A couple of years ago, Chrysler and General Motors needed billions in taxpayer-funded bailouts from both Canada and the U.S. to survive. Looks like the investment paid off. Chrysler, GM and Ford all posted profits for 2011 — the first time that’s happened in a while — and GM, in particular, posted an all-time record profit. Its 43,000 blue-collar workers in the U.S. will each get a $7,000 profit-sharing check this spring.
So how’d this rebound happen in the middle of a recession? Here’s Scotiabank senior economist Carlos Gomes on that issue:
Whichever GOP candidate wins will have problems against Obama in fall over this subject as they were all venomously against the company bailouts. There would have been much more unemployed had they managed to suppress the bailouts and it will cone back to haunt them.