candycorn
Diamond Member
If you own a GM dealership and GM stops making cars. You're unemployed. If they continue to make cars, are you going to buy one from a company that may not make it through bankruptcy reorganization? So again, the dealerships--hundreds if not thousands across the nation--are unemployed. Mechanics, sales people, administrative aides etc. People who never paid a single union due in their lives. Lets say 500 dealerships, about 30 per dealership, that's 15,000 people on the unemployment line right there; in every state in the nation.It is an easy argument to make, except that demand does not go away. If GM slows down, there is a shortage and prices go up for Ford. The supplier picture would quickly correct. Companies like Bain exist to make that happen....have for a long time.
Keep trying.
In the final analysis, things would have been more streamlined. Ford would made more money off less sales dollars.
Who would have won ? The American Consumer. The same poor bastards who paid to bail out GM so they could pay more money for crappier cars.
That's the lefty way !
Ford, or Toyota, or Kia, or Hyundai, or Honda...
Meanwhile, we have millions more people unemployed. Gee, wonder who pays the unemployment.
Also, the "poor bastards" who bailed out GM did so out of TARP. So the "poor bastards" had already been fleeced; prior to Obama becoming President.
Millions unemployed ? You don't know who would have been unemployed.
Ancillary companies like those who wash the uniforms for the mechanics ACME Buick (an example of the 500 dealerships) suffer a loss as well. The companies that sell ACME Buick their staples, notepads, maintain their signage...do their landscaping, wash their windows. All gone. A few thousand more jobs--again in every state in the nation. Not one of them likely to be unionized either.
The businesses that ACME supported via it's advertising dollars--the newspapers, radio stations, advertising production companies. One less client for them. None unionized.
Of course the high paying union jobs are gone too. Detroit gets just what it needs, another closed collection of factories. Tens of thousands of jobs gone as well.
And not just them; the case of ACME Buick in Anytown USA is multiplied 10-fold as factories shut down except now it hits other manufacturers like steel mills, component makers, etc...
Millions may be a bit of hyperbole. A million of anything is a lot. But it would have been quite a blow to the economy of the nation. Not just the "union jobs" you shit-for-brains losers keep talking about.
The other car companies only exist because of demand. Yes, they would have done better. But so would have the consumer.
And getting fleeced twice makes it O.K. That is an argument ?
That is the lefty way.
Not sure how the consumer would do better. Competition usually drives down prices. Getting rid of the #1 or #2 car maker in the world will not increase competition.
Not sure what you're saying about "getting fleeced twice". Bush's TARP bailout he did on his way out the door happened once. Unlike the bankers, Obama giving a small portion of that to GM actually helped Main Street companies as indicated above.