We are to blame

he main purpose of chapter 11 bankruptcies is to renegotiate contracts, refinance debts, and to restructure and downsize a company. The UAW has been forcing the hand of the Big 3 by threatening strikes. The UAW only adds another business to the equation and contracts out its employees. I put the blame of the failure of the Big 3 squarely on the shoulders of the US government and the American consumers. The EU has kept prices artrificially high by imposing a severe gas tax. To the princely sum of nearly $10 a gallon. The result? Small vehicles, with small engines, with small emissions exhaust but very high mileage. Because of the lack of an American gas tax that is equally as high, we (American consumers) have craved and demanded big vehicles, with big dirty engines, that you must refill twice on the way to work. Americans like power. Americans like comfort. Americans like security and peace of mind. But at what cost. Money is the ultimate incentive. It can make devout husbands cheat on their wives. Tight-wallet families splurge on unnecessities. Until we are tired of paying high gas bills, we will NEVER compromise luxury for cost.

The Big 3 must pay for their lack of insight and intuition to move towards smaller vehicles. Nevertheless, they are only meeting the high demands of us the American public. We got them into this mess, and we must pay to pull them out. Or to let them drown in their sea of debts. We cannot blame big oil, the big 3 or the big Fed. They are only doing what we demand of them. Why is it that we attack Big Oil for making money? For doing everything they can to make a profit. They hold no guns to our collective heads. In fact it is we that hold the symbolic gun, demanding that they do as we say even if it runs them into the ground.