuel efficiency, not to help their short-term finances. OK, but if these companies go out of business next month, they're not going to be around to save the planet, now are they? What was the expression in the 1950s: "Better dead than red." For Detroit in 2008 I say, "Better alive than green."

The prospect that one or all of these companies will go out of business has terrified markets, because that would make the recession we're in a lot worse. That's not certain, but it would surely entail a lot of risk, and it would impose a lot of changes on a lot of people. Wait, I thought everyone voted for "change" on Election Day. I guess "change" doesn't apply to Detroit -- or especially not unionized Detroit auto workers.

Change is inevitable. It's a question of how, when and who gets hurt. But with the Big Three's obsolete plants and equipment and their uncompetitive union contracts, some kind of radical restricting or downright failure is unavoidable.

It doesn't seem like it today, when markets are so sensitized to risk of any kind, but the loss of one or all of the Big Three wouldn't be the end of the world, especially if it was handled right.

One solution would be for all three to merge. They'd save a lot of money that they now spend simply on competing with each other, and no doubt they could do away with many costly but redundant functions. Is that anticompetitive? I suppose, but it's not like there aren't other companies that make cars. In fact, it's precisely because there are so many other companies that make cars that the Big Three are in so much trouble.

Or how about if one of the big Japanese auto companies took over one or all of the Big Three? That would be even better. You'd get all the efficiencies of them merging with themselves, plus you'd get Japanese management expertise. And management expertise is something, apparently, that is quite scarce in Detroit. The Big Three might even learn how to make a profit on fuel-efficient cars.

Sadly, when I say "efficiencies" and talk about "saving money," what I really mean is cutting unnecessary jobs, and adjusting unrealistic union wage rates and benefit plans down to the levels found in the American plants of Japanese auto companies. That's going to involve some pain, and the people in pain are very politically influential via their unions.

But some form of that is inevitable, if these companies are going to have a chance. Without it, all those union employees will lose their high wages and fat benefits the hard way -- with outright unemployment when their companies go bust.

How bad would it be for the overall economy if those companies really did go bust? The Big Three make quite a threat of it. In Congressional testimony this week -- begging , actually -- we heard over and over from Detroit execs that the Big Three are responsible directly and indirectly for 2.6 million American jobs. But it's not as though every one of those jobs would go away just because the Big Three did.

Right now the Big Three have about a 46% market share in domestic auto sales. If they suddenly went out of business, someone would have to take up the slack. Someone would have to make those cars -- and supply the parts, and sell them, and repair them, and everything else that goes into it. Yes, without the Big Three some of that would start happening overseas. But a lot would take place right in the USA, where many foreign auto companies already have a significant manufacturing presence.

And in the end, we don't really have a choice about it. We could declare that as a matter of national policy we wanted to preserve every one of those jobs, and on exactly the terms they enjoy today. But those terms are uncompetitive, so that means that every few years the Big Three will just have to get bailed out all over again. The money to do that will come from taxpayers, sucking their wealth away from productive purposes and transferring it to the mission of preserving the Big Three just as they are today.

How many jobs are being destroyed by that foolish inefficiency?

But all that is beside the point. Right here, right now, with stocks as of Thursday having turned in the fourth worst bear-market performance this century, there's no time for philosophizing. We need to write a check and keep these companies on life support for a while. Ideally, we can wait for the economy to recover, and then talk about a long-term solution.

But it seems we have the worst of all worlds just now. We're not taking the simple steps that would keep these companies afloat long enough to get through this recession, and help calm widespread investor panic. And nobody in Congress -- at least nobody with any power to do anything about it -- is talking about long-term solutions.

I hear a lot about how important it is for the Big Three to go "green." I hear a lot about how union entitlements can't be touched. I hear a lot about "corporate greed." But I hear nothing about how we're going to get through the next couple of months, or how these companies can be restructured to be competitive again in the future.

No wonder the stock market is crashing. Between the idiots in business and the idiots in government, we've gotten ourselves into a fine mess. The idiots say they're going to try to work it out again in December. I can hardly wait. I just hope stocks don't really go to zero in the meantime.

Remember one thing, though. If stocks do go to zero, be sure to buy them.