I keep hearing the back and forth about should bail out this industry, or shouldn’t we? The biggest reason I hear that we should bail out, the auto industry, for example, is because of all the jobs that will be lost if we don’t.
I’ve been thinking, why not have a similar program to the Unemployment Trade Act. it’s a program for people who loose their jobs, because the jobs are moving overseas. This has all the details.
A quick summary is that it provides funds and resources to search for a job, relocated if necessary, or get two years of training with extended unemployment benefits.
Why not simply have a program like this offered to those who loose their jobs due to being laid off?
If we cushion the blow for employees who will lose their jobs from failing companies, wouldn’t that kill two birds with one stone? We don’t bail out companies who made poor choices, and so, deserve to go belly up, but yet, we help keep the employees from suffering the consequences, or at least substantially soften the blow.
It essentially is the same. Bailouts work in the form of loans with attached conditions. That’s not necessary for your average joe because creativity isn’t needed to find a solution for him. His answer is, “Find a new job.” But when you’re changing your business over to a new strategy, that’s foraging into new territory. The people giving the loan (i.e. the government) want to be sure that the new business strategy seems like a good one before lending the money.
You think it’s that easy? You can find a new job, just like that? What about people who’ve worked 20 or 30 years in the auto industry, and then all the car plants around them close down and they need to find a new line of work?
I didn’t say it was easy, I said it was prescribed.
If I want to climb a cliff a mile tall, I grab some rope and other climbing gear. If I want to relocate a million people to the surface of the Moon, though, there is no prescribed course for accomplishing this. So if someone comes to me wanting to climb a mountain, I just hand them $200 and send them to a sports good shop. If someone wants to do the whole Moon thing, they’re going to have to give me a pretty damn good plan before I’m going to throw them some money.
You think it’s that easy? You can find a new job, just like that? What about people who’ve worked 20 or 30 years in the auto industry, and then all the car plants around them close down and they need to find a new line of work?