Reading an article in the USA Today recently and it comes up that Cerberus Capital Management is asking Daimler to refund their approximately 7 billion dollar purchase price of Dodge because - get this now - they didn't know what bad shape Dodge was in when they bought it.

I don't know about you, but I have known for several years what bad shape Dodge was in and I don't get paid several million dollars a year or have an MBA in business or even have access to the internal papers that list out the finances of Dodge. These are all things that Cerberus DOES have access to and somehow they have missed the fact that Dodge is in bad shape.

Daimler bought Dodge (Chrysler) several years ago and seemingly never made a buck off the outfit despite close management and a substantial outlay of cash to modernize cars and physical plant. All this was reported in the press many times over the years and anyone who read the financial news would know this. Daimler finally unloaded 80% of their dead horse to Cerberus who put Bob Nardelli in charge. Bob is the guy who ran Home Depot almost into the ground before being ousted but I can't blame him for Dodge because they were on their last legs before Bob got there. Why Cerberus thought a proven bad manager like Bob could turn Dodge around is the question but then why they thought Dodge could be saved is really the bigger question.

Now we come to the bailout. Cerberus is not only asking the taxpayers of the USA to lend them billions but is also trying to get Daimler to refund billions. Hey, if you can't actually run the business then you have to come up with some other way to get a return on your investment.

Bob Nardelli is proven incompetent. Cerberus has now proven themselves incompetent as well. Daimler was at least competent enough to dump this pig while they could. Let's see if the Congress will prove themselves incompetent by dumping more money into this sinking ship.

While the debate runs on about a bailout, I hear some thoughts of forcing one or more of the Big 3 into bankruptcy. I put forth Dodge as a shining example of a company that truly deserves to go bankrupt. It would be terribly unfortunate to put all the workers out on the street but there comes a time in the life of some companies where you simply have to say "enough" and that time is now for Dodge.

I really like my Dodge truck and will truly miss not being able to replace it with another one when the time is right. Maybe there will be a good Toyota truck in the showrooms then and perhaps some of the Dodge workers will be on the Toyota production line. This is called Capitalism.

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