This post is a response to an article on theglobeandmail.com entitled:
The GM bailout is a small part of a deepening problem: the threat of inflation
It was not a particularly good idea to bail out GM but then again, the Government was presented with an offer "they could not refuse".
Come on face it! It was politically impossible for politicians of the day to say no and just let GM fail. Whether or not an idea is good or bad, prudent or reckless is rarely the deciding factor in the political arena. Just look at Harper's GST cut, done completely for political gain with little or no upside to Canada, especially now.
The bail out was simply the lesser of two evils.
Option A: Don't bail them out and hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect jobs would perish. Countless communities would be in upheaval and some might disappear all together.
Option B: Spend 10's of billions of tax payer dollars and look to be doing something constructive. Save 100's of thousands of jobs and countless communities. Sure, piss off some tax payers who are actually following this stuff and leave a monstrous deficit for future leaders to deal with.
Yeah, really tough choice.
Was it wise to bail out GM? Smart money says no. Smart money probably would have went to shore up Nortel or other high tech companies. Investing in Canada's high tech industries and adding to our minuscule R&D efforts would probably have served Canada better than dumping cash into the sink whole that is GM.
But this was never going to be about what was the wiser thing to do. This was always going to be about politics. It always is when billions of dollars and thousands of jobs are at stake.
Politicians were never going to do the wise thing, they were going to do the easiest and by that measure, bailing out GM wins hands down.
But don't blame the politicians! We the people, the self interested ones anyway, would not stand for anything else.
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