President Obama congratulated a crowd of Chrysler auto workers today in Toledo for their hard work as he stood surrounded by an assembly line of Jeeps. He stressed the importance of the 2008 bailout of Chrysler and G-M to the rest of the auto industry, including Ford:
“If we’d let Chrysler and GM fail, plants like this one would have shut down, then dealers and suppliers across the country would have shriveled up, then Ford and other auto makers could have failed too, because they wouldn’t have had the suppliers that they needed.
Italian auto maker Fiat has agreed to buy out the U.S. government’s final six percent stake in the Big-3 auto company. This puts Chrysler six years ahead of schedule in paying back government loans that saved it from bankruptcy. The President said the bailout was a success and cited profits and gaining market share from all Big-3 auto manufacturers.
