Reading over the comments from last night, I have to tend to agree with this comment:
The big question for me is how fucked up does the country have to get before the Villagers drop the cocktail party act? Who cares if Obama talked to someone who talked to someone who talked to Blago when there’s 1 million new lucky duckies next month and the Dow’s at 3000?
Good Lord. I never thought I’d live through this kind of bullshit.
You know- that is a good question. How bad do things have to get before the bullshit artists just stop? Or can they?
There is an almost surreal feel to it all, isn’t there? It is like living in a Dali painting, or walking on an Escher staircase, or being the person in the alien movies when you encounter the unknown from another dimension. The country is falling apart- millions losing their jobs, the economy crumbling, people losing their homes, the budget a disaster, etc. So many problems it is depressing to list them all.
In just the last 24 hours, it was reported that some jackass defrauded people of 50 billion dollars on Wall Street, while the Republicans seem to have purposefully killed a plan to rescue the auto industry that cost 1/3 of what one con man scammed and 1/46th of what we pissed away on in the bailout of the Wall Street bigwigs. By all accounts, it appears the only reason they killed the bill was because the autoworkers were not being punished enough:
The negotiations were based on a plan advanced by Corker, the most junior member of the Banking Committee. His proposal sought to reduce the wages and benefits of union workers by requiring the automakers’ total labor costs to be “on par” with Honda and Toyota.
The two sides agreed to most other issues, including those requiring automakers to reduce their debt obligations by at least two-thirds through an equity swap with bondholders. Payouts to workers who are laid off or temporarily furloughed would have been terminated.
Ford, unlike General Motors and Chrysler, has said it does not need bridge loans at this point and would not need to agree to those conditions.
But no agreement could be reached on the wage reductions. “It sounds like UAW blew up the deal,” Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said afterward.
Just in case you are confused- Republicans object to a car czar overseeing the bailout because it is too much government interference, but a few Republican Senators dictating from Washington how much companies pay their workers is just the invisible hand of the free market bitch-slapping you while you are down. Those Senators, btw, make $160k a year and have full medical and just decided that an autoworker making 50k a year is just too damned much money. $700 billion for the millionaires and billionaires who helped create this mess, not a dime for the guys who make $50-60k a year and whose chief sin is showing up for work every day. I don’t know if the bailout plan would work, but to let an industry die and watch millions of people lose their job because the workers make “too much money” seems almost criminal. How much money have we spent on Star Wars? How many weeks in Iraq is 15 billion? I am hard-pressed to come up with a reason Republicans spiked this other than union-busting and because they could.
And while that was going on, what are our media elites concerned about? Politico reporters are aghast at the innovative new way the Obama team is trying to answer the country’s questions, Eugene Robinson is upset because Obama is from the same state as Blagojevich, Krauthammer is up in arms because Obama may succeed in changing the country, and I have not seen the Madoff scam mentioned on CNN, but am watching a piece on the possibility Michael Chertoff may have had illegal aliens clean his house for the third time. And that is just a quick scan of one newspaper and what is on my television at the moment.
Maybe we, the country, deserves to fail. In the movies, young Barry returns at the end and everything is made better.
That was fiction.
cleek
G A F F C would make a hideous-sounding chord.
but, the workers at the world-biggest pig slaughterhouse (here in lovely NC) managed to get themselves a union today. after 16 years of fighting the owners.
NC’s turning blue. i can smell it.
The Grand Panjandrum
I am listening to a press conference by the UAW and they have an email from a Republican ( Senate staffer? It was unclear.) organizing Congressional Republicans to vote AGAINST cloture for the automaker bailout. The gist of the argument against the legislation was to break the unions.
(I’ll try to find a link.)
Fuckers. I hope they all DIAF.
mellowjohn
"…Republicans seem to have purposefully killed a plan to rescue the auto industry that cost 1/3 of what one con man scammed and 1/46th of what we pissed away on in the bailout of the Wall Street bigwigs."
and slightly more than twice what was "lost" in shrink-wrapped bundles in iraq.
TR
All true, but there are signs that some of the villagers are shaking off the bullshit.
MSNBC is giving extensive coverage to a UAW press conference at the moment. I can’t remember the last time I saw a union rep given this much airtime.
cleek
oh, and here’s some more of that great wingnut thinking: Detroit needs to save money. so why not cut benefits for same sex couples ?
Northern Observer
I have to say, with the Politico clowns jumping head first into the misinformation media show, there is a real end of the Republic feel in the air.
Watching the Wire on DVD has not improved my sentiment much either. America the wasted.
DannyNoonan
Jumping off that point, the confounding mind-bang is that bobbleheads from Politico etc. are acting as though they need something to talk about to feed the 24/7 news programs. Living through the greatest global financial meltdown in history would seem to be enough. Sadly, no.
Fraud Guy
I think the concept of "Versailles" from Paul Rosenberg (@ Open Left) is entirely appropriate.
Of course, who gets to play Mel’s king:
"Sir, sir, the peasants are revolting!"
"Of course they are. Pull."
smiley
The republican derailing of the auto-industry bailout is even worse. Demint et al., insisted that wages and benefits match what the foreign auto makers pay next year instead of waiting until 2011 when the current contract is up. It’s all about screwing the UAW.
Comrade Stuck
It’s like one of those dreams where your being chased by malevolent fools, and the motherfuckers catch you.
Zifnab
That’s kinda the game. You’ve got the titans of industry and their political puppets all giving each other reach-arounds with little guy money. Mutual masturbatory schemes like this can’t run forever. Eventually, the well runs dry.
