So it turns out that contrary to the predictions – and despite the efforts – of Greater Wingnuttia, the GM bailout not only prevented an auto-industry meltdown (had GM gone down it would have taken the parts companies with it, crippling the entire industry) it also created a viable company out of the wreckage of the old GM. As a result, the taxpayers are getting most of their money back. As Peter Cohan says, “the biggest losses from TARP could be the losses of congressional seats due to public anger at those who supported it.”
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman
The problem was the failure to exact financial and symbolic punishment from Wall Streeters: no purge, no grovel, bonuses as before. Not even – my unregarded pennyworth at the time – forced gender parity on the boards of bailed-out banks as a shock to the macho deal-making culture.
Thank God for George W. Bush! If only he'd delayed the book a few weeks, he could have included this triumph.
Umm … Thomas … George W. Bush pumped money into GM without insisting that the firm make itself sustainable. Barack Obama insisted on sustainability – with precisely zero help from GWB – and got it. And your allies pilloried him for it. Now back to your fantasy; I didn't mean to disturb you.
Mark, actually the Bush administration's only requirement was that the firms demonstrate that they were viable. You're just repeating a lie that the Obama administration has been shopping for months.
http://keithhennessey.com/2009/06/07/dr-goolsbee-…
I'm not sure why the administration thinks it needs to lie about this, but lie they do. Classless.