Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Should our governments help out the auto industry?

I agree that Japan was hit bad by a bubble (it was primarily commercial real-estate, wasn't it ?) but the optimism that goes with bubble growth makes too many people think they no longer need traditional industry, and without traditional industry the impact of the bubble bursting is much greater.

The current situation is doubly difficult because (a) traditional industry was hit by the credit shortages which grew out of our bubble bursting, and (b) as a society we've never learned how to gracefully lead the economy back to a sustainable level after a bubble, and IMO (c) we spent the last 30 years forgetting that providing decent jobs for *everyone* in our society is one of the responsibilities of industry and not just government.

Point (b) is the skill we desperately need to learn. I still feel that too many of the bail-outs are aimed at getting us back to the unsustainable level.