But Republicans are so eager to crush unions in blue states they’re missing a rather large picture. Unions in northern states need to exist or you’ll quickly end up with unions in southern states. Why? Because the middle class has been revolting against the upper class for thousands of years, specifically at times when the middle class gets shoved below the poverty line. You pay people fair wages for a variety of reasons, but the biggest reason is self-preservation.
I know the GOP all-out hates itself those dirty 60s-era commies, but they have completely forgotten what gets your ass thrown up against the wall by Che Guevara. Collapsing the economy? Trying to shovel honest citizens out into the streets or down into the jail houses? Busting the budget on personal gratification, then beating on the underclass when they ask for a bowl of soup or a crust of bread?
The GOP is doing a better job of stirring up populist revolts in their own states than Markos or Howard Dean could ever dream of.
Napoleon
The filibuster/closure rule has to go. If Reid doesn’t try to nuke that rule and give this nation a straight up or down on the bailout, there is no amount of pain and suffering that could be inflicted on Reid that he would not deserve.
lane
@cleek: Funny thing is, in his post he says 2% of 443,000 is 93,000, when it is 8,860. So, being off by an order of magnitude, his brilliant response is:
the stupid – it burns.
zzyzx
Yeah I posted a similar rant on my LJ today. The problem is that the Republicans were a little too obvious in their motivations. If you’re trying to screw over the little man, you have to bury it in a couple of levels of justifications and rationalizations, not say, "Yeah, this is what we’re doing."
Joe the Plumber? Joe Six Pack? We love you guys as long as you’re willing to work for $5/hr.
TR
Principle, moron.
Keith
Ideology (and the associated campaigns) is recession-proof.
Just Some Fuckhead
52-35, 8 votes short of cloture, which would have shut down debate and put it to a vote. Looking at the roll call, the following Democrats voted no or did not vote:
Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas
Max Baucus, Montana
Jon Tester, Montana
Ted Kennedy, Massaschusetts
John Kerry, Massachusetts
Joe Biden, Delaware
Barack Obama, Illinois
Harry Reid, Nevada
Ron Wyden, Oregon
Harry Reid voted no so he could possibly bring it up again..
lane
oops
2% of 466,000 people, not 443,000, is 9,320.
zzyzx
"Barack Obama, Illinois"
No longer a senator.
Walker
I am sick and tired of this crappy type of reporting. Do they want wages inline with Honda and Toyota, or total labor costs? Because if it is total labor costs, then without bankruptcy, contractual pension obligations mean they have to start paying existing autoworkers minimum wage.
Just Some Fuckhead
I should also note that the certifiably batshit insane Sam Brownback voted yes, as did a bunch of other moderate Republicans.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Kennedy, I can cut some slack. But WTFF Tester, Kerry, Biden and Reid, just for starters?
Michael D.
Don’t ever forget. Never. If the automakers fail, and if there are hundreds of thousands of people standing in the unemployment line…
IT WAS THE REPUBLICANS THAT LET IT HAPPEN.
Repblicans will be responsible for every single bit of it because they hate unions.
I’m not a big union fan myself, but even I can see the forest for the fucking trees, and the unions are not at fault here.
Buyer: Michael, I would like to buy your $250,000 home for $150,000.
Michael: Sure, no problem.
Buyer: Awesome!
Michael to government: I am now $100,000 in debt. Please help me!
Sean Hannity: Fucking greedy buyer!!
Just Some Fuckhead
@zzyzx: Duh.
Comrade Stuck
Maybe Bush can redeem himself a little before leaving this mess he created behind.
White House considers using TARP for auto bailout
Just Some Fuckhead
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse: Reid votes no as a procedural move so he can bring it back up later if possible.
zzyzx
Kerry, I believe, is talking with India and Pakistan right now which is why he didn’t vote.
ETA: Ok, I was wrong. He’s in Poland. Don’t forget Poland!
August J. Pollak
Ummm…. terrorists hijacked planes and used them to destroy two of the largest buildings in American and kill 3,000 people and the immediate message afterward was to tell everyone to shop more.
Not to say you’re woefully naive here, but I mean, hell, the elites were having cocktail parties in France right up until the peasants busted the doors down with pitchforks.
Edmund Dantes
Obama’s name for certain doesn’t belong on that list. The problem is he resigned from the Senate and is incapable of voting. Technically it should be Illinois Jr Senator – Not filled (which apparently absence means No on cloture votes). Not sure on Biden resignation happened yet or not.
zzyzx
Looks like Bush is going to tap the TARP fund. Ah, there’s compassionate conservatism, only 7.9 years late.
So good job Republicans. You were about to get everything you wanted just with a timetable and now there’s going to be a no strings attached loan. Well played!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Edmund Dantes: Biden is listed in the roll call as not voting, Obama is not. It was my mistake to include Obama.
If Biden has already resigned, then we technically only have 98 senators in which case a three-fifths cloture majority would mean only 59 senators were necessary for cloture, right?
burnspbesq
The cartoon currently on the front page at Calculated Risk sums it up rather succinctly.
http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
OK, Kerry and Reid are off the hook, and if Biden has resigned, that makes sense.
But Tester, your awesome crewcut is not enough to regain my love.
Brian J
I hate to pile on, but this post from Marginal Revolution seems, well, unsettling. I don’t have a good idea how legitimate the claims made by the person he cited are, yet it raises some interesting questions. Does anyone here have some sort relevant experience in the issues discussed?
zzyzx
I’d also let Kennedy of the hook at least in theory because lord knows how healthy he is…
Evolved Deep Southerner
OK, I’ll bite. What’s "GAFFC?" I thought I was aware of all Internet traditions, but apparently not.
