Chicken or Egg

Here's the deal. General Motors is not doing well. Citigroup is not doing well. General Motors took a lot of government money. Citigroup took a lot of government money. General Motors is about 60% owned by the government. The government has a large - maybe 40% - equity position in Citigroup. See, we told you that the government couldn't run large corporations at a profit! That's the position Daniel Gross is arguing against here. If it had not been for the government bailout, GM would be in a class with Packard, Stutz, and DeLorean - gone, gone, gone. No employees, no pensions, no suppliers, no dealers, just a line of vacant showrooms as far as the eye can see. That didn't happen, so far, and we have the Bush and Obama administrations to thank for it.