On the other hand, let's see here. By bailing out Chrysler, the government bails out the union that spent $400 million getting them elected... yeah, that's not corrupt or anything.
"The union" in question is made up of a whole bunch of working-class people in states that generally have little else in the way of major industry.
And let's not forget that the only cars that Chrysler seems to be able to sell aren't made in the US, so those people will be losing their jobs anyway.
I'm guessing you mean the Chrysler Town & Country, 300, Dodge Charger, etc., which are built in Ontario. Two things which you'll have little local insight to, living thousands of miles away as you do.
One: a very large number of
parts for these cars are built in the U.S. and shipped across the border to Canada. I currently live within sight distance of the Ambassador Bridge and deal on a near-daily basis with all those trucks with the word CHRYSLER written on the side that are crossing the border and bringing those parts into Canada, and to the factories along the 401 corridor. Some of those parts are made in union shops; some aren't. FWIW, the people in the union shops make a fair bit more.
Two: Chrysler got a sizable bailout in Ontario, too (nearly $4 billion), which has been in Liberal Party control for several years, and were elected (and re-elected) with the help of the unions -- who traditionally vote with the NDP. That money is what is being used to keep Chrysler solvent and paying workers during a time which sales of some of Chrysler's best vehicles is halved because of circumstances that have nothing to do with Chrysler's business practices, no matter how poor they've been. Oh, and Chrysler and GM in Canada h
Basically, a bunch of taxpayer money has been tossed down a hole.
Again, when you "bail out" someone in their own country, you're giving them money which they in turn spend in their own country, and pay back to the government in the form of taxes.
So it's not a 100% loss. It's a big loss, yes, and certainly I'm not going to try to bullshit you or anyone with wild theories that Chrysler will repay all their bailout dollars like they did the in 1980s, but it just isn't as big of a loss as if tens of thousands of people lost their jobs, which would cascade to hundreds of thousands of people....
Most of the US plants are
closing now, plus much of it went to employ Mexicans and Canadians, not your mythical Americans.
You're trying to slice this argument both ways, but that's not going to stick -- either the bailout money has gone to "the unions", which is comprised entirely of AMERICAN WORKERS, or it hasn't.
And, as I said, money they goes into an American's pocket will largely stay in the United States. It doesn't matter if the workers are unionized or not... nothing could be less relevant. They're still Americans.
There's still the grim reality that plants like Sterling Heights would have been closed by now had the bailout not happened. Word has come around this week that Sterling Heights is actually going to stay open through 2012. Dumping thousands of people onto the dole line in the middle of a one-state depression would be an extremely bad thing, and would only make a tenuous situation worse.
But maybe that's what you really want -- maybe you really do hate America so much that you want to see Michigan's economy completely collapse and take out a big chunk of Ohio and Indiana with it.