Some of you guys, with your theoretical, seems-to-make-sense takes on these things... you are annoying, and you will not learn from people who know what they write about. Why do you not read and lean? Why must you snark?

That's okay from somebody who just wants to post. I have done it myself. But it is not okay from national "leaders" who turn out to be ignorant, shallow and greedy at best, who "lead" us down into the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

One more time. Please read my lips: The world auto industry is in trouble because nobody anywhere in the world is buying cars. We are not buying cars because we cannot get auto loans, and because we are poor and scared about our jobs.

We cannot get loans and we are poor/scared because our Neocon Republican "leaders" have allowed the US economy to tank. And that has caused a worldwide recession.

It is not just the North American auto industry. Toyota is in deep mud now, too. However, other countries are helping their auto companies. Germany, for example, because German cars are not selling either. Sweden, for example, is helping Saab and Volvo, even though GM and Ford own Saab and Volvo.

Convenient to blame Republicans, especially those who aren't going to be around in a month. Congress COULD pass this today and Bush would sign it tomorrow (he's been a Big Government tax and waster since he was governor of Texas).

What are Democrats in Congress waiting for--except to inaugurate Dear Leader as the Savior by handing him a bill to sign after 1/20?

There's news that the congressional republicans are offering a "compromise" that demands strict concessions from the labour unions. This has to be stopped.

The labour unions are the only group on the left who know how to put up a good and proper fight. No one, not the intelligista, not the greens, not the feminists, for all their lofty ideals, knows how to fight like labour does. They must be preserved.

The death of labout is the disease of the left. That's why the left continues to lose the argument, even when democrats win. (Death Penalty anyone? What about gay rights? Cuts in defence spending? Worker rights?). Ever wonder why the left is so much more effective in Europe?

If Republicans succeed in finally snuffing out the labour movement in the United States, then THAT will be the beginning of the end of any pretensions of progressive politics in the USA. And no amount of pretty speechifying will do anything about it.

The famous UAW Jobs Bank, where laid-off workers get paid until they get called back to work is a management-suggested operation, modeled on what the Japanese car companies do.

It is a small operation, many magnitudes smaller than the threat from our patriotic, ignorant Confederate Senators.

will probably be to finally energize American workers and make unions more, not less, likely to gain power. There is nothing like the sight of hundreds of people out of work to get the anger moving. Unionizing is better and more productive than rioting.

That's a nice story, but it seems to be missing something: People ain't buying because they don't have the money to spend.

I can think of one reason this might be so. During the last year, I've watched hundreds of my co-workers laid off and their jobs sent overseas because my employer wants to be more profitable. Lots of companies are doing this, and that means less money in American pockets to spend on things like fancy cars.

I am told that the American economy is approximately 70% consumer-driven. That doesn't work very well when the consumers' incomes keep dropping.

Because there are many industries who could lean hard on that 'jobs' excuse as a rationale to beg borrow and steal billions. For instance IT, let's give them billions so they reverse the export of hundreds of thousands of jobs out of the US. Drug companies - who do a great deal of manufacturing in the Caribbean, let's fork over billions to them so they'll bring back jobs to the US. And so on.

It will awesome to see the line of people around the block demanding their bailout to 'save jobs'. Oh that won't happen you say? Too bad. I should have barely got out of HS and worked the line at GM for 30 years. I'd be happier than a Hindu cow.

I just heard Robert Reich on Rachel talking with her about how the Senate deal currently on the table is the GOP's gambit to bust the union -- that the reason those Southern Senators who have foreign factories in their states want the UAW to take big cuts in wages is precisely because they have foreign factories in their states and want to "increase the market share" of their patron companies.

But wait a minute -- one of the big reasons Toyota and Nissan and Hyundai have been kicking Ford and GM's ass is that the American companies have to pay UAW wages. Why, if your competition is crippled by high wages, would you pull a big "Gotcha!" by making them lower their wages to your level? One of the reasons big bailout bucks probably won't save Detroit is precisely because the systemic problem of high wages and benefits is what's killing them. I don't get Corker and that other cracker with the lopsided mouth -- why they're fighting a package that leaves Detroit as ill-equipped to compete with their home-state factories' products as before.

Can someone enlighten me?

Japanese and German auto factory workers make MORE than UAW workers in the USA and Canada. They also have better, more expensive benefits.

In Mexico, China, India, the workers make less, but these mostly are suppliers and service providers. IT people, for example. AND, the USA is full of IT people from India and China, but they are not necessarily low-wage people.

This situation is much more complicated than you imagine, than your blow-dry Senators imagine. Your attack on the UAW, and on Detroit is misdirected. Please shrink back.