GMC - Government Motor Company

This is sheer insanity.  Government run wild.  Its incredible the things the Obama administration is doing.  This is what happens when the government runs motor companies.  Why is it in the interest of the United States or GMC to bailout Peugeot, a French motor company?

This quote is from the March 28, 2012 issue of the Washington Times newspaper:

The latest wrong turn is GM’s move to buy a large stake in troubled French automaker Peugeot. The taxpayers who bailed out GM just got sold a lemon.

This is a bad deal on its face. Government Motors is paying $420 million to get 7 percent of Peugeot, which, like GM, has been struggling to make financial ends meet for years. Peugeot lost $578 million and sales were down 8.8 percent in 2011. There’s no mystery why. Anyone who spends any time across the Atlantic knows these French rides are marred by mediocre performance, iffy quality and uninspired styling.

On top of that, Europe’s economy is teetering on the brink of collapse, which has resulted in a 15 percent to 20 percent decline in car sales over the past five years. European auto sales dropped nearly 10 percent last year alone. Onerous labor laws mean carmakers can’t lay off workers and it’s difficult to close factories so supply can’t be rationed to match demand. This dynamic leads to costly excess capacity that BusinessWeek pegs at 20 percent.