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Yea this guy really trivializes the fact that GM got a $50 billion dollar loan on incredibly favorable terms from the USG when the banking industry was reeling.
by victoro 13y ago
Yea this guy really trivializes the fact that GM got a $50 billion dollar loan on incredibly favorable terms from the USG when the banking industry was reeling. No matter how brilliant his plan was it would have all amounted to nothing had they not gotten that money, so congress/the Obama administration (and even the Bush administration) can take all the credit they want.
- gaius 13y agoThat's why GM means "government motors", then again Tesla is no better. Maybe it's time for America to get out of the auto manufacturing business altogether, just like Britain did. We do still have factories here mind; they're just owned by people like Honda.
- noir_lord 13y agoI'd sort of agree but when you stop producing vehicles domestically and rely on foreign manufacturers building cars in your country you lose a lot of the surrounding infrastructure since much of the design and testing is done abroad. The ability to produce a car and similar heavy-industry type production is a strategic asset (which is I think one reason why the French government has been so supportive of it's native car industry for so many years even when French cars didn't sell well outside of France). It's a hard balance, support an unprofitable industry to protect a capacity you might one day need. If I recall correctly the US has(had?) a policy where american flagged cargo ships that mostly traded in and around America had to be built in America, this made them much more expensive but kept the major ship yards in business as it was seen as a bad thing if that capacity was lost.