Bridge Loan Denied: WTF is wrong with these guys?

They still earn much more than the average joe. A cut will not put them on the streets. They may not be able to eat out as often. But, so what.

And let's face it, these UAW workers aren't barely scraping by.

Pretty much everyone agrees that they are making at least $40 in hourly pay, that's $83,000/year. Hell, according to Onion on one of his crazy threads, that's RICH. I disagree of course, it's not rich, but if they dropped down to $70,000/year it's not like they'd be lining up at a soup kitchen either.

I guess I'm in the middle on this one. I am glad the bailout didn't happen, but I don't blame the Unions.

David Kurtz at TPM made this point extremely well today -



He's right. It tells you everything you need to know about what held the bailout up; ideology of Republicans, anti-union sentiment, and not the realities of the situation.

I hadn't seen the CEOs offered to lower their salaries; thanks. For how long? How much of the upper management will as well? How much goes to management pay there? This all needs to be known.

Cycloptichorn

It's not just the republicans Cyclops, it's 60% of the Voters too.

Actually no.

According to a Rasmussen poll a few days ago, most Americans are opposed to the government bailing out the big 3.

And this:


That's probably why the market finished in positive territory today after Harry Reid predicted a blood bath yesterday.

They really don't have a clue.

That's what I said Fox.

The republicans in Congress have done a fantastic job squashing this bailout. I then said that they have the support of 60% of the country.

Cyclops made an inference along the lines that only republicans want this bailout to fail, and I was making the statement that it's the republicans in Congress + the majority of the country.


And I think the stock market did better because ******* BUSH has hinted that he'd use TARP money for this bailout after all.

+1 more reason to hate GWB.

You're right. I misread what you said.

Several Democrats jumped ship to vote with the opposing Republicans though and several Republicans voted for the bailout. This isn't really a partisan thing but is based on the principle of government controlling or not controlling business and commerce in this country as well as fiscal responsibility.

I don't hate President Bush. He is a fiscal liberal and is acting honorably as he sees it. Like you, I think he is wrong on this.

And the pro-bailout Democrats aren't pushing this because they know if it backfires--and ever bailout attempt so far has done so--they will have to take the blame for it. As it stands now, like Cyclop they can shrug their shoulders and point at the Republicans and say its all their fault.

Well if the Democrats had done their jobs in committee and on the House and Senate floor from the get go, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. Or at least in as much of a mess.

There's plenty of blame to pass around and right now it doesn't matter who didn't do what. Time aplenty for post mortems later, but right now we citizens seem to be the only ones with common sense left and we darn sure better dig in our heels and exercise it before it is too late.

Yeah, right. At least we got our side to vote for it in general. And I wonder how the 18 Republican senators who voted for the Financial Bailout, but against the Auto Bailout, can explain why they thought one was necessary at 10 times the price of the other, even though they put next to no restrictions on the companies in question; which is what they say killed the current one. It's logically inconsistent.

The market didn't tank b/c of the TARP money talk, I think that's correct.

Cycloptichorn

What galls me in all of this is that Congress didn't ask the banks or insurance company employees for wage concessions. WTF is up with asking for the UAW members for concessions? Anyone see the double standard there?

If Congress or Bush do nothing to help GM, Ford, and Chrysler now, their failures will affect not just current employees but also their retirees. Those folks whose financial security depends on their pensions worked damn hard for those pensions. Remember, many of them worked for one of the big three for 30-40 years. They started in the '50s and '60s when those auto plants didn't have robots to do the hard, dirty work. Their reward for busting their asses every day for all those years? A retirement with some small financial security and those precious health benefits that many of you are now deriding.

Remember, Japan and Germany have socialized medicine, so for their citizen-workers they aren't paying those retiree health benefits. And for those employees they hired here in the States in those right-to-work states, while they may be paying health-care benefits to the retirees, as some of you have mentioned, there aren't as many of them who have retired from the Japanese and German companies to have the kind of impact those costs have on GM/Ford/Chrysler.

