We're finding out now that the list of closed dealerships at Chrysler & GM was probably too long, and that there was no set of standards imposed impartially when deciding who to close down. The inspector general for the program ( report here and IG homepage here ) says that things may not have been done in an open and forthcoming manner. Duh.
No surprise - we'll eventually find out that political and regional favoritism were involved, I bet. If you had a louder, more popular Congress member in your district, you could avoid being shut down.
Next, we'll see some lawsuits from dealership owners, and some of those will be successful just based on this report.
Same thing happened to the FDIC during the 1990s - shareholders who had been closed down during the prior decade sued the FDIC and won because the FDIC didn't apply the rules the same way for everyone. There's a good book out there that covers this time period, called FDICing Around. (Maybe I'll put my copy on the Web for students at some point, but it's really scary.)
This is how government allocates, folks. Not well. Anytime anyone says "it's an emergency" or "it's for the children," grab your wallets.
No surprise - we'll eventually find out that political and regional favoritism were involved, I bet. If you had a louder, more popular Congress member in your district, you could avoid being shut down.
Next, we'll see some lawsuits from dealership owners, and some of those will be successful just based on this report.
Same thing happened to the FDIC during the 1990s - shareholders who had been closed down during the prior decade sued the FDIC and won because the FDIC didn't apply the rules the same way for everyone. There's a good book out there that covers this time period, called FDICing Around. (Maybe I'll put my copy on the Web for students at some point, but it's really scary.)
This is how government allocates, folks. Not well. Anytime anyone says "it's an emergency" or "it's for the children," grab your wallets.
