GM takes the $15 billion and runs

GM has accepted more than $15 billion from the US Treasury in bail out funds and now says that in order to survive, they will have to build more cars.

Just not in the United States.

Jen Rubin in Commentary :

We're going to spend billions and billions in taxpayer subsidies to see jobs go to other countries because that's the only way GM can survive. So the government and UAW have two options. They can decide not to let GM do that and hasten GM's demise. Or they will go along and we'll have a subsidized GM helping drive down the rate of unemployment in Canada, Mexico and South Korea (a worthy goal but not how the bailout was sold).

Welcome to the world of the nationalized car industry. And we're only just beginning.

This piece from a few days ago in Bloomberg by Jeff Green highlights the lengths to which the government has gotten into the auto business by taking a 50% stake in GM:

"Political economics are now part of the economy in the U.S.," said Sean McAlinden, a labor analyst and economist at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan. "They are going to control more of GM than the government of Lower Saxony owns of Volkswagen or France owns in Renault."

[snip]

France owns about 15 percent of Renault SA and the state of Lower Saxony, where Volkswagen AG's Wolfsburg, Germany, headquarters is located, owns a 20.1 percent stake in that carmaker. Shanghai Auto Industry Corp., which is 100 percent city-government owned, has an 84 percent stake in SAIC Motor Corp., according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Even more involved in running a private company than the French government? Meanwhile, the administration is insisting this is just a short term solution, that they really don't want to run an auto making business, and they will get out eventually.

And God doesn't make little green apples.

Hat Tip: Ed Lasky