So GM's filing for bankruptcy today ...

That's a bit simplistic of a summary. I'm no big fan of Moore, but he has some good ideas how to convert GM's plants and workers to building more eco-friendly trains and buses, like how the plants went from building cars to tanks on a moment's notice after Pearl Harbor. He's right that spending $50 billion in taxpayer money for a company that is only going to keep cranking out Chevys is throwing good money after bad. Clearly, car demand is not going to come back to what it once was, and market and environmental demands are putting pressure on not having so many cars on the road. Moore's point is that it would be a waste to let that industrial capacity rot, and that there are ways to take that same $50 billion and make the GM as a company, and the nation's industrial capacity, more sustainable. It's hard for me to argue.

 

Can't be three-quarters of all Michiganders over there. I trip over the damned fools all the time. Ask 'em where they're from and they hold up their right hand and use it as a map ... unless they're Youpers, in which case they take off one of their socks and use it. They let their teacup poodles run free in the unfenced back yard, then when the neighborhood alligator has himself a midafternoon snack they freak out and demand that the species be exterminated. They try to get rid of a fire-ant mound by digging it up, then are surprised when 10,000,000,000 fire ants come swarming out of the mound and attack. They bitch about how it's too hot. They bitch about how it rains too much in the summer. They bitch about all the TV reporters talking about hurricane season preparation all the time because they figure people down here should be used to all that rain. They really freak out when the mosquitoes start using them as a soda fountain but that's what happens with fresh blood in the neighborhood.

I hope the auto industry turns around soon. I can't wait for these people to go home.

 

I ask the Owen Sound immigrants to show me where they're from and for some reason, they bend over ....

 

Right. On. The. Screws.

 

Nice...

 

With the former Saturn plant closing outside of Nashville, that county's unemployment rate, says CNN, could go to 30 percent.

This is further proof why these bailouts were not necessary. The damn money should have gone to the communities that GM has destroyed.

 

I love dogs as much as anyone, but that illustration was just a little funny. No, actually, a solid-chuckle's worth of funny.

 

I know a lot of people will argue against the government spending billions more to prop up GM, but besides the jobs (what ones that are left) being saved, here's another good reason:

Do we really want to reach a point where EVERYTHING is made elsewhere? It's easy to joke about crappy Ford Pintos and Chevy Novas, but the fact is, over the past century, the workers at GM, Ford, Chrysler, Harvester, John Deere, and so on made this country. The lifestyle we enjoy was built on the sweat and labor of the line workers, and thanks to the development of unions, those workers got to enjoy a few more rewards for their effort than they otherwise would have.

Not to be alarmist, but what happens when the equivalent of World War II breaks out today? Where would the "arsenal of Democracy" be? In China?

 

Only if they're elephants.

 

If the equivalent of WWII broke out, it won't be won by who can manufacture the most metal boxes.

 

You're assuming a new American car maker wouldn't step in to fill the void.

 

They've got to have the working capital. And right now, most of our money is in the PRC.