However, Timbuktom is amazed to find himself on the same side as Elephantman, even if it's only on one topic.

I quite agree with you about E-man. And I agree with E-man: the US auto industry had been very profitable selling gas guzzlers.

That is, until oil prices made it difficult to sell them. And now the credit freeze has made it difficult for any of the auto makers to sell anything, foreign transplants included.

E-man knows, as Cheney does, as an oil man, that the present economic downturn has been bad for the profits of Big Oil. Fuel-efficient Cars of the Future don't help Big Oil either. More than that, the Bush White House has warned Republicans that crashing the US auto industry would further damage the US economy and that Republicans will be blamed for it, as Republicans have already been blamed by voters for the crisis in the financial economy.

The Bush administration apparently already has more problems than it can handle and isn't in a position to take advantage of the situation. As much as they would like to take down the unions they cannot afford to further damage the US economy in the process. Senate Republicans evidently don't see it that way - including seemingly moderate Republicans, who can't reverse themselves on their demonization of unions by approving of a bailout. If they're going to go down they're going to take the country down with them.

This tends to explain why Democrats didn't put up more than token opposition to the Republicans' defeat of the bailout bill. It helps them politically, even if it damages the country. As usual, the Democrats' hands aren't clean on this either.

Cheney may be every shade of evil but he is anything but stupid. And apparently not operating on the same agenda as his colleagues in congress.

Wheels within wheels, as the Atreides knew. Things are not always what they seem.

Then as government regulations came into law and were enforced, the unions became an albatross rife with thugs collecting dues for questionable benefits. Now is the time to rid our nation of these parasites and follow the success of the transplant companies.

That's why we will have union thugs and their attendant misery everywhere with the loss of the secret ballot. We can still do something before these creeps get a foothold. But it may not be pretty.

Then the railroads, the steel companies, the homebuilders. Even foreign countries are lining up for a handout. Don't worry, money is free and infinite.

Unions are Thugs??

Hmmm i guess GM's CEO is a saint and the board is a group of altruistic professionals who tirelessly work 18 hours a day so that the company may meet and exceed customers expectations over and beyond the call of duty, while accepting the same wage as that of a low level auto worker and eating lunch in the same dingy cafeteria and flying to different plants on Coach class (the same class they insist that mid-level and low-level employees fly).

Ahhh... terkoy-karl-rove...you can't bear the loss of McCain and his Magnificent Seven and was hoping you would somehow win this election too and continue to screw the middle class out of their jobs, money and lives in the form of layoffs, pay cuts and higher medical insurance costs...

Tell me, when do you plan to stop?

After ALL your needs are satisfied or perhaps after ALL middle class is dead and buried?

When will your greed EVER end?

Well, if it was free flowing and infinite for Paulson's banks, then it is free for airlines and auto makers who employ far more middle-class people.

The economic mess we are in now is not simple.

Despite the fact that there are social forces and technological "advancements" behind this Second Depression, the Republicans -- whose cheerleaders falsely tout personal responsibility as the hallmark of American conservatism -- bear more than the brunt of the blame.

I could understand a left-wing member of Congress -- a creature like the unicorn, a myth -- standing up and saying that the executives must decrease their bloated salaries but I can not understand these coifed, powdered and pampered right-wing Southern politicians demanding that American workers, employed by American companies, bring their salaries in line with the workers of his state who are employed by foreign concerns.

The magnanimous CEO of Ford Malally offered to take a one year salary of $1, if -- notice that the word is if, the same sort of dare a spoiled 10-year-old uses against a parent -- Congress will ease his company out of the mess that he helped create.

Malally should work for $1 for one year regardless of whether Mommy Congress pays his bills or not. And not a "suspended" salary to be restored should the Gordian knot be untied.

I am a Baby Boomer. When I was in college, it was the academic failures -- the people who flunked out of premed and engineering -- who turned to business. Look what they wrought.

When the World Trade Center was bombed the first time in 1993, it was an attempt to disrupt the US banking system, which would bring the country to its knees. That is precisely what these obstructionist domestic terrorist have done. To break a union and to protect their precious FOREIGN OWNED car companies in their own states, they: risked plunging our economy into a depression (if it's not there already); chose FOREIGN businesses over DOMESTIC ones; and were willing to destroy the lives of millions of AMERICAN FAMILIES. Yet these 'lawmakers' say they did it for the American taxpayer. They're not only obstructionists and terrorists, they're hypocrites as well. By this vote, they proved once and for all that the Republican party cares NOTHING for the American family. Even Dick Cheney, with whom I NEVER agree, said this action would forever make them and show them to be the party of Herbert Hoover. That says it all.

follow the success of the transplant companies.

What success would that be, wingnut?

Layoffs for BMW in US

http://www.bimmerfile.com/2008/10/17/layoffs-for-bmw-in-us/

KY Toyota Plant Announces Layoffs

http://www.wbko.com/news/headlines/34764654.html

Toyota Starts First Layoffs At Texas Tundra Plant

http://www.autospies.com/news/Toyota-Starts-First-Layoffs-At-Texas-Tundra-Plant-31265/

Toyota cutting production at all plants

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=Toyota+closing+plants&start=10&sa=N

Obviously, foreign transplants are mismanaged and those Southerners are overpaid.

On the other hand, the US auto industry was making billions before the banksters crashed the economy.

Stop begging to be humiliated, pub. It's unseemly.