If they bust the unions, I’ll never buy American again.

OK, that’s kind of a hollow threat since I can’t imagine buying a piece of shit American car anyway.  I was happy to buy a Saturn back in 1996 but GM has since screwed over that division and now Saturns are just another piece of shit American car.  I’m driving that Saturn into the ground and then buying a Prius.  Fuck ‘em.

“we’re not going to do it with the barnacles of unionism wrapped around their necks.”

Yah. Cuz it’s the workers who build the damned things that are the real parasites, not shareholders that suck out profit from their toil, or highly paid executives that have already proven themselves incapable of running a profitable business.

That kind of talk makes me see Red.

“we’re not going to do it with the barnacles of unionism wrapped around their necks?”  So unions are supposed to give all the concessions and allow their members to sink below the waves with the “cement shoes of corporate piggy bankism strapped to their feet”?  It’s the greedy union’s fault that the company is failing?  How dare they want their health care!  We have CEO’s who need their raises, so suck it up, Mr. Middle Class!

Union bashers piss me off so much!  As a teacher, I refused to work in a private school because it didn’t have a union.  I’ve seen our union save teachers’ jobs by paying for a lawyer when the teacher was falsely accused of molesting a student (she was angry that he took her phone away when she used it during class).  Our union saved our failing district when they insisted the district raise teacher salaries and provide full coverage on health care to attract better teachers.  It was our union that insisted on more meaningful professional development so teachers actually learned something instead of just “doing time” in state-mandated inservice days.  Sure, it costs more money.  That’s why the union asked us to donate extra money so they could lobby for bond measures and bills that would give more money to the district.  It asked us to donate time to phone banks urging voters to vote for governors and representatives that would support education funding.

Republicans who blame unions for the failure of companies are so full of shit.  What they really mean is, “How dare you think you have any say in how you’re treated while you work here.  You have no say in this company.  As a worker, your job is to shut up and do what the CEO tells you.  This is my company, you are my workers, and you will be a good little cog or you will be replaced.”

No persuasive reason has been offered to divert money away from the productive part of the economy to put the big 3 on life support.  For the amount bailing them out would eventually cost, we could fund infrastructure projects and hire a lot of the auto-workers to do things like build railroad tracks and power transformers.  Yes, yes, we bailed out the financial industry and shouldn’t have, but just because we made a huge mistake doesn’t mean we have to make a similar big mistake at a later date.

I’m with BadKitty on this one.  Even though I haven’t bought an American-made car in 25 years, it was a piece of shit and I’m not going back.  I do not, however, blame the line worker for that.  I am currently driving a Lexus which is made in the States.  This is after a car history of Volvo, Subaru, Audi, BMW and Mercedes.  The Lexus is by far my favorite.  So, American-worker made, foreign management making the decisions.  Seems to be working.

American car makers have done nothing for 30 years but push environment-busting SUVs and Hummers on us and I don’t feel too damn sorry for management.  The bail-out SHOULD go through to save the millions of workers that had no real hand in this predicament.  The blatant union-busting of the GOP on this one makes me literally sick to my stomach.

Same here BadKitty.

I bought a Saturn in 98 and I’ve been very happy with it. I was at the dealer last summer getting some repair work done (nothing that was unreasonable for a 9 year old car) and the current Saturn offerings are horrible - big bloated-looking things that are way too expensive for what they are. I wouldn’t trade my 10 year old car for anything they have on the lot now. And when the current car dies, I think I’m also going to find myself at the Toyota or Honda dealer.

I had a ‘95 Saturn.  If I sat in one place for more than a few minutes, even in the middle of winter, the thing would overheat.

Every time there is a recession, companies use it as an excuse to take a little more from their workers.  When times are tough, there is always someone willing to do the job for less, and unions are in place specifically to oppose these market forces.  If they give in every time the market calls for it, what is the point of having them around?

In the end, what makes me ambivalent about this bailout is the prospect that the car companies will fail anyway, because they will not be able to retool and rethink their business models in time to avoid financial ruin.

