One of the hallmarks of Bush's reign was the singular focus on partisan politics above actual governing. His administration and their underlings in Congress would transparently act and vote in ways designed to above all beat the Democrats. The actual details were secondary to beating those lousy dems. Perhaps it is his lame duck status, or a rare change of heart, but Bush has been working to keep the auto companies out of bankruptcy, while the only roadblock to that has been Senate Republicans. Everybody knows and understands that the companies became fat happy bloated and lazy. Nonetheless to let them go bankrupt in the middle of a recession amid some serious instability in the financial sector and the economy as a whole seems pretty foolish. No one wants to see the money go to waste, so while it would be good to make sure there is a good plan in place unlike the last bailout, to let them fail at this time would probably be harmful. What is incredibly juvenile is the single-minded obsessing on the UAW. The UAW has already agreed to restructure their compensation structure, probably more so than any other employees excluding the $1 a year CEO's. It seems fairly transparent that the underlying motivation is to weaken a union that mainly gives money to Democrats. It seems a strange time to draw the line when the much much larger financial bailout is still in process with no effective conditions for the recipients to clean up their act, to pick this loan for a fractin of the amount to put your foot down doesn't make sense, at least for the reason given. To hold up the entire process, making lower wages for the workers the single objectionable issue it hinges upon, could maybe be called silly at best.
Auto bailout and some other things
-Is the $70 an hour union wage real? This is one of the better writings about the auto bailout I have read. The house has passed an auto bailout bill but it may not get through the senate.
The earlier hearings were a little funny to see, the big 3 CEO's coming to Washington to ask for money, and getting rejected. It may have verged on political theater but a part of me did want to yell "Burn!!" when they were asked if they flew in on private jets, and if they would give them up in order to get the money but none agreed to at the time. It did underscore a mentality not only of them but also in the financial firms getting bailout money where executives there had no intention to change the way they do business even though their businesses failed and are being propped up by tax money. They seem to think they can keep living high on the hog like it is still the glory days of the bubble, when once one attained the lucrative title of 'executive', you now had it made in the shade. Even if you were a dumbass and did a shitty job, driving your company into the ground, you were given a good golden parachute on the way out since that is what executives deserve. Just because your company is losing money doesn't mean you shouldn't get that new gulfstream 12 with the pool of sharks with laser beams on their heads.
Where they are at now seems a bit better, apparently they all decided to sell the corporate jets (to Scotty Pippen I presume) and even agreed to work the next year for $1.00 in compensation. I am sure that they are sincere in that and wouldn't sneak a few extra bonuses the year after that to make up for it. They even came back to Congress a week later with detailed plans for how they were going to restructure and become a profitable company if only they could borrow a few billion. Imagine the prodigies that could come up with a detailed corporate restructuring plan in a week for a multi-billion dollar company! It boggles the mind! Not only that, but they even included in the plan how they are going to re-tool to make more efficient cars!
I must assume that these plans willl not be put in place unless and until they get their money. Otherwise it might confuse you that they strongly objected (allong with the Bush White House) to a provision of the bailout that would have made them drop their lawsuits against California's emissions regulations.
In other news, has Obama now become tainted by the IL gov. who was trying to raffle his vacated senate seat? Read this to find out.
