Re:Ask YC: To save GM or not?
by steveplace on Thursday November 13, 2008 @09:26PM
(#363864)
Fortunately, GM doesn't build our tanks.
Also, when people argue about how if GM fails then all these jobs will be lost--remember this: Detroit still has leftover production infrastructure for light rail. Not a whole lot of retraining necessary, and it would work with the inevitable Keynesian domestic spending we'll have.
From inane Union concessions (job bank) to executive compensation and stupid parts contracts, the domestics are shackled with the cumulative damage from decades of mismanagement. Bankruptcy is the tool they need in order to actually recover from the mistakes they made.
When you start talking about dissolving large scale manufacturing enterprises, however, there are people that start asking who will build the tanks in the next large war. I don't understand the military aspect of that but I suspect if all of the plants go foreign owned they'd just be nationalized in the event of a crisis. Maybe the bailout is the nationalization and they're just thinking ahead -- I don't know.