Who even remembers?

Mike Thompson's commentary:

My but critics of the auto bailout have certainly been quiet lately. Think the sound of crickets chirping coming from the government-can’t-do-anything-right camp might have something to do with the string of good news coming out of the domestic auto industry?

According to published reports, General Motors has announced a $1.2 billion profit for the third quarter, a 33-percent jump in production at its domestic auto plants and is in hiring mode again. Next week, the auto company hopes to raise $13 billion in an initial public offering of stock in an effort begin the process of getting government out of the auto business.

Even the still highly troubled Chrysler, barely into its 5 year turnaround plan, has grown market share and has reduced the torrent of red ink it had been spewing down to a flow, cutting its third quarter losses to about half the level of last year, media outlets are reporting. Although still struggling, the automaker has expanded production and added thousands of jobs with talk of more hiring on the horizon.

In fact, the American auto industry is doing so well that as columnist Froma Harrop pointed out, The Economist magazine has issued an apology to President Obama for past articles the publication printed that opposed the auto bailout.

Of course, none of this would have happened had not Uncle Sam bailed out GM and Chrysler. In doing so, the government avoided a collapse of the auto industry and the auto supply chain, prevented a crippling blow to an economy already reeling from the Wall St. crash and saved, by some estimates, up to a million Americans jobs.

Durn government, always messing things up.

Will this haunt anyone? I doubt it. The American people can't remember past last week. How else do you explain last week's election (and George W. Bush's book tour)?

In ordinary circumstances, we could have let GM and Chrysler fail, although it would have taken down the domestic auto parts industry, too, and no doubt other related businesses. But we were in the middle of the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. How insane would it have been to let this happen on top of everything else?

This was absolutely the right move. Even Obama's political enemies can see that now, though most are keeping very quiet about it. And, of course, the American people don't seem to care at all, or even remember, since this is not part of the narrative being pushed by Fox "News" and the rest of the GOP.

One of my relatives is upset with Obama because his stock in pre-bailout GM is worthless. I guess he misunderstood all that "bailout" talk, which was never a giveaway to stockholders. The company was entering bankruptcy. Obama had nothing to do with that. It's one of the risks you take when you invest in stock. You shouldn't own stock if you don't understand that.

And even bondholders took a hit, losing part of their investments. Bondholders always take precedence over stockholders. That's part of what makes bonds safer investments than stock. Bonds are paid back before stockholders get anything. Again, you shouldn't invest in stocks if you don't understand that.

The so-called "bailout" of GM and Chrysler was merely an attempt to keep them operating, rather than risk cascading failures and up to a million workers dumped into what was already a terrible labor market. Like the stimulus, like TARP (which, of course, was Bush's plan, created before Obama took office), it was an attempt to stabilize the economy before we completely cratered, before we entered a second Great Depression.

And it worked. All of these things worked. Our government did what it needed to do, and the collapse stopped in its tracks shortly after Obama took over. The economy is still not healthy, and the job market is still weak, but we're far better off than we could have been. And, in fact, the stock market has boomed in the past year and a half, profits are robust, corporations are sitting on trillions in cash,... and Wall Street is setting records in bonuses.

As usual, the wealthy are doing great, while they scream the loudest. These cash-rich corporations aren't investing in new facilities and new employees, except in China, but they've sure been spending money on politics. Apparently, no one cares, or even remembers, that Barack Obama took over when this economic collapse seemed to have no bottom and crafted an effective rescue of our nation in the face of widespread opposition.