MNPundit
I would like to point out that 160K is not that much when you have to maintain two residences and one of them is in DC or northern Virginia. Living expenses are different in different places.
That said, point taken.
Xecky Gilchrist
How bad do things have to get before the bullshit artists just stop?
Bad enough that all the newspapers and TV news stations go broke.
MikeJ
Biden hasn’t resigned yet, but he’s announced that he will.
gnomedad
Credit where credit is due, I s’pose. Will the fReichtards be spinning W as a RINO in a couple of months?
demimondian
@Evolved Deep Southerner: Get A Fucking Financial Clue
Edmund Dantes
@Just Some Fuckhead: Not sure about how the cloture rule is written to deal with unfilled seats, but independent of that I can’t find anything stating Biden has resigned his seat. I assume he’s still officially a Senator until he is sworn in as Vice President then or officially tenders his resignation letter.
TheHatOnMyCat
If you ever wanted to see bald-faced pure theatrics in action on capitol hill, this is the day.
Corker? Who can forget him standing there with that GOP smirk on his face this morning, laughing and grinning like a fucking moron. Is he unaware of the fact that millions of people are watching this kabuki play and wondering if they are going to have jobs next month?
It’s all games to these idiots. And dear lord, can’t the UAW find a spokesman who can speak plainly? Gettelfinger can talk for ten minutes before he makes a point. He doesn’t know how to play this game. Just walk up to the mike and say, "The Republicans are playing politics with millions of American jobs today, and shame on them." Period.
Tony Alva
I’m not sure why this mess has to be a single sourced problem. Bad management AND the UAW created this mess, along with other less impactful things. Like Eastern Airlines employees who I saw picketing in ATL airport two days after their company went bankrupt: "Congrats, you just picketed yourself out of a job dimwit…" $71 vs $45 an hour gap. It’s insane. It’s not all about base take home $$$, it’s all the other BS folks, including furlow pay, and unsustainable pension plans. Sorry, but I will not let the UAW or Airline Labor off the hook.
I have ZERO love for the top floor folks at these companies and they need to go if for nothing else then continuing to build cars nobody wants and run like crap, but letting labor slide is as bad as handing these guys 2008 EOY bonuses.
My thoughts…
DougJ
This is rich, from Brooks today:
I’ve said it before and I’ll it say again: the only chance we have to survive as a nation is that the entire populations of Georgetown and Bethesda are wiped out by meteors.
John Cole
@Evolved Deep Southerner: GAFFC are the notes that people played to the mothership in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and young Barry was the child they took who was returned at the end of the movie. Thought the title summed up the surreal and alien feel of things.
I thought the dorks here would get it, but I think only cleek did.
cleek
nope… i didn’t get it either. reading it again, i can see that i should have, though. well done.
demimondian
@Tony Alva: So, you ‘re all in favor of the sanctity of contracts when it serves the wealthy, but not when it serves the poor. GM’s management had chance after chance to negotiate better contracts, and they didn’t. They could have gotten behind Hillarycare in 1993 — and they didn’t.
Worse, of course, is the fact that the union *already* gave up furlough pay; this was all about screwing retirees and bankrupting them.
zzyzx
@gnomedad:
NR got a head start yesterday:
Yeah, one would hope that he goes out on a massive cascade of bankruptcies. That would be a wonderful legacy. Idiots.
DougJ
This too:
What the fuck does this douchebag know about economics? He can’t even estimate how much a meal costs at Red Lobster:
zzyzx
Link for my 11:17 post, kept separate for WP reasons is here
t jasper parnell
@DougJ It is not that he cannot estimate it is that he cannot tell the truth. Brooks is a walking, talking, random keyboard pushing lie, on stilts no less.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’ve got some real problems with using TARP money as bridge loans for the auto industry. Isn’t that in fact illegal or does the President in his role Chief Executive get to enforce how that legislation is carried out and so has the authority to use the money elsewhere?
Maybe we can just (formally) declare war on Michigan, invade and then rebuild the state and it’s auto industry using defense department budget money. I’m sure Michiganders will treat us as liberators.
J. Maynard Gelinas
The auto industry bailout is a national security issue. To allow liquidation of our auto manufacturing sector is to close the very facilities we converted during WWI and WWII to military production during all-out war. Do the Republicans honestly think the Chinese are going to sell us mechanized equipment if we go to war with them? How about the Japanese? Do you honestly think that can’t happen again?
Conservatives used to use the refrain, "government is not a suicide pact" when referring to those who demanded the end of our torture policy. And now that the GOP has a petty opportunity to destroy a political opponent, they seem perfectly willing to hand the knife and our throats to our enemies. This is the most irresponsible act I’ve ever seen from any political party. If the Republicans think this is how to succeed in a dangerous world, they’re on a suicidal national path, and thus fucking nuts!
DougJ
If I had one complaint about this blog — and to be clear, this is possibly my favorite blog — it would be that there’s too much time spent beating up on the Red State crowd and not enough beating up on Brooks, Dowd, Marcus, Friedman, etc.
D. Mason
I truly hate the idea of anything that might make the auto industry fail but there is a little gratification to be had in the irony of Bush being out Bushed by his once loyal senate – and hating every minute of it.
