And, here we go with the political mud slinging… 
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Had GM been allowed to die off, others would have taken its place. It’s not like all the cars GM sold wouldn’t have been bought by people. They would have simply bought them from a better, more efficient manufacturer.
GM getting bailed out hurt consumers nationally through higher prices while benefiting a small group of people. It’s essentially the same thing as a tariff just applied differently. But the end result is the same.
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Ford downsized to 2 brands, getting rid of Premier Auto Group (Volvo, Mazda, Aston, Land Rover and Jaguar) and maybe GM has to shed a few more brands. Hope GM doesn’t become “Geely Motors”.
OK fine. Bush and Obama are both to blame. Happy?
The point is, the bailout was a horrible idea.
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GM shed Olds, Saturn, Saab, Pontiac, Hummer, Opel, Vauxhall. They also got out of a horrible Fiat partnership.
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It saved well over 1.5 million jobs, so I would certainly say it was not a horrible idea.
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That assumes that every one of those people wouldn’t have eventually worked for another manufacturer. It also assumes that every car GM sold wouldn’t have been made by someone else.
Had GM gone away it would have been replaced with a more efficient company and would have benefited the country more than an $11B subsidy for GM. But that doesn’t sell as well at election time as “I saved your job UAW guy!!”
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That’s your opinion. Reality is, nobody truly knows what would’ve been worse…letting GM go belly up, or keeping them alive. It was a lose-lose proposition.
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Once upon a time there were hundreds of auto makers in the US. 99% of them went belly up. The govt shouldn’t be in the business of subsidizing failures.
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I don’t understand the argument that GM is this big, inefficient, behemoth anyway? They’ve already slimmed down and got rid of loss making operations. I don’t work for GM so maybe one of the people here can talk more to it but in all fairness to the company, whilst many of their cars don’t directly appeal to me, I think they have some really great products and clearly people are buying them. (SUVs anyway)
Markets change. That means they have to slim down their line up. There is absolutely no point in having Impala’s pile up at dealerships just to keep people in jobs. Sure it’d probably provide some decent hackerworthy deals but when you can already get an Equinox for <$5k one pay for 3 years… I think we’re already getting it good.
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How do you know this? Some of those people would’ve went back to work at another manufactuer, after they moved and uprooted their families. Other brands aren’t going to automatically start popping factories up in the US if GM went down though…surely not 1.5 million jobs worth.
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The 1.5M figure isn’t just GM employees, it’s counting suppliers and indirect jobs for GM employees as well, things like restaurant servers who depend on GM employees, things like that. So yeah it’s very likely over time those 1.5M jobs would have been re-created.
And not just direct 1:1 jobs. Maybe there isn’t a need for that many auto workers. Instead the money wasted with the bailout could have been used to fund R&D into something more useful that would have, in the long run, created more jobs. Imagine the govt had subsidized buggy makers in the early 1900s. It’s essentially the same argument.
This is econ 101 stuff. Subsidies of a failing company results in an inefficient use of money. If it was as simple as spend money, create jobs, all the govt would have to do is spend money and nobody would ever be unemployed.
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Ill start by noting I think we swing the same way politically… that said the tariffs seem like a horrible idea but one that affects everyone. Why are Toyota and Subaru able to weather these tariffs while they kill GM. These problems run deeper in my opinion.
As for the voters… Yeah I think some of the GM workers may not understand the difference between socialism and nationalism (dare I say national socialism).
"Bobbi Marsh, who has worked assembling the Chevrolet Cruze compact car at the Ohio plant since 2008, said she can’t understand why the factory might close given the strong economy.
‘‘I can’t believe our president would allow this to happen,’’ she said Monday."
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That R+D is going to take time. In the interim, a million workers are out of a job for the foreseeable future. Once that GM factory closes down, the restaurant that serves them lunch is going to lose business, so they’re going to close. A new one isn’t going to magically pop up in its place because the customer base isn’t there anymore.
That mall that served the town of GM workers is now a dead mall. So, for the next 5-10 years, that guy making 20/hr on the line, is now making 7.25 at McDonalds while he waits for his next opportunity, that may or may not come. 1/2 of those houses drop into foreclosure because they can’t afford the mortgage. Housing prices plummet. Cars repoed left and right…while we wait for R+D on something different. No argument that something better may come of that R+D you refer to…but at what economic cost?
These jobs you’re referring to don’t magically come overnight. Pittsburgh lost the steel industry in the 1980s, and they’re still recovering. It took years for them to focus on a new economy of Tech and healthcare. We’re now 30+ years removed and the population is still shrinking.
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literally this whole thing i’m 99% sure is about the EV credit. 
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Toyota and Subaru are simply more nimble and have much less of a manufacturing presence spread out across different plants. Toyota has 4 assembly plants and 2 engine plants, while Subaru has one assembly pant in the US. GM has many more factories that simply aren’t fully utilized and they make many more cars in the US than either of these brands (thus making the tariffs affect them more)
The fact that they are expanding Mexican manufacturing and abandoning US workers is sickening. IMHO they should have given Lordstown additional Equinox production instead of giving it to 2 plants in Mexico and put the Blazer somewhere in the US. When we got our Equinox, we made sure that it was made in Ingersoll, Canada. We would have preferred one made in the US, but Canada is certainly better than Mexico. When I finally get around to getting a Cruze at the end of this year or early next, best believe I will be getting one made in Lordstown
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Interesting they built SUVs when they closed. The market changes.
I always think it’s strange how cars in particular seem to bring out a certain sense of patriotism in people that you just don’t get with any other consumer product. I get that a car is a much, much bigger purchase than an iPhone for example but I just don’t get the idea that people can’t possibly buy a Volvo anymore because it’s owned by a Chinese company. If you want to buy American, buy a Camry.
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Funny, all the cars I/my parents have owned since I got my license have been Honda, Subaru and Acura. All were made in America except one Civic made in Ontario. Really raises the question of what’s an American car.
I have no issue with extending the tax credit. However, and it was mentioned in the article, EVs currently aren’t paying gas taxes, which fund infrastructure repairs on the roads their using (outside of a toll road). Although EVs are still a fraction of cars sold, that number continues to increase, meaning there’s going to be less and less money to fund highway repairs moving forward unless something is done.