It is time the citizens of this country wake up , and throw off the shackles of the auto/oil cartel. This vampire is sucking us dry. Why does the US need an auto industry, we eat a lot of banana’s, should we start a banana industry? It is just non-sense. What we need are good fair laws, that protect people, and allow business to flourish. Right now we have neither! What we need are good schools, and some way to provide incentive for people to study, math, chemistry, engineering, etc at a PhD level! Bic is a French company, I haven’t noticed any wild pen shortages, or pen price gouging.

The GM bailout is the worst of all the old fashioned fear mongering. And the reality of the Bank bailout seems to be much the same.

It is indeed heartening and a sign of the long term good prospects for the auto industry to see Hyundai, Toyota, Honda and others with manufacturing plants in the United States. But those three million jobs aren’t just in General Motors itself, but represent suppliers to the General. If those suppliers go under, it will also affect Hyundai, Toyota, Honda and others. It is one reason the head of Toyota actually offered to do whatever he could – raise prices, send fewer cars to the States – a few years back, to avoid seeing the General go under; when it looked then, as if that might occur.

The situation with GM has little to do with John Maynard Keynes or Paul Krugman. The current head of the Federal Reserve is not a Keynesian, nor is the current occupant of the White House, not to my knowledge.

General Motors has almost always operated in its own universe, so to speak; and that’s part of the problem. Various chickens are coming home to roost.

This is far and away from a Little League game. This is as real as it gets. Any student of the Great Depression understands how bad it can get; and it could happen again. Economics can be cruel, but to compare it to Darwinism, and then extrapolate that as a way for society to deal with those who end up losing their jobs, is the heighth of being callous.

The old Civilian Conservation Corps, back in the 1930s, saved a lot of people’s lives, not only those who worked for it, but also the families who received money sent home to those, who worked for the CCC. It was required of the people who worked for the CCC, in fact.

If GM goes under, it is likely that (by then) President Obama might have to do something similar to ensure that people don’t starve to death. There is simply now way the American economy, beleagured as it is with a war in Afghanistan, an occupation of Iraq and all the other problems it has, can provide living wage jobs to the millions who would be unemployed if GM goes under, in enough time, to ensure something other than mass chaos.

I believe we’re in territory now where none of the old theories apply – repeat, none of them. This is why Ben Bernanke, the head of the Fed and a student of the Great Depression is so frustrated and anxious; nothing seems to be working.

Maybe you’re right, Vito. I sincerely hope so. It would be nice to think that all those families that would be begging for food at various food banks in Michigan, if GM goes under, could survive until another day.

Full disclosure: I worked for the senator’s presidential campaign in 2000; however, I voted for someone else this time around. Although considering my vote was made at 715 pm, Pacific Standard Time, it was entirely academic, relative to the presidential campaign.

In my less than humble opinion, any of the people running for president this time around – Bob Barr, Ralph Nader and the other various alternative party candidates included – would be better than what we have now.

I don’t necessarily support a bailout, but I would like to see people getting down off their ivory towers before lauding the free market as the end-all, be-all solution.

“We’re all Keynesians now.”

It’s pretty obvious that listening to Keynsians like Krugman got us into this situation, why should we keep listening to them?

“We’re Americans. Fight.”

Ahh the words of a man who graduated in the bottom 5% of his class.
I wonder how many times a day John McCain says that to himself when he’s in front of a mirror? I bet it’s over 100.

DI DI MAU!

And as far as those jobs going overseas, that was partially my point. We outsource lots of different types of jobs in the US, farming jobs, textile jobs. But this idea that there is a shortage of jobs in the US is just not true, all the numbers say otherwise.
And what are you basing your comment that it’s a myth on? I’m explaining what actually happens in the real world when a business fails. Workers in that business lose their jobs, and what kind of businesses are hiring? Successful ones, ie productive ones. That’s not a myth, thats what actually happens.

Also, side note: Krugman won the Nobel prize for his work from many years ago when he actually did economics instead of punditry. The prize has nothing to do with his current ideas.

While no one can predict what life will be like for the General with a bailout, one can say with reasonable certainty that it will be bloody awful in America, especially for anyone associated with the auto industry – even auto journos – if GM goes broke.

Why? Based on what?
This attitude is at the center of this whole argument and it misses the point: A bailout will hurt the overall economy by misallocating resources. The economy will be in WORSE shape with the bailout.

By bailing out GM, it will not make the industry work again, it won’t drive demand from consumers, it won’t guide GM down the path of profitability. The demand just isn’t there. The bailout is akin to forcing taxpayers to support the cassette tape industry because they’re losing ground to the CD industry. The market has spoken, the bailout money will be wasted and it will hurt our economy.

Let me boil it all down, if you read nothing else, read this:
Supporters of the bailout seem to think that the economy is like a little league baseball game, with no winners and no losers, and everyone gets a trophy. The fact is, there are winners and there are losers, we can’t have a world where everyone comes out on top. GM has lost, and a bailout for them is subsidizing failure.

The question that no one is asking: what will the bailout actually do? Will it make GM a better company? Will it make them profitable? Will it make US consumers want to buy more cars? No, no, and no? Then what will it do? Just slow the process of GM’s failure?
There is simply no good answer to this question.

When I attended HTUF (Hybrid Truck Users Forum) in 2007, Win Mitchell, in charge of King County (the county that the unincorporated area around Seattle) fleet services, and a man who had kick-started hybrid (diesel-electric) vehicles in the county he serves, and several others, via cooperative, asserted, “If you want hybrids, engage the politicians.”

True enough, the economies of scale will help new technology, when it kicks in; but private investors are almost always hesistant to invest in new technologies, especially those related to the automotive and truck markets today, in these times of overproduction.

The government does have a role to play. Of course, that isn’t part of the plan for those who believe solely in the Austrian School of Economics or the ideas of the late Nobel-prize winning economist Milton Freidman.

But economist Paul Krugman just won a Nobel prize and he is one of those for a bailout, albeit with some conditions.

While no one can predict what life will be like for the General with a bailout, one can say with reasonable certainty that it will be bloody awful in America, especially for anyone associated with the auto industry – even auto journos – if GM goes broke.

True enough, the British government messed up their auto industry; but as John McCain said, “We’re Americans. Fight.”

Or as Richard Nixon once said, shortly after he killed the gold standard, “We’re all Keynesians now.”