Slashdot Comments | The case for public run money

For anyone who thinks GM's problems started recently:

The lowliest paid guy in GM can buy a top of the line new car, a caddy say, and never sweated the 5 buck a gallon gas last summer. They can also have a harley, a snowmobile, a main house, a summer camp and etc. That's why no one in the car companies could see they were making way too expensive gas hogs. I was just a lowly GM employee in the 60s, we were making an *obscene* wage for what we were doing and I know it has gone up from then. You could eat steak and lobster every night, and I did frequently. Went out to eat all the dang time. I had friends who bought and trashed new muscle cars every six months on that sort of wage! Wore them out street racing. No probs, just go buy another one. That's how much we were making back then, and what that meant for being able to buy stuff. I mean a real nice apt was 90-100 bucks a month, they would have deals where they could advertise them as less than a hundred, and it was quite possible to find a good enough place for like 12 bucks a week or 50-60 a month. I know I just stayed in a real nice motel efficiency because it had freeking maid service! It was only a little more than an apartment and just as nice, so who cared? Utilities for most people, electric, natgas, fuel oil, phone, were a joke, gasoline was 6 gallons for a dollar, and you had to go way out of your way to find the worst possible job that didn't come with full insurance. When you were making hundreds of bucks a week THEN, with just an entry level blue collar job, well..it leads to "irrational exuberence" that lasted culturally for decades..That's why NONE of those CEOs realized what a bad PR move showing up in their private jets was..no frame of reference with the regular folks in the rest of the nation. The rank and file union "brothers" are similar, just used to living so high on the hog for so long they can't even conceive that they are overpaid by three times.