Depends how you define benefit and how successful the risk is
mitigated.
Take the case of the Chrysler bailout. Thousands of jobs were saved,
and the loans were repaid with interest. No other company has tried to
go the same route in copycat manner. And the American people got the
minivan. Worked out pretty well.
The opposite case can be made for the Penn Central bailout. The company
went under and the gov and taxpyers got stuck with a big chunk of it,
which then morphed into ConnRail/Amtrak which is still struggling.
Though the airlines' troubles might be passenger rail's salvation.
For sure this country would be in BIG trouble w/o the airlines. Do
they HAVE to have the $$$ to survive in the longterm? My guess is no,
not in the absolute sense. The industry would contract, much pain
would be felt, but something else woud emerge from the ashes. Can the US
psych stand watching all the planes grounded (or even just one company's
planes)? Probably not a good idea to try that one. Large downside,
little upside.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Wildman jim@rossberry.com
On Tue, 25 Sep 2001, Steven Johnson wrote:
> I would like to take this opportunity to segue into something a little bit
> more current in the news. Namely, the government bailout of the airline
> industry to the tune of $25 billion. Essentially what the government has
> done has set aside the rules of the free enterprise system and socialized
> the airline industry. Actually, more specifically, they socialized the risk
> of the airline industry but privatized the profits - as far as I know, no
> CEO of any airline industry has agreed to cut their own salaries.
>
> Is socializing the risk despite the overall societal benefits a waste of
> taxpayers money? What are the benefits to the taxpayers?
>
> ----Original Message Follows----
> From: Bryan-TheBS-Smith <b.j.smith@ieee.org>
> Reply-To: slug-politics@nks.net
> To: slug-politics@nks.net
> Subject: Re: [SLUG-POL] And don't even get me started on the environment
> ...(forgot paragraph)
> Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 12:16:34 -0400
>
> Jim Wildman wrote:
> > I find the CA power situation instructive as to the working of
> > free markets....
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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>
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