Yup. Pretty much my sentiments on the whole affair.

Its still hard to believe that they gave ultra-rich banking executives $700 billion with no questions asked or strings attached, but couldn't manage to authorize 2 percent of that to help real Americans without asking them to take pay cuts. Disgusting.

Stick to sports Mitch.

It's someone's time of the month, apparently

Didn't he write "Tuesdays with Morrie" , or was that Noam Chomsky?

/HEGEMONY !!1!

I blame the UAW.

Hey Mitch put the blame where it belongs:

1. All the tools running the big 3 for the last few decades
2. The UAW

Nuf said.

BLOW ME, MITCH.

dnrtfa

Sleeping Monkey: Its still hard to believe that they gave ultra-rich banking executives $700 billion with no questions asked or strings attached, but couldn't manage to authorize 2 percent of that to help real Americans without asking them to take pay cuts. Disgusting.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Here is why an auto bailout won't work...

For whatever reason people seem to think that the automakers are in trouble (unions, crappy cars, legacy pay, execs getting too much money)there is only one true reason. They are in trouble because no one is buying their cars, or not enough people are buying their cars. Giving them money is just going to allow them to make more cars that people don't want. So if we give them this money now, in a few months they will need more because most likley people will still not be buying their cars.

Nobody should have gotten anything.

No money for bankers, none for the auto industry, none.

If you can't run your business, it fails. And another business takes its place. It's the ciiiiiircle of liiiiiiife.

My Toyota will celebrate 25 years on the road. The first time I drove that car, Bruce Springsteen released "Born In The USA" that day, Reagan was president and Madonna was making her debut. A few weeks later Ghostbusters was released on film...and today, I am still driving my Toyota - and it NEVER was recalled.

The 1984 American car (Chevy Citation) would have been scrapped by now a long time ago...my Toyota still hums along.

Suck It GM!!!

chrismac: Sleeping Monkey: Its still hard to believe that they gave ultra-rich banking executives $700 billion with no questions asked or strings attached, but couldn't manage to authorize 2 percent of that to help real Americans without asking them to take pay cuts. Disgusting.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

True, but putting money into things which ACTUALLY produce products may have been better then throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at people who's sole job is to move those dollars around and then make them vanish into offshore bank accounts.

tzzhc4: Hey Mitch put the blame where it belongs:

1. All the tools running the big 3 for the last few decades
2. The UAW

Nuf said.

THIS.

Stop blaming Washington. Granted, they shouldn't have given money to the banks either, but these government handouts must stop! It's the Fat Cats & the UAW's fauly. They're the ones screwing the laborers. (especially the UAW. I REALLY hate the UAW)

Don't plenty of successful Japanese automakers build cars in America?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

I want all money given to Republican states to end.

Further, I want the local and state tax subsidies they give to the foreign plants to end.

I also want all Republican pension plans- paid by the government- to end. They asked for retirees to essentially give up much of their pension, I suggest they do the same.

I want all the Republicans to give up 40% of their wages to help the government through this troubling time- after all, it's their demands over the past 8-30 years that have lead us down this path.

If only they hadn't demanded those things and stayed in their place, we'd be better off. They claim unions are the problem, that workers caused all these evils- then the burden for the Iraq war, much of the budget deficit, etc... should be placed solely on Republican voters and republican states. They should have to give up their services. They should have to give up their wages.

They want to play this game; fark them

UrinalPooper: Don't plenty of successful Japanese automakers build cars in America?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Know how many Ford, GM, and Chrysler plants are in Japan?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

I'm pretty sure Mateen Cleves and Morris Peterson sunk the bailout bill, Mitch.

Sounds kinda mad doesn't he! Guessing that he won't be getting that "surprise" bonus check after all. And for the record I agree with angst178n.

schattenteufel: tzzhc4: Hey Mitch put the blame where it belongs:

1. All the tools running the big 3 for the last few decades
2. The UAW

Nuf said.

THIS.

Stop blaming Washington. Granted, they shouldn't have given money to the banks either, but these government handouts must stop! It's the Fat Cats & the UAW's fauly. They're the ones screwing the laborers. (especially the UAW. I REALLY hate the UAW)

Yup. Last auto "bailout" was for Chrysler, and to their credit, they came back with the K-car, while it was an ugly, miserable box it was at least practical and reliable. Do we really want to finance more Excursions, Yukons, and Tahoes?

I don't think we should give money to anybody, Detroit, Wall Street or idiots who won't pay their mortgages.

Still - amazing to watch people dump on the UAW though. That's how the rich guys on Wall street like it: the less than rich tearing each other down, doing their best to keep wages low. It makes management's job so much easier.

Union greed killed the bailout. Sorry my tax money won't pay for your ridiculous salaries and benefits while I live off a budget. File bankruptcy and restructure and STFU.

Here is a Face sheet about the UAW... a bit out of date but informative.

