Reply #2: A few thoughts in response to Robert Scheer

[Kennah]

If the Treasury does not break even on the GM bailout for 20-30 years, how does that compare to the price of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, more on the unemployment rolls, potentially for years?

Yes, GM is a shadow of its former self. However, that's the future of the auto industry. Despite the Chevy Volt, GM still has a long road to go before it can be considered a reformed corporation in a world where $4 and $5 a gallon gas will again soon become the norm. If the Volt is merely a trump card in the CAFE game to sell more Escalades, as Bob Lutz once hinted, then GM is toast. OTOH, if GM has turned, and they truly see their future building smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles in American plants, building more hybrids, better hybrids, advanced hybrids, and EVs, GM will still contract. It's no different for the rest of the Detroit 2.5

On job creation in China, this is a problem persistent throughout the economy, not just the auto industry. Unless radical tax, tariff and trade policy reforms come to pass that lead to a rebuilding of the domestic manufacturing base and protecting it, we're toast as a first world economy.

GMAC got billions under TARP that hasn't been repaid, just like AIG. Can someone recap for me how much TARP money AIG has repaid?

Obama does unfortunately appear not to be nearly as progressive as was promised. However, to quote Ralph Nader, there is a slim glimmer of hope for the Democratic Party and no hope whatsoever for the Republican Party. Pick your tick and flea infested dog and lie down with it.

Trickle down? Not working? Really. I'm shocked, shocked I say, shocked, to learn that 30 years of trickle down economics has proven to be an abject failure.