Using TARP is probably a better idea all around. It's pretty much an "all use" fund and it's a better idea that throwing the money at the just as incompetent fools on Wall Street.

As for the "high" benefits UAW workers receive: The only reason those benefits could be hurting the Big Three is because Toyota/BMW/Mercedes don't have those benefits in their home countries; Japan and Europe are civilized enough to have universal healthcare for their citizens while, in the US of A, we force companies and/or employees to fend for themselves in a vicious and overpriced market-based healthcare system.

Further, the workers at the Toyota/etc. plants in Alabama are substantially worse off than their contemporaries in Michigan Big Three plants because they get cheap or no benefits, don't have a government backstop, and their "right to work" states (what a freaking Orwellian term) won't allow them to collectively negotiate for better healthcare (or a collective voice, for that matter, in anything). The Alabama state government abides with this raping of their citizens so that the politicians -- such as the arse Shelby -- can line their campaign coffers with Toyota money.

The big-3 cannot compete even with the southern non-union plants as things now stand, let alone imported cars.

How do you explain the fact that US automakers were making billions until the banks crashed the economy?

You can't.

Go to the bathroom, neocon. You're full of shit.

Jeez Andrew, I thought you were pretty well dialed in.

The problem with "protecting" the unions is that it creates a catch-22. The big-3 cannot compete even with the southern non-union plants as things now stand, let alone imported cars.

Are you really calling for a permanent subsidy?

(I suspect that what we really need from the UAW is unfettered use of robots and automation, rather than further wage reduction - but one thing is certain, prolonging the catch-22 is not a solution)

Why aren't grassroots organizations and online zines like Salon demanding that we all deluge congress with demands to find the missing Iraq War 9 billion dollars and give it to the automakers and to demand immediate investigations into no bid war contracts?

That will fuck up the GOP bigtime.

Do

it.

UAW wages and benefits are ridiculous.

Their's aren't, but your's are. You need a pay cut. Pubs need to gut the minimum wage laws next so they can take you back down to two bucks a day.

After that, Southern lawmakers want to bring back slavery. Got any experience picking cotton, boy?

Over the demand by anti-union Southern Republican senators that domestic automaker workers be forced to accept immediate wage cuts, and the loss of benefits.

Frank's comparison is noteworthy, but I'm also curious about a more immediate comparison. Did those Republican Senators demand wage and benefits cuts from all of the employees of those companies, or just the union employees? Were these to be across-the-board cuts, or could they just not bear to think of disappointing the innocent little children of managers and executives during the holiday season?

Two wrongs doesn't make a right. UAW wages and benefits are ridiculous. True, they are nowhere nearly as ridiculous as the wages we pay the white collar criminals on Wall Street and in the banking industry, but that doesn't mean the UAW doesn't have to bend before the US auto industry can hope to be competitive.

Do any current UAW wmployees make more than the Wall St. whizards who got us into this mes,m and got a bailout? Didn't think so. How long can we keep cutting labor costs on production before nobody is making enogh to buy the products?