The American automotive CEOs flew to Washington last week. After stepping out of their individual corporate jets, to everyone's disgust they went before Congress with hats in hand to beg for money.
I thought of the American car makers that have gone out of business in my lifetime. Just off the top of my head I can think of Studebaker, Packard, American Motors, Hudson...if I took the time to do a little research I'd probably come up with more that I've forgotten.
With all due respect to the working folks who earn their livings from GM, Ford and Chrysler, your companies have been mismanaged and their priorities gone askew. I hope that some help will come your way, but to ask me--who already pours more than enough of my income into your products--to contribute through taxes, well, gee, I gave at the office.
Anyway, looking at this beautiful car, in an ad in the July 7, 1947 Life Magazine, makes me wonder exactly what sort of thing happened to Studebaker that made it stop production in the U.S. in 1966. Studebakers were kind of a joke when I grew up in the 1950s and '60s; their cars were ugly to us, but now seem pretty in a designer way. Maybe they were just ahead of their time. The point is that as painful as it was I don't remember anyone asking the government for money to bail them out. Nor do I remember any other car companies doing the same. For all of our lives, as far back as we can remember, when a business succeeds it does it on its own, but there are lots and lots of reasons for failure, and no one cries to the government to extract them from the mess of their own making.
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