TheFountainHead
It’s shit like this that tears me apart. I want to see these companies die. In fact, I want some of their execs to die slowly and painfully. That doesn’t change the fact that they’ve got thousands of workers (and several thousand more by extension) by the balls and our economy is just not up to taking another blow to the face. I’m fairly well convinced the bailout of GM and Chrysler is a necessary evil, but it’s still evil. That said, letting the lamest of lame-duck GOP Senators stick their cock in it almost makes me feel sympathy for the Big 3.
gnomedad
C’mon, an acronym with two "F"s in it? Who around here’s gonna think "music"?
TheFountainHead
You kid, but we’re two steps away from that basically being the outcome.
Zifnab
@Tony Alva:
This might hold true if UAW was the one administering the pension plans and assorted other benefits. But there has been a back-and-forth in which the auto industry has tried to cheap out on any number of fronts.
Originally, auto employees just wanted higher salaries to cover cost of living. Rather than ponying up all the cash, the Auto Industry promised to pay their employees less today but offer them benefits – health care, pensions, the "jobs bank" which effectively functioned as unemployment insurance – that they could expect to receive in the future. The auto dealerships then failed to manage these benefits properly and when insurance rates skyrocketed, the market tanked, and sales dropped off provoking a need for layoffs, the auto companies were left in a serious shithole.
The bottom line is that the unions fulfilled their obligations. They made the cars per specification. They didn’t strike or otherwise screw up contracts. And they got the product out on the market. They also fought hand-in-hand with management in opposition to higher emissions standards, better gas mileage, and other assorted "expensive" features.
So, while I’ll happily argue that unions sabotaged themselves in the long run with their own political capital, I disagree strongly over the notion that union pay and benefits were what ultimately sunk the industry. The Big 3 management is stuck squarely with holding the bag on this one.
Cathy W
@Brian J: I’m not an expert on the law (either in general or this one in specific), but there’s been an alarm raised about the same law in crafting communities lately by people who make and sell toys. The concern is that small businesses (like a home-based handicrafter who sells knitted teddy bears or wooden pull-toys) will be unable to comply with the cost of having all their materials certified as safe – but people aren’t sure if the home-based handicrafter will be subject to the law. People don’t seem quite sure what to do.
t jasper parnell
@DougJ:
From my archives1: Take, for instance, this example of Parker’s version of Friedman’s "method": "I write my books by writing my books. . . . I don’t start with six months of research." And: Friedman’s editor and he "were editing, and it ppped into my head. . . . I said Paul, Google ‘Nixon and Khrushchev,’ and literally , we wrote it together on the screen." In this passage, Parker exposes Friedman as a man too busy writing his book to actually, you know, engage in the basic research necessary to understand, let alone find, the facts of the matter. He further portrays Friedman as an eager, if in-over-his-head, undergraduate anxiously struggling to finish his semester project with dad’s or mom’s help by googling. Not for Friedman the hours in the library reading dusty tomes on the meaning of the Kitchen debate; not for Friedman the laborious process of investigating the mountains of texts on resources wars or climate change. Non, as the French
say, sufficient unto the depth of his though is the ten minutes with the Google thereof.
Refers to George Paker’s "appreciation" of T. Freidman in the 11/10/08 New Yorker [back]
Ecks
There was a breakdown of this in the NYT the other day. It turns out that the bulk of the difference is benefits being paid to people WHO ARE ALREDY RETIRED. Toyota doesn’t have to deal with that right now because thye haven’t been operating factories here long enought to have many retired workers.
The person calculated that if the difference in costs were wiped out, though, and the big 3 paid EXACTLY what Toyota did, this would save only $800 per car. So unless you think that a drop in price per American car of less than a grand would solve detroit’s woes, busting the unions chops isn’t going to save anything.
The Moar You Know
@t jasper parnell: So I was right. Friedman really does just make it all up as he goes along. Thanks for confirming that for me!
Tim Fuller
Some people are just NOW starting to figure out how little the 1% care for the other 99%. LOL!! That rich bastard who conned the other rich bastards (who got rich conning a lot of us poor bastards) will all be in the same government breadlines soon enough.
more here.
Enjoy.
ppcli
Tony Alva:
This factoid –
"$71 vs $45 an hour gap" – has been widely discredited. Please don’t repeat it here if you want to be taken seriously.
.
Secondly, you give the game away with remarks like: "Like Eastern Airlines employees who I saw picketing in ATL airport". Eastern went out of business nearly twenty years ago. If you can’t come up with a more recent example than that, you’re clearly reaching pretty desperately to make your point.
.
Here in Michigan UAW negotiations are frontpage news, and so we all follow them pretty carefully. The UAW has made enormous concessions in every contract for the last decade.
Anti-union prejudice based on decades-old stereotypes is blinding you.
The Raven
So far as I know, historically the courtiers kept up their infighting all the way down. Think of the French Revolution.
Krawk!
TheFountainHead
Fixt.
Hyperion
our esteemed host wrote:
this is a silver lining in the very dark cloud we live under today.
thanks, john, for reading the goddamn comments. i know of no other blogger who so frequently cites his commentors, certainly no one who gets as much traffic as this site. i get a real feeling of dialog here (ok, sometimes raucous) and you set that tone.
Tony Alva
demimondian\Zifnab,
All good stuff… I negotiate contracts for a living and am currently dealing with similar, albeit MUCH smaller consequence, situations (e.g. good faith contracts that my suppliers cannot possibly honor due to sagging biz). In many instances, we are certainly within our right to demand that the contracts be honored as they are, but there are those that if we took that stance, it would doom them into bankruptcy. It becomes a negotiation and results in an amendment. All politics and prior malfeasance aside, that’s what it’s going to take if these companies have any chance to become viable again and market forces will baseline those negotiations for better or worse. The union will have to break those earlier deals open again. It has simply come down to the Eastern Airline picket situation I mentioned above: Do you want the jobs at much less $$$ per man hour, or nothing. I really don’t see any other option here.
