Let's see... 700 billion for Banking companies that constitute 0.4% to the GDP, and zero dollars for Automakers who contribute more than 4% to the GDP? Nothing for the 3 million plus middle-class workers who constitute more than one in ten U.S. Jobs, and a free Trillion or so to the few thousand well-paid paper-pushers on Wall Street, who contribute even less to the U.S. Economy (and care nothing) than our genius legislators in Washington! The money sent to Wall Street is going down a gilded rathole, with no real oversight, where it is even now being squirreled away in non-productive takeovers, propping up dummy corporations and paying for multi-million dollar 'retention bonuses' to people whose only experience is retaining other peoples' money under false pretenses.
Meanwhile, the Auto Companies would be required to pay back, with interest, the meager amount they are BORROWING (less than 5% of the Wall Street GIVEAWAY!) with more stipulations and strings than a Hollywood Actor's contract! Just like when-Chrysler-borrowed-government money-in the 1980's, Senator Shelby of Alabama says the Taxpayers will never get it back. Gee... he was WRONG about Chrysler back in 1979, when they paid it back EARLY and WITH INTEREST! As a matter of fact, Senator Shelby used almost the exact same words 20 years ago! Based on the ignorant and ill-informed comments made by him over the last few weeks, It appears the distinguished gentleman from Alabama is just as pig-headed and immune to the facts as he was 20 years ago! Some thing never change.
But why let the facts get in the way of an entertaining propagandistic political rant? Most of the out-of-date complaints voiced by ill-informed-members of Congress and the media are about situations and subjects that have already been addressed by the Auto Industry recently or even years ago. Concessionary contracts, cuts in bonuses and pay for both workers and management, downsizing and other issues have been a fact of life for a while now--something Congress either doesn't know or is deliberately ignoring for political expedience. And mileage, quality and other product concerns have reached parity or even exceeded the foreign competitors in recent years. Technological gains from the auto industry are one of the most impressive and least-reported occurrences over the last ten years, but Senators and pundits like outdated terms like 'dinosaur' and 'failed business plan' because they pander to ignorant constituents better than using the facts and realistic analyses.
This is nothing more than shameless Union-Busting by the hypocritical Bible-Belt Republican Senators, thinking they will protect the heavily Government-Subsidized Auto-Transplant jobs in their states. Unfortunately, these political hacks are too ignorant to realize that, in addition to the tens of thousands of auto dealer, supplier and other jobs that rely on the Big 3 in those states that will go away overnight, when the Detroit Automakers go bankrupt, so will the suppliers of 40-60% of the parts to those transplant factories. Those factories will then have to shut down and lay off workers, thus sending the hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies those plants received down the tubes along with the Big 3!
These days there is also much ill-informed rhetoric in Congress, the Media and the public at large about 'Overpaid Auto Workers' from people who don't even know what the jobs pay, let alone what the work entails and how hard an Autoworker works (union or non-union). Some people scream that they want the Big 3 UAW workers to 'get in line' with the pay of the foreign transplants.Maybe the UAW should listen, since the hourly wage at foreign transplant factories like Toyota, Nissan, et al is actual MORE per hour than the UAW workers at the Big 3! They also call for big cuts in union wages, as if they didn't know the 2007 UAW contract has a 50% cut in starting wages for new workers, along with numerous other concessions and givebacks that are unprecedented in ANY industry- let alone in the Auto Industry.
It is ironic that the workers at the non-union auto plants, as well as most hourly workers in America owe their 40-hour workweek, safe workplaces, their health care plans, and most of their other benefits to workers in the UAW who fought, and in some cases died for the rights of ALL workers to be fairly treated and compensated. Unfortunately, too many people get suckered into the class-warfare jealousy that tries to make you resent the person making a dollar an hour more than you, in order to distract you from the people who are stealing millions!
I guess if you wear a 300-dollar silk suit and cheat people out of millions on wall street, you can get a 700-Billion-dollar Golden Parachute from Congress and a Golden Handshake (with a trillion-dollar promise in it!). After all, those multi-million-dollar 'campaign contributions' (nudge, nudge- wink, wink!) have to buy SOMETHING! Unfortunately. if you're a middle-class Blue-Collar worker, without a multi-million-dollar K-Street Lobbyist on retainer, all you get from Washington when you need help is a lead-weighted kiss-off note and an iron-fisted middle-finger salute from Washington!
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