Monday, March 30, 2009

Vroom Vroom vs. Scrilla Scrilla

There's a pretty straightforward reason why Obama is going socialist on the auto industry and not on the financial industry. Fixing the economy doesn't require more cars. It will require more loans. So he has a lot more leeway to be hard on the carmakers than the loanmakers.

3 comments:

Mary said...

Loans to buy what? Bought by whom?

Neil Sinhababu said...

Trains! Matt Yglesias!

More seriously, the auto industry is afflicted by some pretty serious global overcapacity problems at present. There are other industries that will grow as we move into the economy of the future. Software, microchips, biotech, and domestically the service industry in general are probably going to be big. But in the near-term and the long-term, I don't see cars as one of the growers.

Glenn Fayard said...

Cars grow if we get some kind of miraculous new engine, and only then. Even just an affordable hybrid. But that'll take awhile, what with the automakers assholic obsession with penis substitutes/SUVs. Plus, science is hard, of course.