There are a lot of ideas thrown around the internet and newspapers lately about how we should all either rally behind the auto industry, or perhaps we should just let them fail. Techcrunch has a fantastic article outlining the reasons to let them fail. I’m of the opinion that the auto industry needs to change radically in this country. The whole thing is broken. CEO’s are getting paid millions to run their companies into the ground. Auto workers want raises when their companies aren’t profitable. There are too many brands, too many models, and their marketing of huge trucks when gas is $4 a gallon made no sense at all. The whole industry is broken. Period.

I can see why many people would like to see the car companies fail. After all, they’ve really done it to themselves. Anytime you have a company from overseas who builds products in your country better than you can do it, you have a huge problem. It is just a mess.

What I would advocate is something intelligent that doesn’t involve the catostropic failure of the industry. I think you could restructure the entire company payscale in an intelligent way that would allow executives to be paid reasonably, instead of costing millions a year in salary, stocks, and perks. Restructure how workers are paid, kill pension plans and make them 401k’s. End this string of corporate welfare and kill all these mega-dealerships that have thousands of cars on their lots that they have no intention of selling.

Actually, come to think of it, maybe we should just let the auto companies burn. Short of a catostropic failure, I don’t see how they’ll make all these necessary changes. After all, if they wanted to change, they could have when Toyota and Honda started beating them left and right the last decade or so.