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.

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.

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?

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.

There are a lot of ironies here. American car companies that for years have tried to substitute jingoism for quality products are sold out by the uberpatriotic GOP. The UAW being blamed for refusing to spontaneously cut wages to some arbitrarily, politically set level. The GOP confederacy being driven by the contributions of international firms.

I was all for the bailout--and still basically am--but then a thought occurred to me, a heartless thought perhaps, but still a thought. What's better for the environment? If the Big 3 go bankrupt, the working class loses its cash and ability to be automotive (that it got from Detroit in the first place) and hence to burn carbon, if the global economy goes into deep recession / depression and oil consumption drops: is that better than trying to prop up the automotive age?

I realize the recession is stifling green energy / recycling markets, too; but if we're honest, which is more important: curbing the levels of human exploitation or somehow 'greening' that consumption? We've go to do both, but I wonder if a civilization-ending depression isn't what we need now.

Easy for me to say, I know, given I have a job that for now seems secure. Heartless on a personal level, and no doubt screwed up reasoning to enact any policy. But just as an abstract proposition, would the end of the Big 3 be good for the environment?

I'm not a huge union fan; though I am sympathetic to why they exist, they are generally a pain in the butt for me and my clients.

But the UAW has been quite flexible over the past couple of years; they have conceded a lot. They had their eyes open; they saw where the Big 3 was headed (what they, and everyone else, didn't see was the credit freeze). What they or anyone else hasn't been able to do is deal with the legacy (retiree) costs.

Union busting isn't about busting heads and threatening individuals any more. It's about threatening to further bust up a busted economy if the UAW doesn't prostrate itself before you.

I'll give the southern wing of the GOP credit- they do brinkmanship better than anyone. I'm guessing they calculated that GWB would come through with TARP funds, so if their union-busting effort failed, they'd still look like heroes to their paymasters and consituents (who'll take a job with bad benefits over no job), and wouldn't have to actually suffer the Big-3 failing (which, guess what, could take out a fair amount of the supplier base for the southern automakers as well).

Their benefits, on the other hand, are too liberal, such as pay for no work. These excessive contract items should be negotiated out of the contracts.

It's not in their contracts.

The program to pay for no work was started by upper management for skilled labor and middle management to prevent them going to work for a competitor.

Don't be fooled by the propaganda issued by the MSM.

That is the average hourly pay earned by autoworkers. Nonunion autoworkers earn a bit less - around $22. - $24. per hour.

Factory workers include highly skilled people, tool and die makers, machine programmers, inspectors, and supervisors that are included in the hourly wage pool.

They all earn their pay.

Their benefits, on the other hand, are too liberal, such as pay for no work. These excessive contract items should be negotiated out of the contracts.

I'm pretty sure that most of the UAW would allow a reduction in benefits rather than to close the factories.