[BlueNgold]

A bunch of the people replying here don’t know what it means to be a conservative. They’re A-OK with the government closing down private enterprises. It’s a disgrace.

So what would your opinion be if the government had been properly conservative and stayed out of this whole mess allowing Chrysler to fail a few months back?

I mean fail - shut their doors - sell off bad assets - toss out the UAW contracts - start over and try to get it right this time. That's what I think should have happened - that's what conservatism says should have happened.

But the consequences of a market based correction would have been much broader in order to achieve better long term sustainability. This dealer and thousands of others, instead of hundreds, would have been in this same position had things gone according to proper conservative market based hands off private business principals.

[Las Vegas Ron]

So what would your opinion be if the government had been properly conservative and stayed out of this whole mess allowing Chrysler to fail a few months back?

Here's an idea for a conservative government to fix the current economic woes of this country:

1. Let the auto companies go bankrupt and toss the unions out on their asses
2. Reduce or eliminate corporate taxes
3. Cancel the repatriation tax
4. Eliminate the IRS and install a flat or fair tax
5. Drill, drill, drill
6.Freeze government spending and start reducing it 10% each year until it is reduced to a Constitutional entity.
7. Get the he!! out of the insurance and financial business
8. Get out of my life and everyone else's and let me run my business as I see fit, win or lose.

Just a few thing to get things going, please fell free to add

[pgkdan]

So what would your opinion be if the government had been properly conservative and stayed out of this whole mess allowing Chrysler to fail a few months back?

I'd feel for the guy but that's the risks you take when you're in business. The market should have been able to deal with the whole damned mess...we'd all be alot better off in the long run.

[El Gato]

This dealer and thousands of others, instead of hundreds, would have been in this same position had things gone according to proper conservative market based hands off private business principals.

Couldn't have been an order of magnitude more, as you sort of imply. There were not that many dealerships. IIRC, about 1/4 of the dealerships got the "Dear John" letter. But it's also likely that they would have been allowed to continue to operate under bankrupcy. Airline do it all the time. Thus they'd have at least been able to continue to supply however many cars were actually being sold by the dealerships. They could have changed the rules about how many vehicles were needed to be maintained in inventory, voided franchiese in a more orderly and rational manner, and voided the union contracts and the Big Bonuses for non performance of management, all at the same time.