DAR
No doubt the freemarket worshippers of the day were some upset when Iaccoa got the goverment to step in and save Chrysler by backing some loans. Perhaps they are still a little embarrassed at how well it worked and at being so wrong.
D.
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"Realizing that the company would go out of business if it did not receive a significant amount of money to turn the company around, Iacocca approached the United States Congress in 1979 and asked for a loan guarantee.
While it is sometimes said that Congress lent Chrysler the money, it, in fact, only guaranteed the loans. Most thought this was an unprecedented move, but Iacocca pointed to the government bail-outs of the airline and railroad industries, arguing that more jobs were at stake in Chrysler's possible demise. In the end, though the decision was controversial, Iacocca received the loan guarantee from the government.
After receiving this reprieve, Chrysler released the first of the K-Car line, the Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant in 1981, compact automobiles based on design proposals that Ford had rejected during Iacocca's tenure there. Coming right after the oil crisis of the 1970s, these small, efficient and inexpensive, front-wheel drive cars sold rapidly.... Because of these three cars, and the reforms Iacocca implemented, the company turned around quickly and was actually able to repay the government-backed loans seven years earlier than expected; most of it came from cars built on the K platform."
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