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• Friday, December 12, 2008 05:58 AM

  Readerreader

  Hypothetically, if the union made real concessions here, GM would not need the government

  Hypothetically? Union concessions have already been made. Union concessions are not operating capital.

  The only reason the government is involved at all is that no rational lender would lend money into this business model.

  Banks have lent money into this business model for decades. What, you think the US automakers have never made a profit? You're barking up the wrong tree. US automakers have typically made billions, and that was before any union concessions. They're not making money because there's a recession and a major credit freeze going on. That has nothing to do with the business models of the US automakers.

  Possibly you haven't noticed that the big banks themselves have been accused of grossly irrational behavior and have themselves been getting bailed out - in trillions, not billions. Would you call them or the US treasury "rational lenders"?

  I do disagree slightly that people like Charles Dickens or novels like The Jungle accurately captured everything having to do with the 19th century.

  You're reading something into my posts that isn't there. Where did I say that anybody "accurately captured everything having to do with the 19th century"?

  It's almost impossible for us to imagine those times

  Impossible for you maybe, but others may not share your limitations.

  You don't have to imagine. What, you think there aren't any sweatshops any more? There are plenty all over the country. Most of your clothes are made in sweatshops in Asia, and if you don't believe they're sweatshops it's because you don't know anything about them.

  Try googling up "sweatshops" and look at the pictures. They're still around, and they're quite Dickensian. Very 19th-century.

  There's a lot of information on the Lake Michigan industrial immigrant experience which paints a very different, and much more pleasant, picture of the age.

  Lot's, huh? Try finding some and get back to us.

  —walter_map Read walter_map's other letters
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