I'm starting a new category today called "beyond the rhetoric" b/c I'm so bored with the auto bailout that it's not even funny. I know that it affects a lot of Americans, I know that real American manufacturing companies are on the verge of disappearing (and despite falling consumer demand over the past 3 months, the fact that our trade deficit continues to grow just makes this all the more apocalyptic), I know that this will have significant impact on a whole supply chain and the one car company (Ford) trying to get its act together.
But I'm so sick of the conversation. There's so much BS being slung around at this point, I'm surprised that our esteemed politicians in DC haven't suffocated in it. And no, this is not a Republican thing. This is a Democrat and Republican thing. So screw you guys, I'm going home.
From the Democrats: "I dread looking at Wall Street tomorrow," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said late Thursday after a vote to consider the plan failed. "It's not going to be a pleasant sight."
Way to fear monger. Yes, because the reason we should bail out the auto industry is to prevent a bunch of equity holders from getting hurt. It's the fantasy of high equity prices that helped get us here in the first place, so why should I care that Wall Street suffers?
Meanwhile, the Republicans are all: the fault lay with the U.A.W.’s president, Ron Gettelfinger, whose union declined to agree to allow wage concessions in 2009 as part of a deal, says Senator Bob Corker, a Republican of Tennessee.
Because Republicans, who tend to represent states like Tennessee, Kentucky and other non-unionized states where foreign factories have set up, don't want to throw taxpayer dollars to support Union workers who are making more than the non-union workers in their own states doing the same jobs. Ok, fair enough.
But why don't we talk about the concessions that the dealers are also not making. Oh, wait... could it be because dealers are hugely powerful in those same states? And because they have friends in high places?
Just pass the damn thing or don't, but don't try to paint it as saintly, or fair, or helping Americans generally: it's fake and it's patronizing. Because none of you know what the hell you're doing.
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