[randomflyer]

Folks

I found it interesting that in the case of RONA, and now today HTC, both affected Governments .... Province of Quebec and Central bank Governor for Taiwan, are contemplating a strategy to support companies they deem vital to their province/country.

While I am not one to ask or expect the government to constantly bail out poorly run companies (read GM/Chrysler) in this case, I have to think that the province of Ontario SHOULD step in....Both Chrysler and GM are now flourishing.

If RIM were in Quebec.... the government would have moved decisively already to support them and save thousands of jobs.......

As a taxpayer, i would gladly support investing in RIM....while they have had missteps, the new regime seem to be on the right track..... help them ONCE....and they may surprise us all and recover quickly, without this dark cloud over them

SNK

[sleepngbear]

The big difference I see here is that RIM is nowhere near bankruptcy. Most - if not all - of those other companies needing bail-outs were fast approaching the point where they could not meet their debts and other obligations. RIM only recently reported its first operating loss, but is otherwise in a good cash position and has virtually no debt. If governments stepped in every time a company had a bad spell and had to cut jobs to stay healthy, they'd be into pretty much everything. They're already too intrusive as it is.

[aniym]

What would a RIM bailout achieve? If RIM becomes government owned, that just opens up BB10 products to protectionist barriers abroad. Apple, Samsung and others will claim that RIM products shouldn't be allowed to be sold in their home markets because they are state-funded corporations. I understand that Huawei and ZTE get a ton of easy financing from the Chinese government, but import restrictions are weak in their case because policymakers accept the tradeoff when they consider the size of the Chinese market for US/Canadian exports.

The Canadian domestic market on the other hand isn't big enough for Apple/Samsung/etc. not to go to the courts about this.

[dbmalloy]

Bankrupcy is when you can not longer service your debt.... As RIM has not debt... no bankrupcy... All this nonsenese has been perpetuated by Media, Bloggers and analysts all regurgitating the same nonsense with no research..... If a company is not on the right track then not amount of governement help will do anything except delay the inevitable.....

[Sith_Apprentice]

If RIM were government owned in Canada, they would lose their stance in the US Fed Gov and DoD. They would immediately lose their largest customer base.

RIM, as of now, has a great deal of cash and no debt, they are not in need of a bailout. Also, without being able to attract new customers, what would a bailout achieve? The Government cant force people to buy BB7 and BB10 devices.

[kwm1337]

If RIM were government owned in Canada, they would lose their stance in the US Fed Gov and DoD. They would immediately lose their largest customer base.

RIM, as of now, has a great deal of cash and no debt, they are not in need of a bailout. Also, without being able to attract new customers, what would a bailout achieve? The Government cant force people to buy BB7 and BB10 devices.

Totally agree, the figures on their cash is ~$2 Billion [USD], and they have no conventional bond debt, and if they went under I'm not sure what a bailout would achieve, but I think because of the use of BB in DoD and the Intelligence Community's day-to-day, a RIM owned by Canada would null a large base of their active revenues...

[PineappleUnderTheSea]

The big difference I see here is that RIM is nowhere near bankruptcy. Most - if not all - of those other companies needing bail-outs were fast approaching the point where they could not meet their debts and other obligations. RIM only recently reported its first operating loss, but is otherwise in a good cash position and has virtually no debt. If governments stepped in every time a company had a bad spell and had to cut jobs to stay healthy, they'd be into pretty much everything. They're already too intrusive as it is.

I agree. In some cases, selling yourself might be the best thing, e.g. The Bay, or Zellers (soon to be Target stores), now both owned by an American conglomerate. The new owners likely have new and more exciting ideas on how to be mega-profitable again, which likely would not have happened if the government had bailed them out.

Now granted I'm using retail stores as an example, where it appears that nearly all of them in Canada are america-owned, but the point is that new ownership can keep jobs and get companies thriving again. Government bailouts are not guaranteed to achieve that if everything that had gone wrong remains in place.