True—and (to paraphrase DeMint) they’re certainly not going to do it with the barnacles of incompetent executive management wrapped around their necks.

These are distressed companies—big ones, but that’s what they are. If a private company bails such a company out by either acquistion or loan, the first order of business is always kicking out the overpaid and entitled MBAs (in management and on the board) who drove the company into the wall in the first place. And yet somehow the GOP, which is always demanding government work more like a business, is happy to make an exception for these greedhead clowns.

No conditions, no oversight, no ROI—no Benjamins.

The government could, of course, simply purchase all three car companies for about the same amount of money. Then, we the people would be the shareholders: we could toss these idiot executives out on their asses, and then sue them for having mismanaged the company’s so badly. We could demand that our new investments retool themselves to produce nothing but small, plug in electric cars, and then we could turn around and have the government and any companies with which the government does business purchase only these cars. We could continue to pay the union workers what they are due—I, for one, would love to see these Republican senators work one day, let alone one week or 30 years, on an assembly line—and use the excess production capacity to begin turning out wind turbines and the equipment needed for geothermal power.

But we the people, of course, are not stakeholders in our own government.

Ford might actually be able to turn things around:  they’re not in as bad of shape as the other two, they still make a couple of vehicles that people want, and even they said that all they need is a loan, not a full bailout.  They realized a few years ago that their business model was unsustainable and they have made some changes, but not quickly enough to stand up to a tanking economy.

Chrysler is dead in the water.  They’ve made a crap product for years.  I knew people 20 years ago who had brand-new Chryslers that were constantly in and out of the shop.  Time for them to go.

I couldn’t be more pissed off about this. They’ll vote in a heartbeat to dump 700 billion on wall street’s doorstep, but they’ll intentionally let millions of blue collar jobs go down the toilet in order to breakup the unions. What a bunch of fucking assholes.

The Congress can pass strings to the financial system bailout money to prevent President Bush from doing that, but they won’t even try.

It’s too late. TARP (which I also opposed) didn’t have offer any real oversight or equity. Giving that to Bush, Cheney and Paulson was like handing the keys to the bank to a gang of looters.

Reid and Pelosi both carry a lot of blame for what’s happening—both useless hacks, almost as incompetent as auto industry execs.

Chrysler is dead in the water.  They’ve made a crap product for years.

It goes beyond that—after it was acquired, Chrysler was destined to be stripped for assets. The government bailing it out is like going to a junkyard, buying up all the parts of the stripped cars, and then spending more money to re-assemble them. Insanity.

Just to review, the Republicans won’t support mortgage relief for homeowners because they believe in the sanctity of contracts. And they oppose a bail-out of the auto industry because it respects the sanctity of contracts.

Well, at least they are consistently inconsistent.

Well, if they survive….

You can buy a Northern Union Democrat American car, or….

You can buy a Souther Scab Republican Transplant car.

I’ve had 12 American cars/trucks and never had anything major go wrong with any of them.  My current Jeep (Chrysler made) has about 150,000 mi. and no major repairs.

Money talks, bullshit walks.

The mid-nineties Saturns were indestructible, while the new new Saturns are really Opel/Vauxhalls—i.e. European cars.

Alabama Senator Richard Shelby is the most infuriating actor in the whole fiasco. He praises the overseas companies who assemble in his state, comparing their management favorably to the Big Three’s, for “producing vehicles Americans want to buy” instead of Detroit’s gas-guzzlers.

Let’s look at what the foreigners build in Alabama for us Americans:

Mercedes M-Class SUV: Curb weight, 4705 lbs. Engine: 379 cu. in. V-8 EPA mpg estimate: 11 city, 14 hwy
Honda Pilot: Curb weight, 4506 lbs. Engine: 216 cu. in. V-6 EPA mpg estimate: 16 city, 22 hwy
Toyota V-8: When used in Toyota Tundra pickup, gets 14 mpg city, 18 mpg hwy

These are not the engines and vehicles that will help Americans reduce dependence on foreign oil. Instead these are merely foreign copies of the vehicles that Americans have been most likely to buy from the Big Three over the past 20 years.

