If no bailout, then what?

[wombat_socho]

Maybe we get another Studebaker-Packard event. Eric Scheie links to a NYT article about the failure of the Studebaker-Packard company and its impact on Detroit. Scheie also has links to YouTube video of urban explorers scoping out the derelict factory complex and of Packard workers on the assembly line in happier times.

Personally, I don't think it would be quite that bad. If you sold off the assets of the Big Three to the transplants or to new companies. I have little doubt that the former UAW employees would rather work for $48/hour compensation rather than insist on $72 and not work at all. Chevrolet, Cadillac, Dodge, Buick, Jeep, Ford, Lincoln and Mercury are still names to conjure with, if sometimes only as truck lines. Still, I think there might be a few more ruins added to the already screwed-up Detroit cityscape.

Comments

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Off topic, but I wanted to drop a line letting you know I've finished reading the "Coup in 2012" piece.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

Not too realistic, amirite?

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I can't say that I'm a good judge of what's realistic about the military (that's what YOU'RE for...)--or do you mean the thesis was across the board unrealistic.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

I was thinking more the latter. There's just too many people in this country that freak out at the idea of retired military types teaching Junior ROTC in high schools for me to imagine any kind of mass influx of active-duty military into the schools.

[materia-indigo.livejournal.com]

Aw man, I so wish M or I could make $48 an hour!

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

Well, it's probably more like $30 plus health benefits, but it's better than any of us are making. OTOH, you'd have to move to Alabama or Mississippi.

[materia-indigo.livejournal.com]

Only if I can still buy lefse and pickled herring at the local grocery store.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

Unless there's some colony of Scandinavians in the heart of the Cotton Belt, I'd say your chances of finding those staples at the local Piggly-Wiggly are pretty slim.