Richard Wolff : This Is an Abomination How U.S. Bailed Out Car Makers, But Abandoned Detroit

"This Is an Abomination": Richard Wolff on How U.S. Bailed Out Car Makers, But Abandoned Detroit


At the height of the financial crisis, the U.S. government bailed out two major Detroit auto makers, General Motors and Chrysler. But it never bailed out Detroit, economist Richard Wolff notes. In fact, since part of the deal for the bailout involved gutting the wages of new workers, the bailout ensured that "if the car companies could come back, Detroit couldn't, because the return of workers to the automobile industries would be workers paid $14 or $15 an hour, and that puts you below the poverty wage in the United States," Wolff says. "This is an abomination in which the top, the industry, the big corporations are bailed out, and the very cities that depend on them are told to fend for themselves."