Throw the bums out and get to the table is what I say…
Teak111
Well they can’t lead or administer the country, so being the opposition party is the only thing they do well, even when opposing is counter productive, counter intuitive, and alienates even hardcore GOP supporters. Opposing also feeds into their victim complex.
TheHatOnMyCat
No, let’s be clear: It’s a lie. Pure and simple. Rolling legacy labor costs into the spreadsheet and then pretending that this cost is what is being paid to realtime workers is a baldfaced lie. It’s intent is to discredit the UAW and make it seem as if good, noncommunist American workers in third world … er, right to work… states are working for less and that we are right to crush the unions.
It’s a lie. First the Republican pieces of shit saddle the Big Three with the healthcare costs of their retired workers, and then they lie to you and tell you that those swollen costs are actually being paid to today’s workers because the unions are greedy.
You gotta remember who you are talking about: The same people who wanted you to privatize Social Security just four years ago. They are anti labor and pro capital. You are watching the CATO institute at work, and their goal is to undo the New Deal and labor movement.
Ecks
Cleek. Comment #1 in this thread, first line:
Any more questions? :)
Jasper
John Cole,
Please, please report the actual total cost, so far, of the financial system bailout. The number is closer to $3 TRILLION than the $350 billion dispensed from Treasury in the TARP program. Ritholtz has it here:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/total-bailout-costs.png
A few weeks ago, Paulson just unilaterally changed the tax code to give the big banks a $30-150 Billion tax break when they acquire a bank with losses. No vote from Congress, no Presidential signature, just a note from Paulson to his buddies, "Here you go, friends, have fun!" (IRS Notice 2008-83). This was patently illegal, but what the hell.
GS and others had no legal authority to borrow from the Fed, so they just became banks, overnight, so they could borrow hundreds of $BILLIONS from the Fed.
We’re witnessing the biggest looting of national treasure in world history, and Congress is worried about pay levels for union guys. It’s breathtaking.
The Moar You Know
Well, here’s the thing, I suspect they can’t stop it – they wouldn’t know how. These people have been raised in an America irredemably altered by FDR’s New Deal. They’ve never known uncertainty or want. They’ve never seen our nation in real trouble or danger. Hell, they’ve never seen a war that we didn’t choose to start – they’re too young to have lived through World War II in any meaningful way – the very oldest of them were children during that conflict.
They’ve had the luxury – a luxury paid for in blood by the unions that ironically got them the 40 hour workweeks and living wages that they consider their birthright – to indulge in a lot of low-grade intellectual masturbation, promulgated by capitalists – a very clever divide and conquer strategem by the folks who have money. They are then able to sally forth onto our TV screens and newspapers with a clear conscience defending their seven-figure salaries while condemning the last few people in this nation who actually manufacture anything for daring to ask that their salaries, already cut, not be sliced down any further.
However, I don’t see a change coming any time soon. America has a lot of financial cushion. If we dove to the level of, let’s say, Mexico (which would be at least a 60% hit to our GDP), well – there would be a lot of poor people. But even Mexicans aren’t poor enough to pick up the pitchforks and start burning down their version of the White House – poor as they are, they’re a lot better off in most parts of Mexico than America was in the early 1930s.
So the bullshit artists won’t stop. There will always be a market for their product, those people who have a lot but feel a need to rationalize the poverty of their countrymen.
TheHatOnMyCat
Okay, now the stupid post editor doesn’t work. So I have to add another post instead:
Gettelfinger has this right, see his remarks from this morning. There is already wage parity in today’s labor costs for GM and Toyota. The inflated GOP figure includes legacy costs.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
FUCK!! Some MSNBC talking head just said the deal crashed because the union wouldn’t accept wage cuts from $71 to $45.
FUCK! The stupid, it burns.
(And I just heard something on the radio about GM HALTING all NA production in the month of January. Complete shutdown. FUCK.)
(And the brother of one of my closest friends works at GM in Oshawa, which could face closures of up to 6 weeks. Merry fucking Christmas. Yeah, it’s the GOP fighting the war on Christmas.)
demimondian
@Tony Alva: Except for the small fact that your argument is based on two lies: one, that the union didn’t agree on furlough pay, and two, that the union members will be working for "much less $$$" per hour. The gap is *entirely* due to retiree benefits, specifically, retiree health benefits.
This is all about screwing people *who don’t even work there any more*, dude.
les
Fucking Jim Demint is not just evil, but terminally stupid. He hates the unions, blames every problem in the U.S. auto industry on unions, wants to get rid of them all–but who the hell does he think pays the Fed. taxes to subsidize his cracker ass constituents, who get more back than they pay in taxes? When he’s reduced everyone to his level, they’ll have to take care of themselves–and there will be a lot more stories like the Toyota plant that went to Canada ’cause of the ignorance level of workers in the South–Tenn., maybe?
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Les, it’s our lower health care costs, too. Fuck, my business may die, I might lose my house, I won’t get employment benefits because I’m the sole owner and employee of my business, but this country will still provide me with health care.
t jasper parnell
The truth about the original Great Depression. And not "truth" in the sense of Obama’s relationship with Ayers but truth in the sense of actually true. Honest.
Ecks
True. Though for full irony points, it was a lie the big 3 themselves started. From the NYT story that broke down those costs:
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
I’ll repeat what I have heard on a major Toronto radio station.
