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This may not the place for this, but since you all started it...
The overall economic effect if GM were to go “out of business” would be catastrophic, and would possibly cause Chrysler and Ford to fold shortly thereafter. I had read these statistics in an article a few days ago, (I’ll try to find the link). GM directly employs 123,000 people and owes Delphi and American Axle a significant amount of cash; so if GM goes, so does Delphi and American Axle. The mid-West alone could lose approximately 3 million goes if GM goes. If Chrysler and Ford were to go out of business as well, that would be another 240,000 direct jobs. The Big 3 also supports employment for another 974,000 jobs through suppliers, etc. and 1.7 million jobs are created by the money that the employees of the Big 3 and employees of the supporting companies spend. This all adds up to about six million jobs. Lost jobs equals lost revenue to the Federal, State and local governments, and this would be something like 156 BILLION dollars over three years.
Add to this the unemployment benefits to be paid for all of the people that would lose their jobs and that would be another 2-4 BILLION. Our elected officials need to wake up and figure that a measly 25 million LOAN is a very small investment to make to avoid the multiple BILLIONS that they would have to spend if GM, Chrysler, and Ford should fail. (remenber this next election!)
I don’t believe that we should set a precedent that we, the American people, should bail-out every business that falters due to bad business practices and poor management, but the loss of GM would not be just another business failure; it could possibly be last economic straw that pushes this country into another depression that could be more globally far-reaching than the “Great Depression”
Just my $0.002 – Let's hope and pray that GM pulls through this.
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