Agreed – deeply – on the all the people who get hurt. I’m a proud native of Detroit, with plenty of family and friends who that have punched those clocks. I’ve seen too many examples of the hurt that their business practices have caused. I’ve also been exposed to the full force of the “buy American” argument. And while i agree with it in principle, i’ve always wondered why i should be loyal to them but they don’t have to be loyal to me/us?

So while i don’t want to see anymore pain, i brace myself for it anyhow. But i know that if those companies return to profitability the jobs still won’t come back. The slashed retiree benefits won’t be reinstated. The pain involved in this situation only fuels my anger at those companies. Maybe it’s too personal…

Very good point. Capitalism can be influenced by cultural norms, and Japanese cultural norms tend to be more focused on long-term gains. I don’t think the CEO of Toyota faces the same sort of quarterly P&L pressure that US CEOs face, but I won’t say that definitively because I have done precious little consulting work for Japanese firms.

I don’t feel bad for the auto company, Lex, if by “company” we’re talking about shareholders. They’re gettng what they deserve (assuming they haven’t found suckers to buy their stock, which many probably have). Unfortunately, it’s not just shareholders that get hurt. The company’s employees, employees of vendors, business owners in areas where auto plants shut down … A LOT of people get hurt because of short-term thinking.

And what of, say, Toyota? They are capitalists through and through, yet they’ve managed to think ahead. Not in an effort to be good corporate citizens, but in an effort to be good capitalists. Their long term thinking has solidly spanked the short term thinking of Detroit.

Perhaps we need to differentiate between capitalism and Wall Street. Henry Ford was a capitalist to his bones, but he didn’t (so far as i know) mess around with stocks.

Capitalism is great at self-adjusting and terrible at thinking ahead. Only government thinks ahead, albeit not always very well. The companies producing CFCs would have cheerfully stripped the ozone layer away, then sold us screens, umbrellas, and lead-lined clothing to combat the radiation. Capitalists would cheerfully run up deficits to provoke a worldwide monetary crisis, widespread famine, and severe economic hardship because they know enough to short certain commodities and buy others that hedge against inflation.

While they’re no doubt feeling what they think is pain, their wealth I think has a certain anesthetic effect, in that they don’t notice things that are devastating for the rest of us. Money is a great insulator.

I do wish they’d at least regard us have-nots as canaries in the proverbial coalmine….