Harry Reid: Auto bailout is for the workers, not the corporate fatcats
By David Neiwert Thursday Nov 20, 2008 12:28pm
Congressional Democrats just announced that they want auto-industry leaders to present them with a plan before they proceed with any vote on an auto-industry bailout bill.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:
We all can throw all the barbs we want at the three people who fly down here on their corporate jets. But we're concerned not about them, we're concerned about the hundreds of thousands and millions of people who are involved in the automobile industry who want these jobs and who need these jobs, we want them to have the jobs. We want them to work and come up with a proposal that we can get through here by Dec. 8.
Hmmmmm. Can we make it a stipulation of any bailout that the corporate leadership of these firms be summarily fired (sans golden parachutes) and replaced? That would be my first recommendation.
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for malfeasance and manipulation
their assests should be forfeited....and given to the workers
we are on the verge of a popular uprising
Booshie may be looking for to declare martial law...
I say let's keep the uprising to a minimum until after the 20th O' January.
I actually -live- in Michigan and work in a related industry. So let me point out some facts about what is going on here.
1. These three CEO's are all relatively new and haven't been there that long. Most less than a year or two.
2. It is common these days for companies security policies to require their executives to fly in corporate jets, and sometimes it is required by their insurer.
3. Health Care costs have been reported to add about $1500 to the cost of each car, in some cases to the point of no profitability. Forcing them to make larger cars, which provide enough profit for them to stay in business; but get poor gas mileage.
4. The current credit crisis is hurting them. GMAC itself won't give car loans to anyone without a credit score of 720! This has forced GM to seek vehicle loans from other places.
to beg for corporate welfare from the government?
Once again, Hard-Time Harry isn't getting it.
Jack and Jill Politics has a good blog post on this:
http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/2008/11/go...
Don't you know that America doesn't *do* accountability?
In the real world, we are responsible for our F**k-ups. In the Rich world, they will blame the unwashed masses, basically us.
1. All upper management fired. All.
2. Those that take the reigns earn whatever a worker earns until
back in the black.
3. They must have a 100+ mpg car on the market in 2 years and a fully electric car in 1 year.
4. Production and distribution must green up.
5. Every penny to be paid back and goes to Michigan inner city schools.
6. In ten years the internal combustion engine will be illegal for all but large commercial vehicles.
you are so on my Christmas list.
1. All upper management fired. All.
And the union leaders
2. They must have a 100+ mpg car on the market in 2 years and a fully electric car in 1 year.
Ok. A 100+ mpg car would be great but the electric car? Where will the get the electricity? Coal plants? Nuclear reactors?
3. Production and distribution must green up.
I don't know what the fuck that means.
4. Every penny to be paid back and goes to Michigan inner city schools.
Why the fuck should my tax dollars go to support Michigan schools? What about my schools?
5. In ten years the internal combustion engine will be illegal for all but large commercial vehicles.
So you saying I buy a 100 mpg car under number 2, but I have to get rid of it in 10 years? What about number 3 (green up?).
Let them go bankrupt and reorganize to be competitive. Why throw good money after bad?
Fire the guys. There big fat piles of money will cushion their falls. They don't have a clue.
My sister and I were howling about Mulally last night. It made America's Next Top Model very hard to watch...I'll never forgive him for that.
you watch TV?
ewwwww!!
Can't we beat them up first? ; 0 )
Hmmmmm. Can we make it a stipulation of any bailout that the corporate leadership of these firms be summarily fired (sans golden parachutes) and replaced? That would be my first recommendation.
Not just that. Can we look at this as a wonderful opportunity to direct the industry toward innovation? There are so many inventors and smaller companies out there who have been working on newer kinds of cars --- electric, fuel-cell, compressed air, etc. How about bringing them into the mix? How about getting their testimony in Congress? And giving them a role in directing where the industry goes next?
And once the fools who have run the industry into the ground have been fired, and replaced with innovators, can the country itself reap at least some of the profits made from building the cars of the future?
the CEOs would withdraw their request for aid the instant it became clear that they might lose their positions of power.
Extract their values with a bail-out, to make them (and all of us) pay to support their non-competitive "competition."
The republicans don't care about workers in blue states. It's all part of a plan to destroy unions and move the auto industry south.
Unfortunately I think you are right about the Republican attitude. One of the senators(i forget which one) said as much when he said he did not want to use tax money to "subsidize" "overpaid" workers in the North.
Unless they are corporate greedheads or CEO's on Wall Street. Then its not "socialism." Fuck everyone of these republican sociopath's to hell and back.
