Think what you will about the auto industry bailout. There are two main perspectives: a bailout would help stabilize the industry and economy OR it won’t and is just wasteful. That’s a perfectly good debate and I’m not sure I’ve picked a side yet. But if the auto industry bailout indeed failed yesterday because the United Auto Workers refused to accept immediate pay cuts by way of an amendment advanced by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), then we are not really debating bailouts, we’re debating union busting.
Apparently, fewer people have a problem pouring $700 billion in the financial sector with only cursory limits on CEO pay and other compensation and no good oversight. But if some auto worker in some cherry picked example makes $71 an hour at the top of the pay scale, counting benefits, we’ve got to bust that guy down a peg by tubing the entire auto industry bill. God forbid that kind of money go to a blue collar family! It should really be multiplied by 100 and given to a CEO in a severance package after grossly mismanaging a company.
The union agreed to wage concessions, it merely wanted more time to implement them. This is just a stunt to drum up public opinion against the auto workers. Corker is a “rising star” because of this, we are told. I say he’s using desperate times to attack unions. Unions aren’t perfect and need to change, but they’re the reason we (had) a middle class in the country and will be part of the workforce into the future. If this continues much longer we’ll have to relive some rather unpleasant parts of U.S. history.
You better believe if the Auto Workers get rolled here then we can expect similar attacks on the Steelworkers and all the service unions. This fight will come to the Iron Range and everywhere else in this country. Corporations will demand help and they’ll point fingers at their own workers as long as Congress lets them.
The upside to this is that Republicans are further distancing themselves from the populace. I think that most Americans believe that the 700 billion dollar financial bailout package, (not to mention the additional 1.3 trillion dollars the Fed was able to disperse without any lawmaker input), was a way worse idea than helping blue collar workers maintain their jobs. It shows just how delusional Republicans have become when it comes to the economy.
Hopefully these asinine actions of conservative Republicans will destroy the party entirely. Then a new Republican party can rise, shifted to the left economically, also removed from Chritian Extremists, and actually compete for traditional blue state votes.
Wishful thinking…
Judging by his vote last night, Senator Norm got the “bust the unions now” memo as well. Senator Klobuchar voted for the loan.
I really doubt that even the highest pay worker makes 71 dollars an hour. The UAW average is 27-29 and the 70 dollar figure being thrown around also includes the costs of pensions for the various generations of UAW workers who make up the older parts of the middle class.
You want a bailout, then send in an extra 50% for taxes!!!
Oh, yes, spending other peoples’ money sure is easy.
Have you people lost your minds? What will you want to bail out next? Newspapers? Taconite mines? How about a few Billion to Excelsior Energy if they delay clean coal for a few years?
The auto companies, unions, and workers made their own bed…
In your heart you know I am right.
Sounds like S’weasel’s heros are Congressmen Frank and Dodd. Yikes, they are the ones that made this crisis possible.
Actually, I like Frank and Dodd about as much as a vinegar enema. My point was we spent 2 trillion dollars bailing out the financial sector, which probably isn’t helping too much on the jobs front.
But when it comes down to keeping jobs we already have Republicans have it all wrong. In my opinion there should have been no bailouts for either the financial sector or the auto industry. If your going to give the CEOs the whole doghouse you may as well throw the working man a bone.
Just don’t forget that it was your hero Democrats (Frank & Dodd) that started the financial crisis.
One bad bailout deserves another bad bailout?
Two wrongs do not make a right, S’weasel.
BTW, the Congress is controlled by the Democrats.
How do I sign up for Job Bank so I too can get money for nothing.
What else do you want to bail out?
Have you sent an extra check to the IRS to support your bailout wishes?
How about we have the government create jobs; hire one person to dig a hole and hire another person to fill the hole. Brilliant!
So K-Rod you think the Democrats are responsible for our financial crisis?
I’m sure it had nothing to do with George W. Bush, or the six years of total Republican control and policies. NO, no of course not, because the Republican government from 2000-2006 was so frugal with our money that the deficit was cut in half…oh wait, that’s right it tripled.
The politicians are to blame, S’weasel. Some politicians saw this coming and tried to make some changes. Bill Clinton even put most of the blame on the Democrats.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfGWxqsKFmY
Why did Frank/Dodd/et al block legislation like the provisions proposed to sarbanes oxley to cover Fan/Fred?
What community organizers did their darndest (upto threatening lawsuits) to allow people to get a mortgage they could not possibly afford?
And now you are telling us you want taxpayers to hand out money to a business that obviously can’t keep obligations it should never have accepted?
To which car companies, that have manufacturing in the US, do you want to handout taxpayer money?
In your heart you know I am right.
I could argue all day K-Fed, but in the end we both got hosed either way. I just try to place blame where it belongs, so we can agree upon, politicians.
