The Great Italian Auto Bailout — Courtesy of U.S. Taxpayers

openmarket.org ^ | Jan 1, 2014 | John Berlau

[Hoodat]

At the beginning of 2014, Detroit may be bankrupt, but they’re cheering the five-year-old U.S. auto bailout in Italy. That’s because after being the beneficiary of billions in U.S. taxpayer largesse, Fiat, the leading Italian auto company, is going to buy its final stake in Chrysler from that other big bailout recipient, the United Auto Workers (UAW).

“Chrysler’s Now Fully an Italian Auto Company,” reads the Time magazine online headline. But wait a minute! Wasn’t the bailout supposed to be about saving the American auto industry?

As Mark Beatty and wrote in The Daily Caller in November 2012, after presidential candidate Mitt Romney made the controversial claim that Fiat would be expanding production of Chrysler’s Jeep in China (a claim that turned out to be correct),

The real outrage arising from the 2009 Chrysler bailout is not that its parent company, Fiat, is planning to build plants in China. It’s that the politicized bankruptcy process limited Chrysler’s growth potential by tying it to an Italian dinosaur in the midst of the European fiscal crisis. The Obama administration literally gave away ownership of one of the Big Three American auto manufacturers to an Italian car maker struggling with labor and productivity issues worse than those that drove Chrysler to near-liquidation.

As we noted in the piece, much of Chrysler’s profits from its overhauled line are going to prop up Fiat’s failing, money-losing Italian business, rather than to expanding production and jobs in the U.S. Moody’s had downgraded Fiat’s credit rating to “junk” even before the Obama administration arranged for it to acquire a Chrysler stake . . .

[Hoodat]

The auto bailout was sold as a way to save the US auto industry. Instead, it has been used to save the Italian auto industry. More leveling of the playing field by the Obama Regime so that America can be brought down to that of the rest of the world.

[trebb]

From the days leading up to Lee Iacocca, Chrysler has been a costly/losing proposition. More recent gyrations with Mercedes and others have failed to move it into a solid business meme. Take away Ram trucks and a few jeeps and it's not worth keeping.

Disclaimer: The opinions of this poster are biased by several bad experiences with Chrysler products and a general prejudice against plastic and tin crap masquerading as cars.

[pepsionice]

I don’t think the union guys at Chrysler realize the whole game being played out. Within five years....half of the Chrysler production of today, will be shifted to China. So half the union jobs will disappear very quietly as various models are deemed as dinosaurs. If you work for Chrysler as a production guy...you’d best start to put money away and prepare for your layoff.

As for Fiat’s money for all of this game? Wanna bet? Some Chinese company influenced the whole thing and will be the eventual owner of both Fiat and Chrysler? I doubt if the administration ever grasped this or understood what was being played out.

[dfwgator]

Should have let Chrysler die in 1977. What business is it of the government to decide the winners and the losers in the marketplace?

[Hoodat]

I doubt if the administration ever grasped this or understood what was being played out.

I doubt this Administration understands how to make change for a $7.29 purchase when handed a $20-bill.

[Bogey78O]

Fiat got the money from us. We paid 12 billion to Chrysler. Most of that money went to Fiat.l when they merged for a song and a dance. Fiat then through accounting shored up their booksso they suddenly became rich enough to buy it.

We did, literally, the worse thing possible short of razing all assets.

Its like paying your landlord 5x rent for the next year not to evict you. Youre flushing money down the toilet chasing the status quo.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

Somewhere in the bowels of Hell, Benito Mussolini is smiling.

[blueunicorn6]

Billions of American taxpayer dollars to the UAW and Italy. Lord knows they’ve done a lot for The United States. Let’s top it off by taking money from the retired Veterans to buy Democrat votes!
The purpose of the Democrat party is to elect thieves to office so that they have access to the public treasuries so that they can loot them.

[JoeFromSidney]

Somewhere in the bowels of Hell, Benito Mussolini is smiling.

When Obama was first elected, I remarked to a liberal friend that somewhere amidst the flames, Karl Marx and Benito Mussolini were laughing and slapping each other on the back.

[TwelveOfTwenty]

Thanks, Obama.

I never want to see the inside of another Chrysler Fiat dealership.