This is a tough issue to come to a quick conclusion on. On the one hand, being an entrepreneur I believe that Big Business should play by the same rules as small business. In other words, if you fail to win customers, you fail. Period. No taxpayer safety net for anyone. On the other hand, losing all those jobs will hurt us all.
If you're old enough to have been an adult during the George Hoover Bush administration, which followed the second Ronald Reagan term, you will most likely recall the trade mission by the president to Japan in 1991. On this trip the he was accompanied by a mob of executives from the Big 3 who wanted to basically beg the Japanese automotive industry for a mercy because they couldn't compete.
President George H.W. Bush, for example, was famously embarrassed by taking the CEOs of Detroit’s Big Three automakers to Japan in December, 1991, where they were widely perceived to be protectionist whiners. (source)
That folks, was 17 years ago, and nothing has changed. There's a reason I haven't bought an American car in thirty years, despite the fact that I would like to.
I'm afraid that this quote from Thomas Friedman sums it up better than anything:
It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into improving typewriters on the eve of the birth of the PC and the Internet. (source)
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