There are reports from the CAW (Canadian Auto Workers) meeting today that GM will shut down all operations throughout North America for the entire month of January. Oshawa, the hub of Canadian auto production, will see its plants shut for a total of 6 weeks, through mid February.
Has any automotive company shut down over an entire CONTINENT before? Jesus.
Tsulagi
Ah, the naivete of a young kitten or JR puppy.
The Decider decides all things. It’s in a Yoo memo somewhere. Plenty of precedent in the current honor and integrity admin. Such as the Decider deciding money appropriated for OEF would be used to fund hundreds of millions in secret startup costs for an upcoming Iraq adventure that was then just a gleam in George and Dick’s eyes.
Following successes like that, Our Decider has recently blessed us now focusing his proven nation building prowess here at home to preempt a win by the terrorists. The Bush Doctrine. A domestic Mission Accomplished banner can only be a week or two away. He’s got us to where we are today. Stay the Course.
Sib
Wow, the one US newsitem on the German news I just watched was a long report about the failed car producers deal, the reasons for the failure and the consequences. Having lived in the US for a while I always find it bizarre that in a way I know more about what is happening in the states (regarding big things like this) when I am thousands of miles away from there and watching it on the foreign news.
Rick Taylor
Simple. It hast to get bad enough it affects them personally. I understand Tom Friedman’s wife just lost a fortune, so we can expect him to be on board.
Fledermaus
I’ll never understand why Obama wanted the job in the first place. We’re so fucking doomed.
t jasper parnell
Detroit Free Press:
Brian J
Wasn’t the plan to pass a stimulus bill in congress and then send it to Bush to sign, and then, if he rejected it, have it waiting on Obama’s desk? Or was it slightly different from what I just described?
Regardless, the point is to send a message that they are doing what it takes to stimulate the economy and actually stimulate the economy as quickly as possible.
Brian J
@Cathy W:
I understand that, but the post from MR and the ones linked to that one make it seem like Feb. 10 is the day we’re really headed off a cliff.
TheHatOnMyCat
I am not sure that any member of the GOP really understands this. 2009 is shaping up as likely the worst year in nearly a century. The jobs calamity, the disastrous effects on families and communities …. it is going to be ugly, and painful beyond their imagination. And make no mistake, this is the legacy of their eight years’ tenure in the government.
And despite this, there they stand in front of the microphones, mouthing their CATO-inspired talking points and acting as if they are acting in our best interests.
If there is justice, this will be the end of the GOP in this country for the next three decades.
Bush might redeem himself slightly with action right now to get money to the carmakers. Hell, even I will give him props for doing it if he acts quickly.
MikeJ
Shutting down operations means there will be fewer hourly workers getting paid and still the same number of retirees. The hourly wage as calculated by the GOP will soon hit $1000/hr.
djork
I wish someone would ask one of these blow-dried Republican fucks two questions:
1.) How much do you make an hour, inluding benefits and, just for the hell of it, legacy benefits?
2.) Did you vote for the last Congressional payraise?
I’m really disgusted with these idiots. Like, get out the pitchforks disgusted.
Sasha
I sometimes think they the GOP is actively trying to utterly fuck up the economy because a). it will distract the Obama administration from doing everything else it would be doing if it didn’t have to spend time putting out W’s fires, and b). if the next four years are as horrifically crappy as it could be, in 2012 they’ll be running on a platform of "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"
Broken
The irony is if GM USA fails, GM will likely import cars to the US from it’s international units, which will likely survive on bailouts like the one Germany offered Opel-GM.
TheHatOnMyCat
Very doubful IMO. Major differences in the cars made necessary by American standards and regulations make it extremely expensive to try to build for this market from overseas. For example, Ford can’t bring its Euro Focus over without adding cost to a product that is already unprofitable at current rates here. Not saddled with the need to build millions of frame and rail trucks, like US automakers, the Japanese could build flexible manufacturing units that let them shift gears more quickly and cheaply. Truck making and car making are really not compatible any more.
Saddled with those kinds of things, plus legacy labor costs, and then the instantaneous and unexpected collapse of consumer credit and confidence …. the US makers were in a much deeper hole than their Japanese counterparts. Honda and Toyota have seen the same sales collapse in the last 60 days that American makers have. It’s just that they can sustain a little longer in the crisis than our companies can. But not indefinitely. Toyota workers better hope that this crisis passes, because they too are going to be going without paychecks soon unless something turns the train around.
American firms aren’t the only potential victims here, just the first.
ImJohnGalt
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse:
Hey! I grew up in Oshawa, and moved my parents into the T-dot from my childhood home there last year. The timing couldn’t have been better. I have a lot less sympathy for the CAW than the UAW, who have made a ton of concessions to try to save their industry.
I grew up with a *lot* of people who worked at GM in Oshawa, and worked on the line myself as a summer student. I’m pro-union in general, but lemme tell you the workers and the union there often made me wanna stab myself in the eye with a socket wrench. I’ll never buy a GM based solely on what I saw there, and the what people who worked there full-time and played on my softball team told me (proudly, even!)
tavella
It’s been my half-serious theory that they want to push the country into a depression. Recessions don’t last more than a couple of years; even a double dip one will be well over by 2012, and Obama can run on recovery. 19th century depressions, on the other hand, lasted an average of six years, meaning that we’d still be deep in the mire in 2012, allowing a Republican to win and run on recovery in 2016.
Jeff
What I do not understand is why the Republicans think they can trust Wall Street millionaires when they’d rather pay the government to hold their money then actually lend it out and try to make it grow. For the first time ever investors are paying the fed to make sure their money will be their in three months because yields on the three month treasuries were actually negative for a period of time on Tuesday.
