GM, the long-time symbol of capitalism, is crashing...into government hands!

    You stare dumbfounded at the towering ultra-modern skyscrapers that (used to) house General Motors Corporation, that symbol of the profit motive, capitalism, progress, the American Way of Life, pragmatic economics and who knows how many other signs of the times. Then you scratch your head and say: "So GM is going bankrupt, its neck saved by you and me and workers and taxpayers, bought out by Washington..."

    And then you grab your friend by the arm and say: "You mean we taxpayers are so generous that we are paying giant corporations like GM...to lay off workers, go abroad to contract cheap labor and come back to life as one, two or three new car companies--especially designed to endure the financial crisis and dirty up the air a bit less."

     That's what this and other bail out operations appeared to be aimed at, in spite of the veneer of progressive minded chaps in Congress or in the White House. Even the mass media are pulling at the bate, so there must be something big at stake, something that is sure not to rock the boat.

     The GM bankruptcy and bailout looks suspiciously like the continuation of post-industrial policies of the Clinton and Bush years, which encouraged companies to shutter factories in the US and move operations to foreign countries with lower wages and weaker regulations, were defined by Wall Street rather than Main Street.

    The model of a "healthy" American company has thus become one characterized by short-term thinking and brutal cost-cutting, although such strategies have and continue to result in the loss of millions of jobs, the closing of hundreds of functional factories and the deindustrialization of communities, regions and whole states that had once been among the most productive in the world.

   After decades of doing things such as closing down factories, laying off workers and shifting production overseas, in order to keep "healtht" the company now finds itself with $172.8 billion in debt. Wouldn't that call for a radical about turn? Well, not very. What the Obama administration is doing has the perfume previous administrations, with patching up here and there. 

   The government  wants to create a "New GM" that stays the course of the old GM. According to announced plans, the "New GM" will close down as many as 20 factories in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Delaware. Additional plants in Tennessee and Michigan will be put on "standby," for probable closing. Reports indicate that at least 21,000 family-supporting jobs will be lost, as the corporation shifts production to new facilities in China and other foreign countries.

   Furthermore, these cuts come on the heels of GM factory closings last year that cost tens of thousands of jobs and shattered communities across the Great Lakes states just as the downturn was developing into a deep recession.
This massive de-industrialization plan -- with its rapid offshoring of work once done in the United States -- will be paid for by the federal government.

   Thus U.S. taxpayers will be heaving a lot...to eliminate many jobs in the country. Washington has already handed GM $20 billion and is expected to send another $30 billion into the coffers of the corporation.

   The New York Times seemed a bit uncertain whether the money would ever return to the generous taxpayers: "Whether that investment will ever be recovered is still an open question."

   It does sound a bit strange: some $50 billion placed on a project to layoff US workers, close down factores and send business overseas. But that seems to be the essence of this globalized crisis: make those pay who had nothing to do with the breakdown of the economy, exploit cheap labor abroad, divide up but keep the control tab turned on. The Times points out that "the company will also have to shed 21,000 union workers and close 12 to 20 factories, steps that most analysts thought could never be pushed through by a Democratic president allied with organized labor."

   Well, it does not sound very "progressive" for a Democratic president to side with multinational corporations, in much the same way that his Democratic and Republican predecessors have. 

   An investment of $50 billion in federal money to close 20 major factories and shed 21,000 jobs and "save" the business? Just imagine what a that amount of money could do if it were put to creative use to improve education, health...save the environment from the ravages of industry...