Who should be blamed for the financial crisis? I blame it 50% on the banks that made these idiotic loans that they were never going to get back unless home values went up by a substantial amount every year, 25% on people who took out loans that they knew they couldn’t make payments on after two years, and 25% on politicians. Don’t get me wrong, some of the idiotic politicians in Congress and the last two presidents deserve plenty of blame, but the buck stops with the people who authorized the loans and those who took them out.
As for the auto bailout, I place most of the blame on the management of GM, Chrysler, and Ford for giving the UAW whatever they want and failing to stand up to them. They knew that the contracts were obscene and would ultimately bankrupt the companies. I’d never blame the workers for being given a very, very good wage for their work. That being said, the days of the never ending benefits are over. While the workers may have been getting $28/hour cash, the cost of the benefits was the rest. And that’s still compensation for the workers and still money that the companies have to pay. The pension business model is that of a past generation and unworkable in the modern economy.
Although I agree with Senator Corker that the unions need to immediately rework the contracts, the taxpayers have no obligation what so ever to bailout the companies regardless of that and I hate the idea of Congress trying to manage a business. Let the companies go into bankruptcy. If they survive, they survive. If they don’t, they don’t. If they don’t, we still have plenty of cars to choose from that are made in America. They just all happen to be non-union companies in southern states.
How about this: The auto workers get the same deal on compensation limits that the CEOs got in the Wall Street bailout. In other words, the maximum limit is three times the total of what they earned over the past several years. Some limit! But if it’s good enough for Manhattan, it’s good enough for Detroit.
Of course, Republicans didn’t like those CEO pay limits, if I recall, because that was “government interfering in the marketplace.”
One last point here, regarding Senator Coleman’s no vote. This is a guy who has repeatedly said for years, going back to when he was Mayor of St. Paul, that his number one priority was creating jobs. “The best thing I can do for a kid is make sure mom and dad have a job.” This is a guy who attacked Wellstone and Franken for “not getting things done,” and “letting the perfect be the enemy of the good,” and “you need an attitude that says yes, not no.” This is a guy who voted for the Wall Street bailout, saying that while it wasn’t perfect, doing nothing might result in lost jobs, and that was just unacceptable.
This is the same guy who just voted no on the auto bailout.
Norm Coleman: Holding Voters in Contempt for 15 Years. Thanks, suckers!
I’m sure you could argue all day for more welfare for the UAW and nationalizing the auto industry, S’tweasel. You seem to support National Socialism.
Anon, could you restate your comment? Your incoherent rambling makes no sense. All it says is “I hate Norm! (for no good reason)”
This “bailout” will not fix the fundamental problems for the US auto industry.
Todd, good points, but the root cause of the financial crisis was allowing Fan/Fred/ect to mix the bad loans into the good loan pool along with the politicians demanding everyone get a loan even if they couldn’t afford it… in the name of a so-called “right to affordable homeownership”. The politicians have more than 50% of the blame. Frank and Dodd alone share over 15% of the blame of the financial crisis.
On the other hand, the root cause of the troubles with the US auto industry is the UAW along with politicians. The politicians have tried to make it so restructuring under bankruptcy won’t fix the fundamental problem.
I say let the US auto companies go bankrupt, sell the entire company lock, stock, and barrel (let stockholders will take the hit). New investors will buy the entier company lock, stock, and barrel at market value. Then the “new” company can restructure and hire back as many of the same workers as the true business model requires. Might wanna look to Toyota for some business advice.
I’ll ask again to those, like S’tweasel, that support the auto bailout:
How many billions do you propose to give to Toyota?
Well K-Fed, I went from being accused of being a liberal friend of Dodd and Frank to a Nazi (National Socialist)?
Obviously your understanding of government types is minimal. I suppose this is why you seem to advocate the failed laissez-faire economics. You would let the elite consolidate our jobs, redistribute wealth to the top percentiles, and let the newly unemployed workers starve in the streets without government assistance.
You know in reality, it is I who am correct.
Why do you refuse to answer a few simple questions, S’tweasel?
It sounds like you want to nationalize the auto industry, is that not correct? It sounds like you want to redistribute wealth via the government, ie socialism, is that not correct? Would you prefer that we called it marxism instead of socialism? How about liberal fascism? Not considering war, deaths, and racism, what don’t you like about national socialism?
How many of the Toyota auto workers in the US are “starving in the streets”, S’tweasel? How does that compare to the number of GM workers “starving in the streets? How many Ford workers are “starving in the streets”, S’twealsel?
How many billions do you propose to give to Toyota? Simple question.
//This is like shooting fish in a barrel. Easy pickins.//
My Karma just ran over your Dogma
//crickets//
//irrelevance//
People don’t have the time to refute every one of your comments when they each contain a dozen tangentially related red herrings. I certainly don’t. And Silkweasel probably doesn’t like being called S’tweasel. That’s just impolite.
Hmm…maybe I played that all wrong. I should probably have been putting in anonymous comments to back up my point of view. Then, I could claim I had, “won”, the argument.
That implies the supposition that I even worry about such things…
//anonymous sound effect here//