The biggest difference between UAW And Toyata auto workers is the UAW get better benefits in pensions and health care. for the last 20 years Republicans have been anti-worker, anti-labor with thier supply side economic policy (A.k.a Trickle down, Reaganomics) and this is the end result.

When the automakers stop with the "nobody can get loans, man, that's why we're in so much trouble" line, we might listen.

I have relatives in the business who spout this constantly. What they and the rest of the auto business community fail to grasp is that auto credit isn't frozen. You can get loans. The trouble is, no one wants to buy cars with people getting laid off in droves, commodity prices rising sharply, and the stock market in a nosedive. Instead, they're hanging on to cars as long as they can keep them running.

Buying a new car every 3-5 years is a luxury, not a model for responsible behavior by consumers. The industry as a whole won't return to those sky-high sales numbers of the last 20 years without a significant uptick in personal wealth (or at least the *appearance* of personal wealth) to individual consumers. So, folks, be prepared to send the domestic auto makers a whole lot of cash over the next few years, since no one seems to think the economy is just going to ramp back up next month when the Chosen One (tm) takes office.

Frizbone: My Toyota will celebrate 25 years on the road. The first time I drove that car, Bruce Springsteen released "Born In The USA" that day, Reagan was president and Madonna was making her debut. A few weeks later Ghostbusters was released on film...and today, I am still driving my Toyota - and it NEVER was recalled.

The 1984 American car (Chevy Citation) would have been scrapped by now a long time ago...my Toyota still hums along.

Suck It GM!!!

So you havent bought a car for 25 years ???? ITS YOUR FAULT THE ECONOMY HAS FAILED

Welcome to capitalism, Mitch.

This guy has some deranged entitlement complex. What makes him think that the government should take someone elses hard earned money out of their pockets and give it to him?

Sleeping Monkey: Its still hard to believe that they gave ultra-rich banking executives $700 billion with no questions asked or strings attached, but couldn't manage to authorize 2 percent of that to help real Americans without asking them to take pay cuts. Disgusting.

Exactly! Surely if they were stupid enough to bail out the auto industry, they would have been stupid enough to bail out the big three. Obviously there is something going on behind the scenes.

sloppy shoes: They want to play this game; fark them

Bravo sir, bravo!

How come we can't bailout KayBee Toys? or Circuit City? Or...?

Ford/GM - move on already, you let your own companies die. Not us.

FTA: "At least in the auto industry, if folks don't like what you make, they don't have to buy it"

Well, there ya go Mitch. In the past I have purchased 3 GM cars, all of which required massive work shortly after their warranty expired. One of them I was still paying off and it was undrivable because of the work it needed.

So I bought a Toyota van and a Honda Civic. Both used. No problems at all with either one of them.

Want to bail out the auto industry? Stop making cars that are crap.

Sleeping Monkey

I think maintaining solvency for the banks was for more critical to the national and international economy than automative companies.

wow. Maybe I'd have such a sense of entitlement if there was a software architect's union, too.

this

schattenteufel: tzzhc4: Hey Mitch put the blame where it belongs:

1. All the tools running the big 3 for the last few decades
2. The UAW

Nuf said.

THIS.

Stop blaming Washington. Granted, they shouldn't have given money to the banks either, but these government handouts must stop! It's the Fat Cats & the UAW's fauly. They're the ones screwing the laborers. (especially the UAW. I REALLY hate the UAW)

I really think that Washington is doing an Epic Facepalm for the financial bailout and they're trying to do better. Personally, (even though I didn't vote for the guy) I hope The Chosen One can maybe reverse some of that.

Look, I understand Detroit is pretty important in an apple pie kind of way, until Toyota, Hyundai, Mercedes Benz et al start lining up for the same bailout, I'm not buying the dire need to bail out a few players in an industry that hedged their bets (the players, not the industry) on Trucks and Luxury SUVs. It's going to suck for Michigan (and the other locations that house Big 3 manufacturing facilites and suppliers etc.) but the best thing is to show them that they're doing it wrong and it's time for them to re-evaluate what's going on. There is much more to America than the auto industry, but these are the only guys I hear crying about how they can't make it.

They should look to the lessons learned by the airlines. Restructure or die. And yes, that may mean cutting wagess.

They bought their tickets!
They knew what they were getting in to.

I say let them crash

Mitch Albom is a douche, but he's right on a few things. To a lot of Michiganders, this feels like a slap in the face. The UAW needs to take pay cuts. Yes, we know. The Big 3 need to streamline and operate more efficiently, which means the CEOs need to take pay cuts too. Neither is willing to do so. Because of this, tons of people who don't live here are thumbing their noses at us and saying that we should be forced to deal with the mess we made.

Except that Michigan isn't JUST the UAW. We're an automotive based economy, no doubt, but we're not all ford plants. I personally know a few people whose jobs directly rely on the Big 3 staying afloat, and they are not UAW members or Big 3 employees. They're Steel workers who coil and bundle steel, or manufacturers who turn the steel in to the little things no one things about like seat belt buckles, or truckers who drive this crap around.