I have been informed that Saturn is now made in Europe by Opel and sold as a GM vehicle.  Still not buying from GM, though, unless they come up with some way to protect their workers.

Whoops.  Thanks Hector B.

Several Republican senators pointed the finger at the United Auto Workers labor union as being unwilling to accept reductions in employee compensation.

Imagine that.  They want to keep their jobs and decent wages.  How dare they!  It’s like they think they are people or something.

Oh wait . . .

As for American vehicles, I have a 2000 Ford F-150, standard transmission, V-6, with 181,000 miles on it and no major problems at all.  Other than normal wear parts—brakes, hoses, tires, belts &c;—everything is original.  An F-150 I had before that as a company vehicle was in solid condition as well.

Thanks for letting us know.

The only problem with our economy is the unions.  Their workers make approximately $3000.00 an hour in wages and benefits while the non-union workers make a more acceptable $4.78 per hour.  This has cause American car companies to make huge vehicles that get 6-8 Miles per gallon, oil that we could be drilling on the beaches of this country if it weren’t for elite LIEbrals worrying about the deaths of penguins and such, which aren’t good for eating anyway.

The thing is, the UAW did agree to more reductions; the issue was the timing.  Corker, et al wanted two main changes in place by the end of March 2009:

1.  Reduction of debt by 2/3 (this, I believe, was mainly directed at GM)

2.  Wage and benefit parity between union and non-unionized workers.

The UAW wanted more time - until 2011, when the current contract expires.  The GOP wouldn’t agree to that.

I think this compromise was bogus from the get-go.  For one thing, I don’t see GM’s creditors voluntarily reducing GM’s debt obligations by that much that quickly.  They’d wait for a bankruptcy court to do that.

Fords are generally good-quality.  My family’s been driving them (and their subsidiary, Mercury) almost exclusively for years, and they’ve been solid, dependable vehicles that we’ve almost always gotten upwards of 200,000 miles out of.

I think that quality should be made a centerpiece of the restructuring.  The aura of “NEW! NEW! MUST HAVE NEW!” marketing needs to disappear; they should be marketed and sold with the expectation of it being a quality investment that will deliver years or decades of service.

One of my favorite things about cars is seeing classic, ‘60s-and’70s-era Mustangs, Camaros, Chargers, et cetera, still in awesome condition; another is seeing a 40-year-old pickup truck still running and still doing its job—-this is how cars should be built and marketed, with an eye towards their value being lasting rather than ephemeral, classics in the making rather than “the hottest new thing, at least until next year’s model comes out.”

Also, a better job on both producer and consumer sides of cars being better suited to one’s intended use for them, and maybe some specialization rather than looking for one-size-fits-all, which too often gets used to justify a massive SUV or mega-pickup that really isn’t needed.  If you’re buying a car to last for twenty years instead of five years, then you have financial leeway to buy two cars if you have two different uses for them.  A two-or-three-seat rather than six-seat pickup truck, for example, and a passenger sedan, both of which get better gas mileage than a super-cab pickup or an SUV.  Or a lightweight two-seater car (which needs to be made and marketed in more than just the ultra-luxury class, and is an excellent place to put hybrid and electric technology into use) for commuting purposes and a passenger sedan for family use.  SUVs for people who fill them up with camping gear on a regular basis, commuter cars or family cars for those same people to use when there isn’t a load of cargo to be carried or offroading to be done.

Such a restructuring would serve to create more efficient use of cars without cutting down production and sales too much (which would of course hamper employment), and it would cut down on the unnecessary energy use demanded by gas-guzzling specialty vehicles put into everyday use.

I think this highlights a key difference between Republicans and Democrats.  Bush/Paulson/Bernanke say that we’re facing a catastrophic financial market meltdown, and our economy will collapse if we don’t give them $700 billion, and the Democrats roll over.  Whatever you say.  Almost no questions asked.  Here’s the money. 