Here, GM/Ford/Chrysler contracted with the employees' chosen bargaining unit -- the UAW -- to pay health-care benefits for those retiring workers. And for people who worked in dirty, environmentally hazardous conditions for many of their years with the companies, those benefits are all important.

Try getting a doctor to take you on as a patient these days if you don't have health insurance. But that's a totally different post for another day.

For today I say, let's see some parity in the land where "all [people were] created equal." Congress needs to put its money where its mouth is to act consistently with one of our founding principles. Giving bailout money to the banks and insurance companies with their white-collar workforces and not to automotive manufacturers with their blue-collar workforces does not exactly set a shining example of equality.

Dont get excited people. When the big three go under the tax payers will take over the retires pay and even supply them with medical care like they do in europe. Than an american company can enter the car makeing industry and compete on an even keel. Perhaps?

Does anyone find it convenient that the auto industry needs 15 billion to last them for a few months......and there just happens to be 15 billion left over from the 350 billion that congress approved for TARP a few weeks ago.

Does this sound even a little contrived to anyone but me?

This wasn't addressed to me, but I want to point out that the point isn't so that we want the cars that much cheaper, but because their ability to compete in the marketplace is relevant to whether this will be money wasted.

They are bleeding billions a month. What's the point of giving our tax money to them if they don't survive even with the bailout?

Giving them $15 billion isn't going to fix anything, they need to stem the bleeding and without drastic reduction in payroll costs they aren't going to do that. I'm all for making sure they make those drastic changes before giving away public funds. It would be completely pointless for us all to foot the bill just so they can survive another 6 months.

They certainly are scrutinizing the auto bailout much more closely than they did with the much larger financial bailout, but one big difference is that in the financial sector the wages have little relation to the problem. For example, if the wages were all cut 25% this would not have fixed their respective companies' underlying problems.

In the case of the auto industry, they are bleeding billions of dollars a month. Giving them $15 billion isn't going to fix anything, it's going to buy them time to fix things and only a few months at that. If they keep bleeding at this rate we'd have to put in up to $50 billion a year to keep them alive.

Keeping them alive is pointless if they don't stop the bleeding. They are going to need to sell off brands, lay off workers and/or reduce compensation rates to survive because they aren't magically going to start selling enough cars to stem the bleeding anytime soon.

This spoof isn't really about the bailout, but it does touch on the real rub in all this mess. The average working American who isn't making $78+/hour in wages and benefits, who uses good sense in taking on debt and making investments, who foregoes having a vacation home and luxury vacations so that he can pay his mortgage and keep his kid in college, etc., really isn't sympathetic to big money executives and their golden parachutes and/or union bosses unwilling to compromise on anything, or folks who are recklessly irresponsible with their finances and don't wish to incur any consequences for that:

fox wrote :



i wonder how people would react if being told that they'll probably have a 1 in 3 chance of losing THEIR job if the auto companies go completely down the toilet ?

i can't see why there can't be a "middle way" ?
senior auto management , union leaderss from VARIOUS unions (not just auto) and "people in the know" (leaders from other businesses , economists etc. should be brought together and given three months to trash out a plan ) . seems to me this is no different than trying to win a war : ALL those that can help resolve the problem will have to be brought together to arrive at a solution .
this is really not an insurmountable problem imo , but the various parties within and outside the industry will have to understand what my happen if NO solution is found .
it's like having to take unpalatable medicine , once i know what will happen if i refuse to take it , i may swallow it quite willingly .
hbg

Well, yes, but the bailout doesn't seem to be a solution. Originally, the automakers were challenged to come up with a plan showing how they would succeed if they received their 25 or 35 billion. If they couldn't put together a plausible story, I doubt anyone else could.

Well, the bailout happened and it's all paid back. All the folks saying "Don't do it" were wrong. The government took over financial control of GM, and it all worked out and now GM is back in private hands and doing pretty well.

The government does have a role to play in the economy, it's job is not just to keep out of the way.