Not saying that isn't so. And congrats to your uncle. Much better than being one of the people stiffed when the Obama administration spent billions of taxpayer dollars and circumvented a working bankruptcy system. -XC PS - That the jobs saved were primarily Democrat voting was undoubtedly a primary mover for them, but irrelevant to my point.
That and national security. It's not as if Facebook is going to build bombers in war time. That manufacturing base is pretty vital stuff, and the world is not a free market affair. Also, private capital was not there, not in those quantities. It simply wasn't. That's why even Bush bailed them out.
LOL, we love to think that the manufacturing base will be important in 'time of war' but, really, it takes 15-20 years to ramp up a major new weapons system nowadays. I'd highly recommend Herman's book "Freedom's Forge" about how the US armed up for WWII. I can also point you to some good economics textbooks about how WWII was financed. What this will convince you of is that it doesn't work that way. I have an emotional involvement in small family farming, but it doesn't blind me to the fact that agribusiness extracts tens of billions of tax dollars every year via crony insider deals. I'd sunset that as soon as I could if I were in charge. And while I sympathize with retired autoworkers I don't know why they got to raid taxpayer dollars to preserve their pensions while former Nortel and Comcast workers got thrown to the pension board. -XC
Not new major weapon systems. Increased production of current ones, also logistical, and munitions. The US and Great Britain got roaring in WWII in 3-4 years. Example. I live by Willow Run. Ford built the plant and reached mass production in 3 years. Of course you could argue the likelihood or necessity to need this capability, but Defense tends to err on the side of caution. Also, GM retires lost their retirement medical benefits, even the ones that had been paying for them for decades.LOL, we love to think that the manufacturing base will be important in 'time of war' but, really, it takes 15-20 years to ramp up a major new weapons system nowadays.
Is this an adequate description of what happened/is-happening? http://askville.amazon.com/GM-retirees-lose-benefits-due-ban...
More or less, from what I gather. My brother's father-in-law lost his retirement medical benefits just before he retired. IMO this should really piss off taxpayers more than the actual bailout. When it comes to the bailout, there is much reason to believe it will be mostly paid back, if not fully, and possibly with interest. But picking up all those retires on Medicare/Medicaid is a cost that GM was able to just drop in our laps. That was probably the biggest bailout. A great uncle of mine was a test driver for Cadillac. He raised 4 kids, had a house and a cottage, etc. Test driving Cadillacs! And he knew just how good things had been for him... -he referred to GM as "Generous Motors".
Dude, current estimate is that the taxpayers are going to take a $20B+ haircut. ABC (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/06/how-much-did-th...) said in June/2011 that it was $14B for GM and $1.3B for Chrysler. And don't forget that this was when GM stock was at $30, it's fallen a lot. "Friday, the Treasury Department announced that expected losses to taxpayers from the bailout would increase more than $3.3 billion to $25.1 billion -- up from $21.7 billion last quarter." That's some dang expensive jobs "created or saved." And I'm sorry that the retirees from GM are having to do what most people at that age have to do - use government mandated healthcare. I just wish we'd have gotten to that point about $25M earlier. -XC
We have no disagreement with the amount it sucks, or the fact that it was a plain problem brewing, but so was the whole subprime debacle. GM shouldn't have been able to get into the corner it did as much as AIG. But, interests, interests, interests... (on both sides of the aisle) just not ours.
You should read Freedom's Forge. I've read a ton on the history of Lend Lease and this is simultaneously the least academic and best written. I can give you some more highly regarded writers who are much less enjoyable to read, they all say the same thing. Which is not what the popular press shows. -XC PS - FYI, ammo is produced Olin, Alliant, L3, and a host of small subcontractors. Most military small arms ammo is actually of lower average quality than civilian ammo (for a host of reasons). Most military tactical ammo is stockpiled for 18-24 months of war-rate usage. The USAF seems to be the exception on that one - I understand that we were almost bingo on some JDAM's during the height of the Iraq war. Otherwise our major material losses are so very slight, relative, it's not exactly like we're having Barbarossa style problems in resupply.
I'll check out Freedom's Forge. I just finished Churchill's The Gathering Storm last week actually, and it impressed upon me the cost to Great Britian from not only taking a passive political role, but a passive armament role leading up to WWII. I have real doubts that we will have to go into a full mobilization in the next couple of decades, but, who knows with that crazy Euro... Even so, the Big 3 infrastructure was a massive advantage to the War effort. I'm sure Boeing is "Too strategic to Fail" as well.