Treasury Secretary Defends Forfeiture Of Billions Of Taxpayer Dollars On Auto Bailout

well, you have to admit, the UAW certainly got a good return on all it's support to the dems over the past half century. what a scandal. what does this translate in terms of cost per employee?

GM screwed over taxpayers after WWII.

after making big bucks in huge defense contracts, including bomber engines, GM sued the u.s. gov't for the value of the GM-Opel factories destroyed by the bombers.

and the american taxpayers HAD TO COUGH UP!

Honestly I would rather be speaking German right now than English.

Those CEO's shouldn't have received a cent! there the ones that screwed up the whole thing by producing crap.Never reward screw ups!

No, the Unions definitely were the ones that screwed over the Big 3 with their ridiculous health care plans and high wages.

Hitler, the Nazis and WWII always find its way to any desperate argument.
The Kevin Bacon connection any to outcome.
We should also be grateful to the big 3 for getting rid of practically all electric trolley transportation infrastructure in the1930 and substituting it with gasoline and diesel buses.

Egg head Geithner looks like a Klingon. Carry on!

I WANT MY TAX MONEY BACK.

"I WANT MY TAX MONEY BACK"

Ditto !

If America could build a Porsche, I would buy it.

"...but if 205 of those people work at Mcdonalds/burgerking you have a problem ..."

Last I checked there was no truly automated system that makes and delivers food, and until that time someone has to work at McDonald's and Burger King and every other less than glamorous job. Is it that these are low-wage jobs that you have a problem with?

To quote someone who deserves immense respect:

"Is the high numbers of low-wage jobs a problem? Unless all wages are equal, aren't some always going to be low by comparison, some middle, and some high? Why wouldn't 25% lower-income jobs, 50% middle-income jobs, and 25% upper-income jobs be perfectly normal? The human population routinely graphs this way in plenty of other areas.

In a free-labor market, people receive wages that roughly reflect their worth to their employers. If they are paid less than that, competing employers can easily bid them away and still make a profit. If paid more, their employers will lose money and be forced to take remedial action or their businesses will fail. This is why public policy that increases employee remuneration- whether through higher minimum wages or employer mandates (like medical insurance- will ultimately increase unemployment."

Although I know you are familiar with the concept, are you familiar with the terms "Red Herring"? Japan really does not have a lot to do with the fact that a fair number of low-wage jobs is normal.

Just to answer the question: Japan is mostly free with a Index of Economic Freedom score of 72.8 out of 100. Their labor freedom score is 82.5 of 100.

Don't let the terms "free labor market" throw you off, people will think that you have some irrational visceral knee-jerk response to the words "free" and "market" in the same sentence.

BTW: that quote is from Marilyn Vos Savant- the supergenius of supergeniuses- the person with the highest IQ ever recorded. It is from her book "The Power of Logical Thinking" the section entitled "How Politicians Exploit our Innocence."

Oh, a score of 72.5 on the IEF makes Japan 19th in the world.

Timmy Geithner, start paying your taxes, you creep!

I would rather have the trillions of dollars and lives Bush spent on starting a useless war.

with all the hubbub recently about Wilson calling Obama "Liar!," howcum NO ONE says anything about the whole SLEW OF LIES BUSH AND CHENEY spouted to get us into useless, money and lives sucking, quagmire wars???

There is no defense for the indefensible. The Gov ignored every bankruptcy law in the book to protect the UAW, screw the unsecured investors, and give away $81B of our tax money.

Jobs? Sure, let's talk jobs... 10,000 jobs for $81,000,000,000 is $810,000 per job. Surely, we could have done something better for less money?