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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
but this stuff infuriates me: I'm with Barney Frank on this one: No one asked the rank-and-file employees of Citigroup or AIG or Morgan-Stanley to cut their salaries in exchange for government handouts. Assembly-line workers at GM and Chrysler, on the other hand, must tighten their belts.
I'm with Frank, Andrew Leonard and walter_map on this.
Let's face it...this was was entirely about overpaid blue collar labor costs...a big issue for corporations and the Republicans are continuing in the second strike against labor that started with Reagan destroying the air traffic controllers union with the PATCO strike debacle...This is war on the unions. Bush himself signed a new law banning collective bargaining for national security jobs including ATF, Coast Guard, Homeland Security, Dept. of Energy, etc.....no unions for them. This is just a red herring....
However, not a word about the overpaid managers of the banks (especially the investment banks) and their billions in profits....were they required to immediately agree to a bonus freeze this year? How about no dividends paid until the gov. bailout money is paid back? No... This is only about union labor and the costs of doing business....top level compensation stays unaffected here....just money going to the bottom half.
Yes....class warfare on a major level - wielded with overwhelming force by the highest financed class... But then GM paid 10Million in Lobbying and Ford/Chrysler 5 Million on this bill...what did the UAW throw in for lobbying? Money Pays for the best government we get....at least for the highest bidder. Corporations will always have deeper pockets than Labor ever will...and the sense of fairness gets lost on all of us...
And why not just require the banks that accepted the money from TARP to each pony up a share - it's there for loaning, and it's govt. money....No instead, companies like GE Finance by aircraft from CACC (Chinese aircraft manufacturer) with US taxpayer money, instead of from Boeing-Douglas or Northrop or any other US manufacturer. Where's the outrage over that?
Slightly off topic, though not really in the grand scheme of things, we have Bernard Madoff allegedly defrauding investors to the tune of $50 billion. $50 billion.
For the 35,000 to be laid off from B of A that would come to $1.43 million each.
For the approx. 575k that are unemployed, that comes to $86,956. One man's greed could give a living wage to the unemployed for a year. Just imagine multiplying that by all the greedy m-fers out there who squandered, swindled, lied, and cheated their way into billions of dollars. It's enough to make one violently sick. Or sickly violent.
Chrysler has a huge pool of money it can borrow from, unlike GM. It is threatening bankruptcy only to extort money from Congress.
Fools on the left keep lumping these two very different companies together. The only thing they have in common is that their hands are out for corporate welfare.
Since at least the 1930s, the Republican Party has done everything it could to undermine unions and, more broadly speaking, the right of all people to earn a living wage. This anti-worker posture is much more constant in the party's history than its reliance on the religious right, which only came along with Reagan. Anyone who is surprised by their recent actions hasn't been paying attention.
My take on this is exactly opposite the Republican senators'. The UAW did its job well - to get the best possible deal it could for its members. Management, however, was derelict in its duty, which was to agree only to what it thought was sustainable for the long term. Why? Although I try never to underestimate incompetence, I think the bigshots always thought that they were "too big to fail," and that the government would come to their rescue when times got hard. So it was easier to placate even unreasonable union demands than to go through the unpleasantness of a strike. After all, they could always count on the taxpayers.
But of course, you won't hear Republicans demanding the resignation of the top tier of executives in return for government help. Those are God's people, after all, not the great unwashed on the assembly lines.
This isn't war against the "working class" it's punishment against the UAW specifically, and the UAW asked for it. If unions were apolitical, sore loser Republicans wouldn't be gunning for them now. Now it's payback time.
This isn't against the "working class" it's about the UAW specifically
Baloney.
Cheap-labor conservative Republicans have fought tooth and nail against every improvement in the lot of the average American. That's why there's so much poverty in America.
You can't be so stupid as to not know that, so you're obviously lying.
The Southern Republicans are licking their chops at the thought of the UAW being brought to its knees. After all, if that happens, there is little chance that the non-union workers in southern auto plants will make a big push to bring in the unions...and that means more foreign car manufacturers will scout the South for plant locations.
Think about it - if the Detroit Big 3 goes under, next to no one will buy cars from an automaker in bankruptcy...so where will people buy cars? From foreign car makers, many of whom have plants here in the US. And those plants are almost without exception located in the South.
The Southern Republicans' self-interest is showing. Rather than attempt to save 3 million jobs all over the US, they would rather piss on the UAW. What a bunch of sweethearts.
Don't they realize the reason they are making even $24 an hour is because their companies are forced to compete, somewhat, with the Big Three"? What do they think will happen when this backstop is gone? What will happen when China starts making autos for a fraction of what they can make them for?
I realize everyone wants to protect their own interests but they need to understand while someone else's throat is cut today the knife will most likely soon be at their throat. They'll get no sympathy from me.
I remember during the 90's when call centers were being relocated in the south because labor was "cheaper" there. They are now in India, does anyone see a pattern?
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
