UPDATED: GM about to smash another record!

goducks10 wrote:
Spot on. And may I add for those that say the GM/Chrysler jobs would've been snatched up by the other auto makers. How long would that have taken? So the estimated 1,000,000 workers loose their jobs and have to collect unemployment for how long before the other auto makers can hire them. 3, 6, 9 months? A year? My guess is all those workers that just lost their jobs could end up losing their house as well. It would've been a huge ripple effect. JMHO.

I have zero clue how long it would have taken. I do know that people will still buy cars. If GM folded, people would have still had to buy new cars. If GM made 20 out of every 100 cars sold in the US, those 20 customers would have bought something else. The other companies would have had to make more vehicles to make up for GM's 20 vehicles that are no longer being made or sold. They would have bought more parts from 3rd party suppliers. The third party supplies that made a power steering pump for GM would have changed over to making those power steering pumps for Ford/Chrysler/Honda/Toyota/Kia/etc. The laid off assembly line workers could have gotten jobs pretty quickly for one of those other manufacturers that are previously mentioned.

Yea, maybe they would have to be out of work for a little while. Maybe they would have to move to a different state. Life is tough. The government doesn't owe you ANYTHING in this regard. People lose their jobs all the time. People have to relocate all the time. Think about our military families that move every couple of years. Sorry if I don't shed too many tears for a couple thousand people that are paid decent money to work on an assembly line.

Lets just pretend that every GM employee lost their job and couldn't find new work. That that almost $50 BILLION and divide it by all the GM employees, even millionaire management. The government could have given all those employees there full salary for a year, let them relocate or take training to figure something else out and still spent well less than half that amount.

In 2012 GM was estimated to have 77,000 employees in assembly, drivetrain, stamping, casting and tooling plants, research and design facilities, U.S. headquarters, testing grounds, etc. $50 BILLION divided by 77,000 employees means that we paid $650,000 per employee for the bailout. That is 13 years salary of $50,000 (TAX FREE) for each and every employee of GM.

Can you honestly tell me that anyone thinks it would take 13 years for all the employees to find new work?

Come on...

On top of that, we have set precedent that poorly managed private industry can ask for and possibly receive a massive bailout from the government if they employ enough people. That is ridiculous. Where does it end? 77,000 people is enough to bailout... how about 30,000? How about 10,000? How about 2...? My father in law owns his own small business employing him and his wife. If he screws the pooch and runs his company to the ground, can he expect the US government to bail him out? it would only cost $1.3 million to fund him and my mother in law for that same 13 year period. That is vastly more affordable than bailing out a big company.

Its only money, right? We can just keep taxing the rich to pay our bills. We will never run out of other peoples money, will we? Couldn't possibly happen.

That must be the new American dream... be "too big to fail". Not great enough to succeed, that's too hard of a standard to meet.