Comments on: Horse Sense http://www.howwedrive.com/2009/06/04/horse-sense/ Just another WordPress weblog Wed, 08 Sep 2010 14:12:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Desmond Bliek http://www.howwedrive.com/2009/06/04/horse-sense/#comment-7606 Desmond Bliek Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:02:32 +0000 http://www.howwedrive.com/?p=923#comment-7606 It's all in the numbers. 9,163 establishments versus the big 3. Presumably the 'little 9,163' weren't adequately organized, or maybe they all saw themselves getting a piece of the action in the emerging automobile market and thus didn't think that they (each individually) needed a bail-out. Or maybe things were done differently back in the day and nobody thought to ask for assistance - though the experience of granting land etc... to railroads in the 1870s-1910s suggests otherwise. The number of vehicles doesn't seem particularly relevant, though the level of employment - if we take the reasons for the bail-out at face value and with an anaemic level of cynicism - might be. The excerpt above doesn't mention what the current number of workers is, or how it sits as a share of the total population, which would shed some light on policy factors beyond the slickness and success of GM and Chrysler's lobbying efforts. It’s all in the numbers. 9,163 establishments versus the big 3. Presumably the ‘little 9,163′ weren’t adequately organized, or maybe they all saw themselves getting a piece of the action in the emerging automobile market and thus didn’t think that they (each individually) needed a bail-out. Or maybe things were done differently back in the day and nobody thought to ask for assistance - though the experience of granting land etc… to railroads in the 1870s-1910s suggests otherwise.

The number of vehicles doesn’t seem particularly relevant, though the level of employment - if we take the reasons for the bail-out at face value and with an anaemic level of cynicism - might be. The excerpt above doesn’t mention what the current number of workers is, or how it sits as a share of the total population, which would shed some light on policy factors beyond the slickness and success of GM and Chrysler’s lobbying efforts.

]]>