The Bailouts That Weren't

With all the talk over government bailouts these days, I wonder what would have happened if the following earlier bailouts hadn't taken place:

New York City, 1975: $2.3 billion in loans

Chrysler, 1979 (probably the most well known auto industry bailout until GM): $1.5 billion in loans

Savings & Loans, 1989 (another hugely controversial bailout of a sector of the financial business in its time): $293.8 billion dollars
 
In the case of Chrysler, I can say with some certainty they would have gone completely broke and been bought out by somebody else. They went to Ford and Volkswagen in 1979 and 1980, but those didn't get far for a variety of reasons.

The New York bailout was largely the result of the financial problems that were racked up by Robert Wagner and especially John Lindsay. One in seven New Yorkers worked for the city in 1973 and one in eight were on welfare at the time, numbers that could not hope to hold. Robert Moses' massive construction projects and political maneuverings - followed by The Power Broker - hadn't helped that much. If New York hadn't been bailed out, it would have gone bankrupt and been unable to reverse its problems, a fact which would have caused major economic problems in New York, if not much of the Northeast.
 
The S and L bailout was a huge success because of the hard work of its committee chairman, Henry B Gonzalez, a much admired legend in my hometown of San Antonio. Gonzalez managed to keep the cost down from an expected something like a trillion dollar bailout to the amount you quoted.
http://www.cah.utexas.edu/feature/0611/bio_six.php

An industry collapse would've hit the economy hard, and probably given the GOP huge losses next election. Ironic that a lifelong Democrat saved them and put the good of the country first. Makes a sharp contrast to the behavior of today's Party of No.
 
The country and the economy would be far better off without the massive bailouts. Those companies that fail should be allowed to fold. As the editorial cartoon in this morning's paper says, "I may never have boughten US, but now I own a part of GM" - says taxpayer.
 
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