Should the Big 3 fall through and take those people with them, the backlash will be felt elsewhere. The economy is a web, and every job is connected to another. With the money these non-UAW workers get for their jobs, they buy food, which keeps their grocer in business. If they lose their jobs, their grocer will lose business, which could mean that HE will have to lay someone off in order to stay afloat, and so on.

So yes. We know the UAW suck, and that the Big 3 suck. But a lot of us have no control over that.

I think this really just boils down to the fact that there are a lot of senators who realize they screwed the pooch when they gave all the money to the banks and the banks continue to fark it up.

Now, instead of admitting they were wrong in the first place, they are just slamming the barn doors shut and pretending like they didn't help create this massive vortex of suck in the first place.

I mean, really, when you look at it in perspective, the senators made the big 3 produce an actual, viable business plan, and wanted to force employees to take pay cuts in order to get $15 billion. When it came to the banks, they dolled out $700 billion without so much as a second thought, despite the fact that most of that money will be handed out to executive bonus'. And really, the banks current business plan is what got us in this whole mess to begin with.

The big 3 have to pick up their game, no question. The problem is these Senators are dishing out money to the businesses most willing to line their own pockets. If you're going to invest in a business, are you going to invest in the bank holding your millions of dollars? Or are you going to invest in the business 1000 miles away that has nothing directly to do with your money?

Dear Mitch:

Fark you.

The big 3 are behind the times, make a lousy product that won't sell, and are burdened by union, pension, management, and line worker costs that foreign makers don't have to bear. They deserve to fail, and maybe something better will take their place.

And I don't give a shiat if Wall Street got $700 billion -- that package was just as wrong as the proposed $15 billion to Detroit, except it was bigger. Throwing more money after bad never did anyone any good. The folks who voted for the Wall Street funds should be impeached. Saying that because they did something stupid that they should continue to do that kind of shiat, except for the auto makers, is just plain silly.

Sleeping Monkey: Its still hard to believe that they gave ultra-rich banking executives $700 billion with no questions asked or strings attached, but couldn't manage to authorize 2 percent of that to help real Americans without asking them to take pay cuts. Disgusting.

...wait. You mean that with all of Fark's UAW bashing because they wouldn't back down from where they were after all the concessions they've already made, someone on Fark actually believes this bailout would've saved not only jobs, but wages?

...It's official. Fark is bipolar.

Snort: Stick to sports Mitch.

Farking THIS!

Kimball_Kinnison Here is a Face(sic) sheet

FAIL

Your fact sheet assumes no overtime, no health etc benefits, no pool of non-working senior union members, no retirement, no health benefits for retirees......

Try again with the whole truth, even the NYTimes this week tried to debunk the $73/hour and failed also.

Does anyone have any good links for articles that clearly state why bailing out the auto industry is a bad idea?

Sleeping Monkey: Its still hard to believe that they gave ultra-rich banking executives $700 billion with no questions asked or strings attached, but couldn't manage to authorize 2 percent of that to help real Americans without asking them to take pay cuts.

Both the banking and proposed auto bailouts are loans. The important question is whether a loan will help the industry recover, or whether it's just throwing good money after bad.

The argument in favor of the banking bailout is that the industry has plenty of assets, it's just that they're all locked up in mortgages that they can't liquidate.

The auto industry has more fundamental problems that need to be addressed. How much cash has GM burned through in the past year? DO you really think an infusion of that much more will stop the bleeding?

Yep, Mitch pretty much called it.

Kimball_Kinnison: Here is a Face sheet about the UAW... a bit out of date but informative.

The biggest difference between UAW And Toyata auto workers is the UAW get better benefits in pensions and health care. for the last 20 years Republicans have been anti-worker, anti-labor with thier supply side economic policy (A.k.a Trickle down, Reaganomics) and this is the end result.

This..The end result, Japan's car makers will stay and America's will die. So thanks for the memories UAW. I can't wait until the entire country is run like the UAW!

Funny how everyone was for salary caps on the CEOs that got the original bailout money, but don't think salary adjustments for overpaid workers are a reasonable request for the auto industry.

Man, Mitch's arguement is akin to a corpse blaming the hearse for it's current condition. Bailout or not, at least one of the three will be gone by this time next year.

IlGreven: Sleeping Monkey: Its still hard to believe that they gave ultra-rich banking executives $700 billion with no questions asked or strings attached, but couldn't manage to authorize 2 percent of that to help real Americans without asking them to take pay cuts. Disgusting.

...wait. You mean that with all of Fark's UAW bashing because they wouldn't back down from where they were after all the concessions they've already made, someone on Fark actually believes this bailout would've saved not only jobs, but wages?

...It's official. Fark is bipolar.

No. Some are idiots who don't understand the way the free market economy works.

TheHateMonger: Does anyone have any good links for articles that clearly state why bailing out the auto industry is a bad idea?

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=4082300

/I keed