Congress, in its infinite wisdom, has come up with yet another costly scheme to insulate us from unpleasantness as part of its ongoing program of building a “no-risk” society. This latest effort cones to us in the form of a massive bailout for Chrysler Corporation.
With the precedent in hand, American business can look forward to a new era of unbounded flexibility in fiscal planning. No longer will individual entrepreneurs, partnerships and corporations be saddled with such historic problems of having to make a profit, or at least break even, in order to survive. Such crucial elements as management competence, product acceptability and market demand can now be relegated to the scrap heap!
Think of the markets such freedoms will open up, not to mention the increased opportunities for asset acquisition and the ability to periodically schedule loss conditions resulting in profitable tax loss carry-forwards or carry-backs. Further, all this can be done without jeopardizing access to capital markets, as loans needed for continued survival will obviously be guaranteed by Uncle Sam (since our congressmen surely would not want to suggest one private corporation, i.e. the “new” Chrysler Corporation, should receive special considerations not available to all other privately held U.S. corporations.
Additionally, this legislation bodes well for the long-term security of American stockholders, for in developing this package, Congress seems to have gone to great lengths to require financial hardships of varying degrees on Chrysler’s employees, banks, resources and dealers, without placing any burden on the firm’s owners, although they have the ultimate stake in Chrysler’s survival.
I do hope that the inevitable backlog of bailout legislation which will be created by the many hundreds of U.S. companies which may now be operating at an unprofitable level, and which are having trouble in securing adequate financing, will not keep our busy congressmen from their district in 1980, a year in which many of them may have a
great deal of explaining to do to their constituents regarding the true state of our economic, political and social well-being and their part, or lack thereof, in its evolution over the past two years.
