So 'Lord' Mandelson is planning a 2 billion quid plus bail out of the 'British' car industry is he?
What a joke!
The government should NEVER interfere in the market. These companies should have built up reserves to get them through harder times - if they haven't then they deserve to go to the wall.
Car companies are dying ayway - they have about as much future as airlines. The car (as well as bus and lorry and tractor) is an anachronism, created when oil was plentiful and cheap. It will not outlive the end of cheap oil, which is now upon us. The much touted alternatives are NOT alternatives, they are still cars, they still need huge amounts of energy and raw materials to build. The cost of electricity will rise in tandem with the cost of oil and gas. Roads themselves will begin to break up as maintenance schedules are loosened up - in the UK this already seems to be happening.
If a car company deserves to survive it will do it WITHOUT government help. It will start to retool and retrain, to allow it to exploit the explosive growth in rail travel that is coming. They will build carriages and locomotives, freight vehicles and trams.
The car is already a historic artefact. Some will survive a few more years until oil reaches stratospheric prices, $500, $1000 a barrel. But really the car today is an example of dead man walking, if that's not too confusing a metaphor!
Onwards - to infinity and beyond!
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