More on the Bottomless Pit

On CBC Toronto's morning show and in Saturday's Globe and Mail, Dennis DesRosiers of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants is noting that the cost of manufacturing jobs saved is now north of $2 million.

He is suggesting that for this money ($13 billion), we could attract international manufacturers (Honda and Toyota already have operations here and are companies with excellent long-term prospects). His concern is that despite massive cash infusions there is every chance that neither GM or Chrysler will survive. And even if they do make it, they will be much smaller companies that employ relatively few workers.

As with the banks over the last year, governments here and in the U.S. have been forced to react quickly to circumstances rather than act with well thought out policies to achieve public goals. And this will put governments in deficit for years to come. Perhaps more important, bailouts and rescues have created a huge moral hazard problem; companies that are "too big to fail" are able to reap profits in good times and socialize losses in bad.