And fuck anyone who voted for a republican this year! It couldn't be more obvious that they absolutely hate the American people.
"Jobs On The Line" ( the new ) "What Now Cartoon!"
I draw a weekly left of political cartoon, What Now Toons and I've devoted this weeks cartoon to the Auto Industry bail out issue and I focused on the workers who's jobs are on the line right now. Yes the CEO's of the auto Industry have created the mess they are in, I don't give a damn about them, I care about the inocent victums here, the millions of jobs at stake here. I say give them the money, FROM the 700 billion, with strings, real Iron clad strings that would restructure these companies for the sake of national security, and save our ability to build our own vechicles. Enough of American Industry shipped overseas. I work in the animation Industry ( not lately though, bad year this year ) and I know first hand how outsourcing costs American jobs, I've seen mine and many others lives turned upside down by unfair competetititon by studios overseas that operate at a fraction of US costs, because of cheap labor, government subsidies and relaxed environmental laws. Yes I feel for all industries that have taken this unfair hit to our lively hoods, and I'm appalled that the banking industry gets 700 billion, yet we the pepole get bupkis. We cannot afford to turn millions more out on the streets without jobs, that is a massive lost tax income base that would only compound our nations problems. See the What Now Cartoon at my website, www.whatnowtoons.com
Takes me back to my Archie comic days.
This is from 2002, but it reminds us of one reason the big road hogs were selling then. Here's just a paragraph from the piece.
"The law gives people who qualify an immediate deduction of as much as $24,000 -- which grows to $25,000 next year -- off the price of an SUV. Plus, until 2004, there is a bonus deduction of 30 percent of the rest of the cost of the truck. Both these deductions are on top of the regular five-year depreciation that would apply to light trucks bought as business transportation."
...not the corporate fatcats!
Which, of course, is why the Pukes uniformly oppose it.
DUH!
If it were only the execs and the stock-holders who got well, it would be fine (as long as they could take down the UAW, too)...
Yeah, where was the Republican concern against bailouts when it was the financial industry on the receiving end?
Take down the UAW and the rest will fall like dominoes. Drive wages down and reward the CEOs and the investors. That will fix the economy as soon as the DOW is back up to 14,000. The stockmarket is the only measurement of the economy in their minds. It doesn't matter if nobody can buy their products because nobody has any disposeable income. Not exactly rocket science.
They really are incredibly stupid aren't they.
They still can't figure out that when 1% of the population has 41% of all wealth, that the economy is going to tank.
The big 3 auto makers made the business decision to move America's auto industry to Mexico long ago. Rather than modernizing American factories and investing in up to date designs and in spite of numerous concessions over the period by the various unions involved, they elected to invest their money to build state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in MEXICO instead of here. Why?
I'm still kinda sorta ambivalent about the bailout for the auto industry mainly because of the effect it will have on the workers, but I can also see the point of the faction that wants to know why our government should use a dime of taxpayer money to bail out companies that willfully choose to invest their assets in Mexico, rather than the US.
And of course then, isn't there the likelihood that they will simply use the bailout funds to continue that policy? We do NOT need to be subsidizing Mexico's suddenly blooming new auto industry at the expense of our own economy.
Between 1994 and 2001, Mexico received more than $10 Billion (US) in new and long-term investments in plants and equipment from the US automotive industry. The state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities established in Northern and Central Mexico have contributed to the modernization of the sector and regional development. Highly specialized clusters have also been developed around the major auto industrial plants through the establishment of hundreds of new suppliers that promote vertical integration and strengthen supply chains.
Trade liberalization (flipping NAFTA, Thanks Clinton) and increasing investment flows have also promoted the specialization of Mexican auto production. Between 1993 and 1995, the establishment of General Motors' plant in Silao, Guanajuato, and Chrysler's plant in Saltillo, Coahuila, encouraged the industry's specialization in light truck production. These types of transfers of operations have continued on a regular basis since then.
By the end of this year, Chrysler will have transferred all of its PT Cruiser production to Mexico raising production capacity to 300,000 vehicles. The expanded plant located in Toluca will export to more than 60 nations. They're also building a massive Freightliner truck plant in Saltillo Mexico. It's scheduled to open in February 2009.
Those are just a few examples. The fact is that once again, just as with China, our corporations are subsidizing economic growth and infrastructure in another country at the expense of our own. And now they want 25 billion dollars of the taxpayer's money to continue doing so? Getting pretty obvious that all those lost jobs that will occur if we don't bail out the Big Three are going to be lost anyway, even if we do.
