The Day The American Economy Stood Still
http://boztopia.com/?p=439$700 billion, american businesses, art, auto industry, automakers, bad news, bailout, bankruptcy, bob corker, business, cable news, ceos, Congress, conservative, credit, culmination, GOP, gop members, green, greenspan, hollowed, Home Depot, honest money, honest work, House of Saud, Mansions, meltdown, Michigan, miserable failure, net worth, NTIA, Obama, oil, onus, oversight, payoffs, philosophy, richard shelby, TARP, taxpayers, temerity, UAW, unions, Wall Streethttp://boztopia.com/?p=439#comments
So the talks to lend automakers money to survive broke down last night, leading to the expected misery on Wall Street this morning. The spin on the cable news shows and in the corporate press was that it was all the unions’ fault for having the temerity to demand honest money for honest work, rather than accept the model of so many other hollowed-out American businesses, and take pay cuts, losses of benefits and health care, etc. I don’t really care much about the CEOs wanting to take a $1 salary as a condition for the bailout, especially when you consider the net worth of Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli, the guy who ran Home Depot into the ground and has now capitalized on that first shining failure, still has investments and payoffs that lend him a cushy income. Guys like him could take a $1 salary for years and never miss it for a minute, so seriously, fuck him.
GOP members who opposed the bailout are being hailed as heroes, which makes sense until you realize how much of their opposition was based in crass political calculation. Some of them, like Richard Shelby and Bob Corker, represent states who have heavily wooed foreign automakers into building plants in their states, with non-unionized workers who make half as much as their counterparts from the Big 3. Others realize that Bush is on the way out, and have no incentive to support him or his aims, so they’re agitating just like they did with the Wall Street meltdown and TARP passage.
But Bush, never one to pass up spoiling a party, has signaled that he will indeed shift his position and consider using funds from the untapped $350 billion set aside for the Wall Street bailout to rescue the automakers. I’ll explain why this is a good idea after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
So the talks to lend automakers money to survive broke down last night, leading to the expected misery on Wall Street this morning. The spin on the cable news shows and in the corporate press was that it was all the unions’ fault for having the temerity to demand honest money for honest work, rather than accept the model of so many other hollowed-out American businesses, and take pay cuts, losses of benefits and health care, etc. I don’t really care much about the CEOs wanting to take a $1 salary as a condition for the bailout, especially when you consider the net worth of Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli, the guy who ran Home Depot into the ground and has now capitalized on that first shining failure, still has investments and payoffs that lend him a cushy income. Guys like him could take a $1 salary for years and never miss it for a minute, so seriously, fuck him.
GOP members who opposed the bailout are being hailed as heroes, which makes sense until you realize how much of their opposition was based in crass political calculation. Some of them, like Richard Shelby and Bob Corker, represent states who have heavily wooed foreign automakers into building plants in their states, with non-unionized workers who make half as much as their counterparts from the Big 3. Others realize that Bush is on the way out, and have no incentive to support him or his aims, so they’re agitating just like they did with the Wall Street meltdown and TARP passage.
But Bush, never one to pass up spoiling a party, has signaled that he will indeed shift his position and consider using funds from the untapped $350 billion set aside for the Wall Street bailout to rescue the automakers. I’ll explain why this is a good idea after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »