DD, You've got me a bit confused.  First, GM did go into bankruptcy.  Second, I can't figure how you conclude the pensions would get wiped out.  Wouldn't the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation cover those shortfalls?  Probably to the tune of around 55%?  This is complicated stuff and I"m sincerely looking for clarity.  I want to agree with you, but I find myself a bit frustrated with the bailout similar to Destor (up thread).

But I'll tell you what really gets in my craw, which I was reminded of while doing some crash studying to try to get to the bottom of this.  A huge chunk of these auto ind. bailout dollars went to cover health care benefit shortfalls, health benefits not provided by competitors of US auto makers because those are provided by their governments.  So add $500 to the cost of a Chrysler, thank you very much, and oh yeah, we need $50 billion.  Why didn't Obama and the Democrats bring this up during the HCR talk with the substantial weight of this particularly important industry bringing up the rear?  The timing was perfect.  Kills me.

AA, there are all sorts of ways of effecting a redistribution of wealth without overthrowing the fundamental legal traditions of American life with respect to property.   The way wealth is distributed in a society organized around private property is a function of the tax policies that society has in place, the spending policies that society has in place, the financial incentives that that are created for different kinds of spending and saving, and the way businesses are and are not regulated, especially with regard to their labor and compensation practices.  This is common sense.   Wealth is not distributed by magic.  It is distributed by the accumulated impact of both individual and social choices.  The distribution systems that currently prevail are already the result of social choices.  There is no reason that people can't or won't engage in rational reflection on whether those systems are the best ones for our society.

The way to be not "scary" is to develop and advocate policy proposals for which it it is abundantly clear to the vast majority of Americans that they and their loved ones will personally benefit.

I seem to remember as a younger person that the terms "distrubution", "redistribution", etc. were thrown around constantly without anyone but the far right flying off into into a tizzy.  And the American people accepted for decades extremely high tax rates on the very wealthy, without any mature person being under any illusions that the purpose of these tax rates was to redistribute the wealth of the wealthy down the economic ladder to everyone else.   Also, the metaphor of the national "pie" was commonplace, along with discussions of how it should be cut.  So yes, we have some communications work to do to get back to that formerly prevailing philosophical outlook, and to undo some of the neoliberal laissez faire fanaticism of the Reagan-Thatcher revolution.

But I believe self-interest and common sense can ultimately prevail over ideology and paranoid resistance.  To the extent that many Americans are stubbornly fixed against redistributive policies, the chief reason is that the right has successfully convinced a majority that government regulatory and fiscal policies represent a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the poor .  What progressives have to do is articulate a new set of redistributive policies that will clearly make 80% to 90% of the country net winners, and then build a coalition around that new deal.

NAFTA was Pandora's Box.  I won't insult your intelligence by reminding you who signed that bill into law!

Thanks for this timely and important discussion, Stardust.

The bankruptcy law revisions to which you and Chuck refer affected (and continue to affect) people nationwide.

However, not only the focus, but also the timing of the restrictions on personal bankruptcy law was, in 2005, a case in point of the truly grotesque --  enacted six months prior to Katrina but seven months after Ivan/Jeanne et al (the worst year for repeated and severe hurricane devastation over a large geographic area in US history) .... when mortgage companies were calling loans on houses that were no longer habitable while flood and wind insurers were delaying, delaying, delaying settlements that caused people to have DOUBLE living expenses in housing in areas where businesses (and therefore employment) were also ruined by damaged buildings and delinquent insurers..... 

All this  -- on the Gulf Coast -- before the BP oil spill. Blow after blow after blow sustained by a people -- many of whom, ironically, are really conservative (Fox plays all day, every where, even in the US post office) People, in other words, who really believed that they must rally, never say die, never, ever, take a "government hand-out" .... but who -- a year, a year and a half in - had run through all their resources and were being foreclosed, or were in danger of being foreclosed.

And the legislation that was passed? As Chuck enumerated, this legislation required these people, who had moved heaven and earth and had still lost everything they had worked for (not for lack of trying but due to the malfeasance of the government/corporate forces ranged against them) to prejudicial requirements to "qualify" in arcane ways for the privilege of filing for bankruptcy (and thereby destroying their credit rating, etc.)

So. Did these people also really need the added humiliation of attending money management classes? Did they deserve a third hit, re: BP?  

I am disgusted by my government. NO ONE declares bankruptcy as a lark -- contrary to spin -- unless it is a big business/corporate entity in which individuals are protected from liability and personal harm.  The little people do not declare bankruptcy ( or apply to do it, since there are now so many disqualifiers) from an ideology of irresponsibility. Rather, the people who ultimately declare bankruptcy have run out of all other options --- something BIG BANKS and INSURANCE CORPORATIONS somehow never seem to encounter. 

We bail out banks and insurance companies. Not so much the people who really are heroic in their repeated efforts to be SELF-sustaining.

This is a textbook case of MORAL BANKRUPTCY. Now writ large considering foreclosures from the housing/derivative bubble and rising unemployment, etc.  And now, as icing on the cake, they want the social security of these same people? 

Death panels? They already exist: politicians in concert with banks and corporations have been in place for some time.