Maybe they should ask MEXICO for $25 billion.
"Those are just a few examples. The fact is that once again, just as with China, our corporations are subsidizing economic growth and infrastructure in another country at the expense of our own. And now they want 25 billion dollars of the taxpayer's money to continue doing so? Getting pretty obvious that all those lost jobs that will occur if we don't bail out the Big Three are going to be lost anyway, even if we do." - Tom
They are also providing the means for yet more foreign oil demands competing with our own, making that market even more volatile, at the same time supplying employment to those that will never have the means to purchase the products they produce. Who the hell do these companies that shit on you think will buy thier product?...why you, of course.
Since Big Oil helped GM, Ford and Chrysler lobby against MPG restrictions on new automobiles, maybe they can bail the automakers out of this mess that they helped create. I mean they do have the money, and the vested interest in keeping the Big 3 in business. Just saying.
Big Oil cannot be reached for comment :-(
GM's total shares held by shareholders is around 570 million. They paid out $1.15 per share in dividend last year, or about $650 million. No doubt the other two of the Pig Three are roughly the same.
Here's a solution: make the execs work for free for two years and pay no dividends. That will save over a billion dollars for GM alone and remove any need for a handout (it's definitely not a "bailout").
The fat cats, both the execs and wealthy shareholders, can go Cheney themselves. It's their greed for dividends and keeping stock prices high that got them into this mess.
a) no salaries, perks, dividends for several levels of top executives. Or better, just boot their butts out the door and find out which level of execs actually understand how to make a car and a profit.
b) go after the retired execs that agreed to the UAW deals. Knowing full well that when (not if) the companies tanked, that it would be the American Taxpayers that would have to make good the pensions. Fiduciary Misdeeds, words to use when stripping away some of their wealth/ill gotten gains.
c) how ever many layers of management that was dumped to find skilled execs, do the same to the UAW. Those guys are no better then the execs.
Unbelieveable!!! They come to Congress begging for money from the tax payers and fly in personal jets to and fro. Then they hike up the price of their rotten autos, destroy electric cars w/o explanation, have poor customer service, and try to eradicate the unions. Guess their jets need upgrading.
of the mortgage bailout, some initial protests then a package rushed through Congress, then the package will be reworked to help the big end of town.
Yeah, I believe that with all my heart, I really do.
bring back the amc pacer with an electric engine , now thats style plus energy saveings! samatta you!
Excuse me for being out of line but f**k these workers. They make six figure salaries for working in a factory. Nearly as much as airline pilots!! Throw these workers out if they won't work for less and bust the union. This is out of control.
I feel sad for people who risks turn out to be poor investments, such as workers investing time in a job that doesn't pay the dividends they planned on, but I feel more sad for those innocents whose irreplaceable time for earned feelings of happiness is forcibly sacrificed (the tax payers) to shore-up others bad investments.
The only workers who might make six-figure salaries in factories are skilled trades. And I'll bet my bottom dollar that you're just envious that you never got one of those jobs, shitheel.
lamrock, you need to invest in a calculator. Airline pilots aren't even working 40 hours a week let alone the hours a UAW member puts in to make 6 figures. It would be unsafe for a pilot to work the hours a UAW member has to work to make the averge UAW wage of 58,000. Pilots aren't wearing their bodies out on an assembly line. Any US autoworker that is making 6 figures is living in the plant. People like you are the ones out of control, talking about things you have no clue about.
The Auto CEOs knew they were in trouble beforehand and did NOTHING.
Let Them Burn.
And what happens after that? More Failure. Same predicament. More money. More failure. Same predicament. More money.
And the vision of most burrowing nocturnal animals.
Instead of bailing out all these large corporations, give every taxpayer over the age of 20, 100000 dollars. Cheaper, and I guarantee they'll pay debts off, and buy new vehicles from the Crappy Three.
I'm totally on the fence about this auto bailout. I've been reading both sides and I'm not sure. I definitely am concerned about how it could have a ripple effect but part of me thinks screw them - they need to learn their lesson. Just being honest.
If you're going to have a bailout, I think it's not such a bad idea to require the resignation of the entire current leadership team. The catch is, who gets to determine their replacements? The current company owners (shareholders)? Or other? It's not like the shareholders know WTF they are doing either. And that's part of the problem. Moronic shareholders, moronic leadership, failed company. That's what the problem is. It's a company that isn't working well, and hasn't been for some time.
Oh and by the way, having a job isn't a right. If you think that's the way things should be, learn French. Then move to France.
