"Business will start spending money hiring when there is demand for what they sell. Period. You can cut their taxes to zero, they still won't hire if no one's buying."

You must be able to see that taking money away from businesses in order to give people money to buy things from businesses doesn't actually do anything useful. Heck, I wish it were that simple. Most of this money right now is being created from nothing, and is worth less every day.

I said the main reason was the government is nuts, and I meant it. At this point, business factors like health care, taxation, regulation, and the rest are up in the air, and under the control of people who are not only completely arbitrary, but have a deep hostility to the private sector in general.

"Wall st might have had a "little" to do with it."

More than a little, but they took advantage of a road that was laid out for them once everyone was convinced that the GSEs would back their assets with infinite government cash.

"If you guys had your way GM would not exist today."

Maybe. But other companies would have picked up what was there and run with it. That's what bankruptcy does. Nobody was going to burn down the plants and shoot all the employees. Bailouts often take a bad situation, put a bandaid on it, and let it fester into a worse situation.

Anyway, going through the conventional process was not what the government wanted. This is a list of the current ownership:

-United States Department of the Treasury (61%)

-United Auto Workers Union Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (17.5%)

-Canada Development Investment Corporation (7.9%)

-Government of Ontario (3.8%)

-Bond holders of Motors Liquidation Company (9.8%)

And that's what the government wanted.