I wonder how much of that cash that went into TBills and zero rate short term securities was bailout money.
Napoleon
@Jeff:
The day before Lehman’s bankrupty I dumped everything I had and put it into short term treasuries on the theory that would happen, and I have actaully been making money over that period. Seriously, I have made money from the crisis.
Bobby J
If you allow the Big 3 to fail don’t you also risk hampering our already overworked military?
Don’t the Big 3 have financial and manufacturing interests in things like engines, transmissions, tires, light bulbs/lamps, vehicle suspension systems, hoses, brake pads, belts, shocks/struts, targeting equipment, etc.?
Wouldn’t it really suck if one or two or lots of those smaller businesses inextricably tied to the fate of the Big 3 also supplies essential parts to our military?
Perhaps this is part of the GOP plan, though: why drive/fly/ride when you can walk?
MikeJ
Perhaps if the GOP insists on pushing us into a depression we need to repeal the 22nd and give Obama a FDRish 4 terms.
Brian J
I want to believe that (a) Obama’s grace period will last roughly as long as the time it takes us to hit bottom and (b) when things start to get (relatively) better, it will happen before we lose many seats in the House and Senate and before Obama is up for reelection. It’s definitely possible for him to suffer as a result of what’s out of his hands, but who is supposed to be the White Knight for the Republicans in 2012? And why are we supposed to believe that so many House and Senate Democrats are going to be vulnerable because of something they are trying to stop? I suspect part of the reason the Republicans hate Obama so much is that they know he’s incredibly skilled and is probably at worst an even bet to come out ahead should the economy get really, really bad.
Brian J
Tell me more, please.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Brian J:
Yeah, cuz what could be more useful and enlightening than anti-union anecdotes from a random anonymous commenter on the internet.
Church Lady
Yes, yes, we all know that the auto workers don’t actually make $73 and hour, but that is the estimated labor cost per hour into making a Detroit manufactured car because it includes retiree costs (either pension and health benefits or health benefits alone, depending on who you are reading) in addition to the actual current labor wages, health benefits and payments for future pension benefits. But, no matter how you slice it, or want to argue about it, those are the hourly costs to the car makers and are figured into the cost of each car that Detroit makes.
When you have two cars, comparable in size, fuel effeciency, etc. (in other words, comparing an apple to an apple), but the hourly labor costs factored in on in one are more than $20 per hour than the other, obviously the price tag on the higher labor cost car will have to be higher than the one that was built with cheaper labor costs. The manufacturer either has to try to sell this car at this higher cost or will have to match his competition’s price and either lose money on the deal or eke out a much, much smaller profit than his competition does.
When John Q. Public goes auto shopping and he compares what are essentially two identical cars, but one is priced thousands higher to cover those increased labor costs, do you think he cares how much a worker makes? Hell no. He cares about how much money has to leave his wallet when he purchases a car. I do believe its called consumer behavior. You know, we all want to get the most bang for our buck.
Unless we all want to commit to buying American, and paying a higher price for what we get, in comparison to Toyota, Nissan, etc., then we need to quit bitching about all these meanies wanting to beat down labor. Labor has gotten a nice ride over the years, but the party is ending in the car industry. Does that suck for labor? Yes, but the manufacurers have to be able to compete in a global economy and when their labor costs are almost 1/3 higher than their competition, they just can’t do it while still turning out a profit.
John Cole
You are right, Church Lady. All of these problems should lie at the feet of labor. They are to blame.
The party is over, lucky duckies.
Brian J
No need to be snippy.
ImJohnGalt
Nah, he’s right. My opinion nor my anecdotes don’t actually count for much.
I don’t actually blame the Big 3 crisis on the unions, although the CAW has given significantly less on the issue than the UAW, and they are the union with whose members I’m more intimately familiar.
That said, is there anyone else who thinks that something like this crisis might actually bring about a better understanding about the shared responsibility that labor and management have for the success of a company?Up here, it seems like every collective bargaining process is antagonistic, and generally the discussion goes as follows:
Labor: "We want 3% increases automatically each year, regardless of how the company or the economy is doing, or whether or not our productivity goes down. Oh, and if you fire one of us for sleeping on the job or being drunk we’ll grieve it until you give them at least one or two more chances."
Management:
"No. We want you to work at wages that help you barely subsist with no overtime, but that will provide us with margins fat enough to give ourselves some tasty year-end bonuses. Our benefits will be significantly better than yours because..well, because. Oh, and also, because you’re a union we can’t give high-performing individuals special bonuses because you always grieve that as well since you think everyone should get the bonus. Oh, plus we can look down at our noses at you whenever we want, because we push paper while you push parts on a production line. Sound fair?"
Labour:
"No."
So they finally then work something out that neither are happy about (clearly neither party had read "Getting To Yes"), and then management frets about poor employee morale (caused by their unreasonableness) while the employees don’t seem to give a shit about how the company does as long as they get paid.
Then, when the company goes out of business or gets taken over everyone wonders why nobody saw it coming.
I think management is worse party of the two, typically, but just because you can ask for more doesn’t mean you’re always entitled to more, management and union alike.
comrade rawshark
Identical cars but the American one is more expensive? In which alternative universe is this true? What’s the foreign (and cheaper) equal to the might Ford Focus or Chevy Cobalt?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Brian J: It’s a gift, I share it with you.