I can't believe anything Reid says.
/I'm sure he's composing a sternly worded letter about it.
writing sternly worded letters that everyone else pisses on.
Any congress person who votes for bailing out the auto industry is not getting my vote in the next election. That money would be much better spent on developing mass transportation.
fuck the unions, they wouldn't have those high paying jobs if it weren't the protections they get. and fuck the shareholders of GM who can't pick people to run the company correctly. fuck the special interests on both sides of the equation.
And while we're at it, fuck you, too. Do you have a problem with regular working schlubs making decent wages? Jealous or something?
They said this about the last bailout. "If we don't give the corporations 700 billion, the American citizens will suffer."
I just saw today we are almost at 25 percent in job loss claims. And that's just people who claim it. I'm out of work myself and I'm trying to find work instead of going to the government for unemployment. I still don't know how I'll pay my rent next month, and I'm not even thinking about Christmas shopping. where the fucks my bailout.
Fuck you auto industry. They didn't care about the workers when they shipped the jobs overseas. Has anyone ever been to those former factory towns in Michigan. they look like 3rd world nations for christ sake. Fuck the Auto industry, and yes, fuck the system.
We keep playing these games with this fake, worthless paper money. We're busting our asses to get something that has no real value so we can feed ourselves and keep a roof over our head. We need to reevaluate whats going on here. This is modern day serfdom. No more no less. We think we got it good because we can buy some shit we don't need at Walmart. This is not right. We need to stop it. We can stop it. NO HUMAN BEING SHOULD HAVE TO WORK AND PAY FOR THE ESSENTIALS OF LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
it won't make any difference to the overall economy here or anywhere else in the world if we save the car makers or not and the reasons are numerous.
1. The American consumer is tapped out having exhausted their credit lines from having used thier homes as ATM machines. So just where are the masses of people going to come from to buy Detroits cars?
2. Many can't even afford to stay in their homes. Foreclosures are the highest in history.
3. Detroit was behind the curve for the last twenty years. They kept building larger and faster cars thinking the party would never end when in fact quality control suffered which is why many began to purchase foreign imports.
4. Innovation seemed to be the last thing on Detroits mind while not realizing or at the least listening to the growing concerns from outside the US at first regarding the enviornment.
5. Yeah they'll be back with a plan, but reality dictates that innovation, technological upgrades and moving to alternative forms of energy for cars and trucks won't happen overnight. Waggoner from GM is pinning his hopes on the Chevy Volt, but is the first to admit that the car is two years off and will cost at least $40,000.
6. 25 Billion would be a drop in the ocean compared to what these companies will require to get through. Have we not learned anything from the AIG bailout that was to cost 85 Billion and now has eclipsed 170 billion?
It would make far more sense for the car manufacturers to reorganize through a chapter 11 while looking to develop strategic alliances with the Japanese and others to produce cars that can run on alternative fules. As I have said before here, the Japanese have already invented a car that can run on water. The Indians with Tata Motors have cars that can run on compressed air. It can be done, but it's going to take time and a hell of a lot more than 25 billion.
If the captialistic model is going to endure, then something is going to have to give with the unions as well. Car manufacturers in the south like Mercedes, BMW and Kia have shown that workers can live quite well while not under a union contract. While I am a great believer that unionization has brought better working conditions to millions over the years as well as benefits that many would envy, our current financial mess is not going to go away over night and both sides must renegotiate compensation otherwise this industry is literally DOA regardless of the plan they offer congress next month.
Obama has the right idea. Create universal healthcare and then companies might become profitable again.
awaits you at the unemployment office. You paid into the system. Use it, or shut up about it. You are the govt, and that's one of your entitlements, for paying in.
--and I love them! Let me add one more--all vehicles must be crashworthy, not just the granny wagons. Drivers of Detroit tanks do it for two reasons--they've been hurt in a collision, or the second, more sinister reason--that they perpetrate collisions for profit.
No-one wants an economical, fuel-thrifty, clean car more than I do. But as much as my 40 mpg subcompact saved me on gas, it still was not enough to pay for the hospital bills when I got sharked.
Everyone is complaining about the auto workers' healthcare and other costs. Where were these complainers when news of multi-million dollar exec salaries and bonuses hit the newsstands and broadcast media?
Truth is, even the unions are discriminatory. One of my (white) relatives had a facial disfigurement and Chrysler paid him the lowest wage in the plant--and this was confirmed by African-American employees who were, themselves, lower paid than the whites. When Chrysler goes down, watch me party!
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