In part four of their ongoing series on the Great Recession, the Shuffle Bois turn to a topic near and dear to their hearts, the automotive bailouts of 2008/9. When cheap and easy credit dried up due to the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the dominos of financialization began to fall, the three struggling American automotive companies were hit particularly hard. In this episode, the shuffle bois go through the history of the automotive industry, laying out both its long term chronic and short term acute issues, before tracing the Obama administration's response. It's a sprawling episode covering labour relations, corporate mismanagement, globalization, the place of the car in American identity, financialization and private equity, and environmentalism

Bibliography:

Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin, Detroit: I do mind dying. Cambridge: South End Press, 1998

Paul Ingrassia, Crash Course: the American auto industry's road to bankruptcy and bailout - and beyond. New York: Random House, 2011

Steven Rattner, Overhaul: an insider's account of the Obama administration's emergency rescue of the auto industry. Boston: Mariner Books, 2011

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