We tell Republicans we’re facing a catastrophic collapse of the American auto industry, and our economy will be in ruins if we don’t fork over $15 billion, and the Republicans yawn.  They’ll believe it when they see it.  Doesn’t fit their agenda, take a hike.

I actually think the Republicans have it right.  Would things be catastrophically different right now if we hadn’t agreed to fork over the $700 billion two months ago (or whenever it was)?  Has the bailout worked?  Or, $400 billion later, is this nearly exactly how things would have been anyway? 

On the other hand, maybe prevention is cheaper than waiting for it to happen and having to pay for a cure.  But the whole thing makes me feel like we’re a bunch of clueless suckers.  Especially on the financial thing.  We gave them exactly what they wanted, and let them posture like they were against it, without making any effort at all to advance our own agenda.  We try the same thing on them and they laugh at us.

ugh, the sense of entitlement these auto execs, just like the wall street execs, are displaying is seriously sick-making.

i feel like the auto bailout is ultimately a stupid idea for the reasons stated above.  surely we could find better use for that money to help the workers who didn’t create this mess?  i just don’t get how people so obsessed with free market wankery can feel in any way like they have a right to take taxpayer money when what they’ve really done is made their own bed and now it’s time to lie in it.  in what other context is one allowed to epic fail at business and be propped up?  the economic clusterfuck is hitting other industries, some pretty big ones in fact, namely the one i work in—entertainment.  viacom alone has laid off something like 800 people.  where is our hollywood bailout package?

the economic clusterfuck is hitting other industries, some pretty big ones in fact, namely the one i work in—entertainment.  viacom alone has laid off something like 800 people.  where is our hollywood bailout package?

The difference is layoffs vs. extinction. The US auto workforce is a small fraction of what it once was. If the US film industry was in danger of collapse, then the federal government should bail them out, because they are a large source of jobs.

...someone doesn’t know what a barnacle looks like.

Well, so much for the GOP being the party of the working class.

The founders recognized the power of Congress to establish laws to allow for bankruptcy (Art. I, sect. 8) exactly for this purpose.  If Congress wants to help automakers and the workers, they can establish guarantees for auto warranties, so consumers have confidence in the product.  After that, Chapter 11 reorganization will allow the bankruptcy court to spread the pain of the automakers’ failure among all of the parties—unions, suppliers, management—in a fair manner.  Merely propping up current bad practices will just mean that the auto makers will be back before Congress in January or February begging for more money.  We had more than one airline file Chapter 11, and people still fly, and we still have an airline industry.  Bankruptcy has been designed specifically to make fair and reasonable decisions that can allow business to restructure and reorganize.

I can’t see taxing working class people in fly-over country to bail out (a) well-paid union members; (b) suppliers who kept selling to failing automakers; (c) shockingly incompetent auto maker executives; and (d) shareholders and bondholders of automakers.  If the industry can’t afford to pay the wages in the union contracts, which appears to be the case, then no bail out will keep those jobs for more than a few months until the money runs out.  Those jobs at those wages WILL disappear.  The question is what happens to those people—are they kept working for a few more months, and then dumped in the cold, or are they brought to the bargaining table in bankruptcy court to work out something that the company in reorganization can afford for the long term.

Shorter Watergate: “DEM YOONYUNZ IS TUH BLAME!  LET DEM DIRT-EATERS WORK FOR TWO CENTS A DAY!”

Corporate whore.

“Shorter Watergate: “DEM YOONYUNZ IS TUH BLAME!  LET DEM DIRT-EATERS WORK FOR TWO CENTS A DAY!”

Corporate whore.”

It’s hard to top that incisive analysis.  Just keep screaming incoherently—that’s the ticket, as long as you call people as many names as you can.

For the sake of the economy it would be good if this passes, but the asshole political hack inside of my bleeding heart says “Good! The GOP will never win the electoral votes or Senate seats of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania for the next fifty years!”

“I can’t see taxing working class people in fly-over”

The rustbelt isn’t fly over country? Since when?