Fritz
The random bitching will continue until the hangings commence. Given that historical perspective, you might want to be glad the bitching is continuing. Or not be glad, depending on your perspective. A few decorated lampposts would be infinitely instructive for the next generation of creative investment packagers.
TenguPhule
The one where Palin is VP and first dog of the Whitehouse.
TenguPhule
Shorter Church Lady: Fuck you, I got mine.
t jasper parnell
Video of workers’ takeover of the window place in Chitown. Not lampposts to be sure, but perhaps the first step in the creation of the glorious workers and peasants paradise that will the United Socialists States of America.
Church Lady
Teg- Yes, I’ve definitely gotten mine. Why, after working for the past 32 years, I calculate I can retire in only another 15 to 20, depending on whether or not I can save enough in that time. And also whether I’ve reached that golden age of 65 yet, so that I will have health insurance via Medicare.
My, my – if only I had had the foresite to move to Detriot, go to work at one of the Big 3 and join the UAW when I started working at age 18. I could have retired two years ago, at almost full salary, and not have to worry about my health insurance coverage. What a mistake I made!
Seriously, how many of us can retire just because we put our 30 in? The reality is that the vast majority of us will work until we are at least 65, because before then you can’t take either Social Security or Medicare and, without them, you can’t afford to retire. I’m sorry, I just can’t get too terribly worked up about some guy that retires in his early 50’s, is drawing a very, very nice guaranteed pension and has full health insurance benefits, while everyone that follows him will get bupkes because the company has gone OUT OF BUSINESS.
t jasper parnell
@Church Lady:
Yeah, but see the thing is under the proper set of circumstance all of us could. So rather than "hating on" those whose unions have created a modicum of social justice, instead of the alternative just us richie riches, celebrate the might that results when worker unite.
Just Some Fuckhead
@t jasper parnell: The American system runs on pure distilled resentment. All my Republican neighbors were pissed at Obama for campaigning on making college free or more affordable. Apparently they had saved up for it or borrowed for it and that wasn’t fair to them or something.
t jasper parnell
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Exactly and its about time we put a stop to it. My work is currently going through some downsizing and the way management has handled it is an almost textbook case on how to stir up hatred from the workers toward management and how to divide the workers by telling no one nothing. And this is academics.
Xecky Gilchrist
Seriously, how many of us can retire just because we put our 30 in?
Barring anything radical, zero (at least if they’re younger than Boomers).
HyperIon
evidently WE don’t all know this.
this (from young Ezra) is good.
it has a nice graph, too, showing the contributions of various costs.
Apologies if someone already linked to it.
HyperIon
well, if by "us", you mean Europeans, i’d say close to 100%.
but remember, GODLESS Europeans…so the ChurchLady will not be happy.
Tony Alva
ImJohnGalt, couldn’t be better said.
We’re past the point of blame here really. The union as it exists today is essentially busted. It’s all about what the business is going to look like going forward. If I were a betting man, people are going to be paid a LOT less than they are now to build cars. People are going to be paid a lot less to do most jobs. We ALL better come to terms with that. American cars are going to have to be more attractive and better built if they ever hope to compete and/or survive.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
Simple solution, really – set a date when we all wake up and start driving on the opposite sides of the road (the only thing that would need to happen first is for all the signs to be turned and/or moved into proper placement.)
I kid! Please don’t take that seriously.
For me, I am wondering about the mental hand-wringing my ex-UAW formerly Chrysler employed currently GOP-loving Repub brother is dealing with right now.
t jasper parnell
@Tony Alva:
No, no we are not. As we move forward figuring out why it was that the system didn’t work is the key, no? And, from my perspective the key is that management enriched itself, fought sensible regulation, and sought to screw the workers every chance they got. But, that’s just me.
Jasper
The other point Church Lady ignores is those retirement costs and medical costs are mostly or fully FUNDED. Meaning there is an asset somewhere on the books of GM with gobs of investments in it that goes to pay off the fully vested and promised retirement benefits.
The funds don’t come from operations. It’s not a straight addition to the cost of a current auto. GM draws down an asset that can ONLY be used to pay off former workers. And last I read, the pension at least was OVERfunded, meaning the unions had done a decent job preventing GM from raiding the pension fund for short term profits, which is common among the non-union Fortune 500.
I’m less clear on the medical costs. What I do know is the Medicare drug plan passed a few years ago took a giant burden off of GM and others who promised drug coverage to retirees. For several years, and I believe still currently, GM got monthly or quarterly checks from Uncle Sam to reimburse them for the drugs they provide retirees.
The only real issue I’ve seen are the work rules that prevent GM from closing a plant even temporarily without paying workers up to 90% of their wages. I have read they also have thousands of laid off workers they still pay. Those are costs that will likely have to end.
Church Lady
The American Heritage Foundation (I know, I know) has what appears to be a very good analysis of the compensation breakdown, and seems to be factually well supported. It’s by James Sherk, dated 12/08/08 and is web document #2162. I’d link, but I’m too technilogically challanged. It can be found under the labor issue link.
Of course, he could be full of it. I’m not a labor expert. But then, none of us are.
Jasper
I can’t do it the fancy way, but I can copy and paste the link:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2162.cfm
Apparently that number is a current cost number. And I was wrong.
Note to republicans… Admitting an error is pretty easy!
The Raven
TheFountainHead writes
I think we did, back in the 1960s, and Bush/Cheney are Napoleon.
Or something like that
Krawk!
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@t jasper parnell: And, from my perspective the key is that management enriched itself, fought sensible regulation, and sought to screw the workers every chance they got. But, that’s just me.
It’s not just you. That’s what happened.