Prometheus 6

Let Detroit Go Bankrupt
By MITT ROMNEY

Boston

IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

Are those the only two options? Are there actually any options at all?

Because as long as we are aiming for the economic equivalent of a perpetual motion machine, we are going to hit the wall.