General Motors goes non-union

[wobbly]

Thanks hermod, but that's only part of the story since GM's intervention in directly disrupting interurban and urban rail transit started 14 years before the earliest date you listed.

[JBMcB]

I love a good conspiracy as much as the next guy, but the whole GM destroying electric trolleys doesn't pass the sniff test.

For one, the government investigated this practice and found nothing. Then the government took them to court over the matter, and mostly lost. GM was found guilty, of requiring NCL to buy only buses produced by GM. Which is sort of like suing Toyota for only buying seats made by Denso.

The trolley system was already dying when GM started buying it up. In the 30's, buses were already seen as the future, as they went anywhere and were cheaper to maintain [[trolleys weren't all that efficient, HV power transmission was very poor at the time, and rails and wires had to be maintained - diesel was dirt cheap in comparison)

GM wasn't responsible for the death of the trolley system. They were responsible for making sure that the buses that would inevitably replace the trolleys were GM branded.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/...transit-system
http://www.1134.org/stan/ul/GM-et-al.html
http://marthabianco.com/kennedy_rogerrabbit.pdf

[Hermod]

Thanks hermod, but that's only part of the story since GM's intervention in directly disrupting interurban and urban rail transit started 14 years before the earliest date you listed.

GM [[and Ford) disrupted the interurban and trolley systems primarily by building cars which competed with the transit systems. Even before cars were plentiful, interurbans and trolleys were marginal investments from a profit making standpoint. They took local passengers and package freight from the railroads, but local passengers and LCL freight were the least profitable lines in the railroad portfolio. Once they had to compete with automobiles, the interurbans were doomed and the trolleys were in trouble. Buses were cheaper than trolleys, but even they became unprofitable. Transit is operated in most of the industrial world as an "essential service" with very few places showing a profit. Buses just don't hemorrhage cash as quickly as rail transit.

[wobbly]

"essential services" as hermod puts it are exactly the point.

Health care, public transportation, police & fire protection, education, postal service, housing ... these are essential services that can and should be provided by society. I'm not saying society should provide you with a McMansion and facelifts, but rather solve homelessness and provide basic medical care.

Society currently provides billions in subsidies to move manufacturing to Alabama or China, abandoning Detroit. This is a choice. There are better fairer choices. The speculative pursuit of profits through 'derivatives' are supported, while millions lose their homes in the housing bubble.

Some say the housing bubble was unknowable before it burst. But Dean Baker at the Center for Economic and Policy Research had warned of it for years. He's smart, but probably not the smartest economist on the planet, so I'd guess the bubble was known to those who profited from it, seeing the destruction caused as collateral damage to "others" and their own activities as consistent with the corporate mandate to pursue profits at any cost to "others".

We have a society that benefits the few at the expense of the many. Living inside capitalism that seems like 'the only possible way'. It is not.

[Sstashmoo]

Quote: "We have a society that benefits the few at the expense of the many."

Another woe is me commentary. In a society where you cannot fail, you cannot win. Some of you need to move to a socialistic country, write back and tell us how great it is.

Quote: "Some say the housing bubble was unknowable before it burst. But Dean Baker at the Center for Economic and Policy Research had warned of it for years. He's smart,"

As did I. They were loaning $250K on a house that wasn't worth 125 to folks that no way could have qualified, and no interest or payments for two years. I'm not smart, but I could see where that was going ten years ago. It didn't take a genius to figure out where that was headed.

[Hermod]

They were loaning $250K on a house that wasn't worth 125 to folks that no way could have qualified, and no interest or payments for two years. I'm not smart, but I could see where that was going ten years ago. It didn't take a genius to figure out where that was headed.

The basic problem with the housing market, home building, mortgage brokering, and banking was that every one involved was sure that the prices would never, ever go down, so there was no risk in making no doc, nothing down, or reverse amortization loans. The same went for house flippers and the buy, paint, patch, and resell crowds.

When the music stopped, a lot of folks were "without a chair" and now they want to blame it on something other than their own greed.

[JBMcB]

The basic problem with the housing market, home building, mortgage brokering, and banking was that every one involved was sure that the prices would never, ever go down,

And they were correct. Over the long term, real estate prices will always increase, as demand will always increase. As the saying goes, God isn't making any more of it.

The problem was people were assuming the prices would continue to increase at a stupidly high rate, and were, essentially, betting on that fact. Turns out they were wrong, the housing boom was fueled by stupidly low interest rates. The Fed wasn't doing it's job, and it wasn't the first time.