Don’t count on repayment

I fear, as does Mitt Romney, that only the bankruptcy-enforced dissolution of gluttonous auto union contracts can save Detroit, and that the entitlement-spoiled auto unions won’t give it up any other way, even if they go down with the car companies.

The “loan” agreement states that renegotiation with the unions to get them on a par with the foreign-made-in-America auto workers is a “target,” not a requirement, and can take as long as the end of 2009 to bring about. And we’re supposed to believe the unions will agree to draconian concessions when Obama has just installed a union sweetheart as labor secretary?

Congress is ludicrously calling this $17.4 billion a “loan” that must be repaid by the car makers by March 31 if they are not “viable,” which they admit does not even mean being profitable. But how will a nonprofitable, non-“viable” car company have the money to pay back loans in March, in a recession that it said it needed immediately in December, just to stay afloat?

Wasn’t loaning money to obviously risky, semi-insolvent borrowers what started this whole financial mess to begin with?

William Slusher

Okanogan