The alternative would have been the direct “loss” of 77,000 UAW jobs at GM in the US and indirect loss of 200,000 supporting jobs in the US. However, the vast majority of those jobs would have been picked up by other auto companies and suppliers, which would have taken over many of those facilities and hired most of the productive, skilled workers, although perhaps not with the requisite groveling in front of the UAW.
The alternative would have been to avoid crony capitalism. The alternative would have rewarded well-run companies and punished those that made reckless decisions. The alternative would have been MUCH better; what we chose instead would have made the National Socialists happy and did make their modern cousins, the Obama voters happy.
Exactly—well stated.
Get real, a bankruptcy would NOT have meant that GM close its doors. It would simply mean that they would have the opportunity to reorganize its debts and it would have allowed them to get out from under the crushing union contracts that pay a moron $100k a year to install windshield wipers.
The bailout was nothing but a way for Obastard to pay back the UAW for spending millions of dollars to elect Rats.
There is the story of a “Corporate Raider” from the late 1980’s.
He was in court and fined some ridiculous dollar amount. He told the judge that it would take him a week or so to raise the money since he would need to liquidate his positions.
The Gov’t prosecutor said “That’s OK, we’ll take the positions”. He said “I strongly recommend you sell everything and take the cash”.
They ended up taking the positions and they got destroyed.
No one is accounting for the money stolen from the real owners of GM.