Could Ford have been the lone major us automaker?

[richardmurray]

I Argue it could had been. what say you?

 

[ProfD]

IMO, Ford could never have been the lone US automaker.

 

Even if the federal government had not bailed out the auto industry, venture capitalists would have allowed those companies to go into bankruptcy or become insolvent.

 

Then, capitalists would have swooped in and picked the bones and built new automakers.

 

Lee Iaccoca resurrected Chrysler back in the 1980s. Daimler-Mercedes gave Chrysler a life in the late 1990s. Fiat and Stellantis have kept Chrysler afloat.

 

 Capitalism and the free market ultimately decide if/when companies are allowed to go belly up totally.

[Troy]

10 hours ago, ProfD said:

Capitalism and the free market ultimately decide if/when companies are allowed to go belly up totally.

 

Yeah "capitalism" the way we practice it, which isn't true capitalism.  As you mentioned bail out undermine capitalism and artificially bolster companies as well as tax incentives, tariffs against foreign competition not to forget laws that stifle competition suppress worker rights, etc.

 

Speaking of cars why are we leading the work in electric vehicles.  All we really have is tesla and while China has superior vehicles that cost less our EV charging infrastructure is paltry compared to the rest of the world.

 

[richardmurray]

@ProfD 

On 1/22/2026 at 10:04 PM, ProfD said:

IMO, Ford could never have been the lone US automaker.

just for clarification, did you mean the lone major us automaker, as i asked,  or the lone us automaker, which i didn't ask?

 

once I comprehend that I can look at the rest of your reply in total. 

 

On 1/22/2026 at 10:04 PM, ProfD said:

Then, capitalists would have swooped in and picked the bones and built new automakers.

 

bankruptcy historically isn't designed to delete the assets of firms, but to allow for penalty to the owners or investors of firms while selling assets back into the market. Did you comprehend the original point of contention between me and @Pioneer1?

 

@Troy

13 hours ago, Troy said:

As you mentioned bail out undermine capitalism and artificially bolster companies as well as tax incentives, tariffs against foreign competition not to forget laws that stifle competition suppress worker rights, etc.

Bailouts don't undermine fiscal capitalism de facto, it is implementation. the problem with the usa is the government has bailed out every single industry in the usa absent managing for it to improve. White people love touting welfare to work for black laborers but then for the industries in the usa owned by whites in whole or majority:  real estate/farming/aviation/automotive/banks/dot com/crypto/green energy , they want blank welfare checks absent demanding better management by the whites who are being saved from the poor house where their financial actions led them. 

It is the same with tariffs. If you want to block out foreign firms that is fine, it is common in history for all governments, but you must manage the industry internal industry, the usa doesn't manage the internal. And that goes to laws that stifle competition or better, don't penalize failure enough. 

Look at the film studios industry in the usa. 

AT&T sold warner bros to discovery because AT&T wanted to get rid of the debt on a loser. AT&T spent alot of money and got no return and added debt. Discovery bought Warner Bros on the cheap on the condition of taking all the debt off of AT&Ts books. 

Even though AT&T were and are making very positive profits on telecommunications, they didn't want the losing film studio on the books to manipulate their stock value or influence speculation to their stock negatively. But, AT& T needed to be penalized properly, by having that sale blocked and Warner Bros closed and its assets auctioned off. AT& T should never have bought Warner Bros in the first place. Again, film studios like all media properties are financial losers historically. yes they have times of positive results but usually they are failures for obvious reasons. 

Music labels/film studios/theaters/sports teams/sports leagues/similar  are all as collective industries financial losers. Dallas Cowboys? yeah but look at the canadian football league or the defunct euro league. yeah New York knicks , who have a fortunate stadim, but what about the d league, the chinese league? no and no. Look at the yankees. ok, but what of double or triple a? terrible. Music labels are historically only profitable for the selloff at the end of their lives. 

So penalty is what is truly lacking? and I comprehend why ? not having financial penalty has a long tradition. the entire white wealthy of the confederacy were too big to fail , or had  a huge bailout at the end of the war between the states. which like all bailouts after led to a consistency of behavior, in that case, killing black people. And even in bailing out the government can penalize. And that penalization can be very positive for the industry in cleaning up bad financial practices. 

 

14 hours ago, Troy said:

All we really have is tesla and while China has superior vehicles that cost less our EV charging infrastructure is paltry compared to the rest of the world.

i don't have any validatable information on china, but some say their ev industry is bottoming out, the problem is, even though they have the greatest deposits of rare earth minerals for the batteries accessible  the EV cars use and china has an infrastructure to produce them or use them, the chinese automotive industry is built to export, not sell in china, and with usa+ europe not fully suitable for EV use completely, let alone the majority of humanity, absent any infrastructure for EV cars, the market for EV's is not a global one. The fuel of gas based cars serves a very good function in terms of international trade. Oil just needs to be sold. BUT EV's need electricity at volumes above remote gain. Electricity to handle a large volume of EV cars requires a system of infrastructure. this is the financial flaw that always existed. this is why the oil producers were not worried with the EV car movement the usa led because they knew, while USA+ China + Western Europe + japan will eventually change their energy infrastructures, most governments in the world don't have any energy infrastructure at all. so any vehicle that requires one is financially negative from the begining. So... its complex. This is why the hydrogen developers are still active in the labs. The negative of hydrogen is they haven't found a way to make its infrastructure cheap, you still need hydrogen lines and production+ Hydrogen is very dangerous to handle, very explosive. and it smanufacture also is part of the comprehension of hydrogen bombs so... the nuclear element is about it and the usa/russai/china/india/israel/select western european don' want the development of nuclear weapons to be common knowledge outside of the current nuclear powers.  The positive, is hydrogen is like gas, in that you don't need an electric grid as much as hydrogen tanks and hydrogen based cars just put hydrogen in.