My Thought and Opinions!
The automotive news stories are flying fast and furious, whether its auto manufacturer news, auto retailing news, auto dealership news, auto consumer news, auto financing news, how gas prices are effecting the sale of trucks, hybrid electric vehicle news and the list goes on and on.
But this financial crisis is gripping everyone in this great nation of ours. I cannot remember a point in history where so much is riding on our U.S. Treasury Department to get this credit crisis right, but my gut is telling me its going to get it wrong and someone else down the line of elected officials will have to get it right or the market will make the adjustments after a slow painful period of time. I hope I am wrong.
I have watched the national media outlets and the Internet to try and discern what is going on and I have reached the conclusion that our Government has not figured out that business is the driving force of America and the millions of wage earners who work for those businesses.
When I see our U.S. Government bailing out the financial markets who have fleeced its shareholders and now the taxpayers because they have duped everyone into believing that there balance sheets were fine by packaging bad loans (not just mortgages) into AAA rated securities that our U.S. Government had lax regulations over, it makes no sense to me without providing incentives for businesses whose life's blood is having access to credit to purchase goods, inventories, provide credit for there customers and it goes on. As these lenders who have been bailed out and who did not practice good lending policies are now not lending to credit worthy businesses and ordinary citizens is nothing short of preposterous. And for our government to think that by not enforcing a more stringent requirement for these lenders to make loans to those credit worthy businesses is tragic not only for the business but for there employees who are the very men and women who will be bailing out these financial institutions with there tax payments.
Who is running this mess, it appears that our government has had to hire the same Wall Street financiers who created the mess, because they are the only ones who understand it. Wouldn't it have made since for the Treasury Department at some point in time check out those securities and balance sheets more thoroughly particularly with all the newly developed security instruments that these large finance, insurance and banking institutions were putting on there books in recent years at an alarming rate.
With the auto industry not set to recover any time soon , even with gas at less than $70.00 a barrel today, some additional stimulus is needed to assist those who will be bailing these large banking institutions out. I read a commentary recently on a another auto industry news site and a regular citizen stated why not restore the IRS auto loan interest deduction to ease some pain for consumers. Or look into tax relief for those purchasing a new vehicle over the next year, there are probably many more ideas that have a legitimate shot at stimulating things but nothing will move until the financial markets loan to Mr. and Mrs. Business Owner and Mr. and Mrs. Customer who have paid there bills on time and are now cut out of the financial marketplace.
Hears a thought why not take action with our money by taking a hard look at Wall Street and its practices of shorting stocks (manipulating) and outlandish cash incentives paid to executives and staff who are playing with other peoples money. Particularly now when we know that those incentives were paid with a padded balance sheet and negative profitability.
Now understand that I am all for people making money and lot's of it, I have no problem with healthy profits and folks earning high wages, I have a problem with the inflated, fraudulent practice of paying and rewarding businesses, financial institutions and individuals on a fictitious financial statement.
Until small business owners and the citizens of this great country demand accountability from our regulatory agencies, our elected officials and of themselves (greed is alive and well) we will be forced to relive this painful episode again, WAKE UP AMERICA! GET INVOLVED!
Enjoy Today!
That Car Guy
Check out this link from Newsweek:
Hirsh: Make Big Banks Pay for Financial Crash Newsweek Voices - Michael Hirsh Newsweek.com
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