In an astonishing display of "not getting it", Chrysler has taken out a week of full-page ads in national newspapers to 'thank' America for investing in it via the $4bn it received in the bailout package to car manufacturers. In essence, what they're really saying is "screw you", because rather than spending the money on producing cars that work, are fuel efficient, and that people want to buy, they're frittering it away on full-page ads, shareholder dividends and CEO bonuses. The full-page ads alone cost at least $3.3M. Or put another way, it just cost 66 Chrysler employees their jobs.
I don't understand why the big three are being rewarded with my money for their abject failure. Let them fail. Let them go in to chapter 11 - at least that will force a restructuring. Simply giving them cash isn't going to solve anything. Sure Bush says it's a short-term loan which must be repaid, but you know a substantial amount of that money is going to be spent on very expensive laywers to explain why that money actually shouldn't be repaid.
