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I can see how you may feel that way since it affected you personally but I don't think that the Conservative government linked the cause of the meltdown to the autoworker. Bottomline is that GM needed a bank loan, no bank was lending money during that period because they themselves could not borrow as inter-bank lending dried up for a period of time while there was uncertainty as to which ones were going to survive - there were bank failures in the US, Iceland, even in the UK there was concern about possible bank failures (and they all got hammered in the markets).Originally Posted by canadian88lx
GM would have likely had to file for CCAA protection if the government did not step in and act as a "bank" in this case (I don't recall how badly off they were; I only remember that Ford had done a market financing before the meltdown so they were sitting on a pile of cash from that when the meltdown occurred and did not need a distress loan) - that would have meant massive layoffs - a bigger hit to (ex)workers pockets.
So in the end, the Conservatives probably saved your and other auto workers' jobs although "collateral" had to be given for the "bank" loan so to speak.
As a bank making a loan you would put rules/covenants in place as security and protections for the loan to ensure re-payment. I understand one can say that has nothing to do with me at the micro level, but bigger picture, this is how it works - you're only going to lend money unless you have a reasonable assurance of re-payment. This is simplistic as there are layers to it like when you get into sub-prime (even more rules or higher interest rates) and high yield debt. I think they actually learned from the US who stupidly gave bailout money without the requirements on how it could be used and the bailout money was misused.
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