How Much Does The GM Bailout Matter?

Noah Millman puts the bailout in context:

The government simply was not going to let GM go bankrupt after bailing out the banks. Period. This was a political decision. That kind of decision happens all the time, and I don’t feel like very much is implicated by it philosophically.

Each party doubtlessly has its debating points to make about how costly the bailout was (or how much less costly than expected) but they are just that: debating points. There is no great push to socialize American manufacturing generally, nor do I feel that anti-GM-bailout sentiment now will have any material bearing on whether the government acts similarly in the future under similar circumstances – such as an incipient global near-depression. In that sense, I really don’t see that GM “matters” all that much.

Manzi's earlier analysis here.