Detroit CEO's, bad as some may have been, did not cause uncompetitive labor healthcare costs that the globalist (slave labor) "freemarket" Republican and Blue dog Democrats saddled them with at up to $1500 extra costs per car.  No compensating trade tarriffs have corrected this that I know of.   We don't tax our fuel as much nor pay as much for it as Europeans do so we don't have the same milage priorities.  The fuel cost jump was due to the same deregulating freetraders in the commodities markets, having crashed the stockmarket, and was a short term anomaly.  Here, as everywhere else, the market determines the demands and products.  Some of these critics just hate cars and things mechanical, and don't much care how many americans lose these jobs.  May they lose their bus routes.

by Richard Lee (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 186 comments [42 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 at 10:54:20 PM

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Richard,

You are correct in that free trade is a problem (that is another topic).  But a lot of people knew that oil prices would rise either through supply disruptions as in the 1970s and 1980s or increased demand and that betting the future of the Big Three on low mileage SUVs was a mistake.  This was a management decision.  Further the Big Three executives fought federal mileage and greenhouse gas emission standards tought and nail.  Management decisions put the Big Three where they are today.

John

by John Paul Rossi (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 11 comments) on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 at 11:11:21 PM

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I cannot take away from what you've stated but I believe that I disagree with the sentiment. I have no affection for the captains of industry yet I must say that bailing out the Big Three is investing in jobs. Whereas bailing out Wall Street is an act of throwing vast sums at money lenders which leads to nothing for the domestic assets of this country. I recall Bob Dylan singing: "My name is Tom Cranker and I'm a jolly banker, My name is Tom Cranker a jolly banker am I. Pay me back two for each one I loan you for I'm a jolly banker, jolly banker am I." My sentiment is that the congress lifted the laws against usury to attempt to sate the bastards. Then they made bankruptcy nearly impossible, and now they need assistance? Did anyone ever stop to think that although Jesus loves free trade, global economics and unbridled capitalism, the crap is an utter failure. The only one who hasn't gotten this message is the ninny in the White House who doesn't want to do anything to put people back to work because that's what Roosevelt did and Bush couldn't do anything so constructively humane.

by Dick Hudson (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 13 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Dec 4, 2008 at 12:26:20 AM

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Dick,

I agree jobs are THE issue as the article points out. I support a bailout, but only if it prevents outsourcing and requires invesment in factories, technologies, and R&D in the U.S.

John

by John Paul Rossi (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 11 comments) on Thursday, Dec 4, 2008 at 10:05:29 AM

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   Gas is a buck 60 and heading lower now in this country, the crisis is a credit crisis not a technology or sales issue, and it's a loan, not a bailout.  Our problem here isn't Detroit's fault, it's our deregulating "free" globalist trading Congresses, those hypocrites now most critical of their victims.

by Richard Lee (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 186 comments [42 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Dec 4, 2008 at 7:58:39 PM

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During Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window", the character played by Thelma Ritter exclaims:

"I should have been a gypsy fortune teller instead of an insurance company nurse.  I got a nose for trouble - can smell it ten miles away.  You heard of that market crash in '29?  I predicted that.  I was nursing a director of General Motors . 'Kidney ailment', they said. "Nerves', I said.  Then I asked myself, 'What's General Motors got to be nervous about?'  "Overproduction', I says.  'Collapse'.  When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day, the whole country's ready to let go."

  The movie was made in 1954, Ms. Ritter's comment referred to 1929, but does the lesson apply to 2008?

by Albert Kaufman (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 10 comments) on Thursday, Dec 4, 2008 at 10:24:48 AM

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Sorry, folks. Bit I have just about had it with alleged "progressives," "socialists," etc. joining the corporate brown-noser class in calling for bail-outs for what are in fact parastic corporate tyrannies run by spoiled, shielded rich brats.

When are we going to finally start taking seriously the indisputable fact that it is working people, not capitalists, bureaucrats and corporations, that create the jobs.

Even the biggest corporate apologists and hate-mongers in the country (Republicans, "Libertarians," "Christian Right," Nazis, etc.) are forced by reality to admit this fundamental fact.

Not only do working people create the real wealth in our economy via their (or should I say OUR) labour; but we create the very markets via our trade and investment of consumer dollars--not to make profit--but to purchase the things we need (or are often conned into believing we need by corporate advertizing).

Literally every economic indicator shows that the cause of the crash--which is now going global--isn't becasue the banks and corporations don't have enough money--in fact they have most of it, and that's part of the problem.

But the biggest factor is becasue the rest of us working class consumers have gotten too poor to pay our mortgages, buy cars, pay tuition and bills, save for retirement, etc.

With real wages income for the working class majority falling relative to the cost of living for over 30 years, and being driven further and further into debt because of this, is it any surprise that this would happen sooner or later? It better not be, since numerous economists from across the spectrum have been warning about this for decades.

So now that it's happened, what do our corporate-dominated political hack do? Give the rich more money, even though it's not the rich who need or deserve it since it's not the rich that create the jobs and the markets and the trade.

The author quite rightly recognizes "Sadly, the current Congressional proposals for an auto bailout do none of these things. Nor do they change the short-sighted business practices that got Detroit into this mess in the first place."

But then still ends up supporting this sham. Guess what? I have read it's not just the Big 3 that are lamenting. Automaking corporations across the globe, including the once mightly Toyota, are reporting huge drops in sales and profits. Why? Becasue people everywhere can no longer afford to buy their card and no longer afford to rack up more personal debt to do so.

And Let's not forget just where all those now conveniently forgotten profits over the years have gone: sucked out of the real economy and into stock futures, mergers and acquisitions, real estate, hedge funds, speculative investments and other useless elite playgrounds for rich parasites--where we now apparently find over 80 per cent of capital wealth.

Do you really want to save the auto sector; banking sector, etc. for awhile anyway? How about expropriating a bunch of that accumulated sheltered wealth and bailing out working people--like with paying off mortgages or credit cards. that would boost home starts and card sales like nothing else, as there is nothing like putting wealth directly back into the hands of working people.

Now let's not get into the even more fundamental stuff about demanding dividend-paying shares to the government for cash infusions, or even more taboo, turning these over to the workers in these places to run as cooperatives or similar democratic ventures becasue that would be...well...too European for most of us to handle.

by Steppenwolf (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 8 comments) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 11:38:05 PM

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