Midwest Credit Unions Pledge $10B to Help Consumers Continue to Buy Crappy American Cars

In an effort to help stabilize the American car industry, a group of 1,200 credit unions in Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Indiana is offering car buyers $10B in car loans. Although this funding can apply to the purchase of any car, the credit unions have also worked out incentive deals with GM, offering a supplier’s discount (about 5% off the MSRP) plus $250 off. This is also a means of helping stabilize the Midwest economy since all Big 3 corporations and many of their plants are located in the Midwest. Is this just a big crusty Band-Aid over a larger problem? The government has already established that problems exist within management across all three companies and has mandated management improvements as a caveat to issuing $34B in bailout money. So why are the credit unions supporting corporations that are complacent in their inferiority? If anything, credit unions should finance goods from companies that do their best to produce a premium product.