Senate Republicans really showed those union guys who's boss.
A small group of Senate Republicans who represent Southern states that have foreign car manufacturers have blocked the bailout for the Big Three U.S. auto manufacturers. It's their revenge for the Civil War, I guess.
This is a disaster.
And it's based purely on the GOP's zeal to bust the United Auto Workers Union.
And, as we've come to rely upon from the Republican Party of late, it's based on myth and B.S.
First off, GOP leaders often quote a $70-an-hour figure when citing the U.S. car makers' labor figures. That's nonsense. UAW workers make an average of $28 an hour. Even calculating health care and pension costs, you can't get to $70 an hour.
How they get to $70 an hour is by adding up all of the health care and pension costs for all of the Big Three's retirees and dividing it by the number of current union workers.
It's not just misleading. It's a lie.
The myth that UAW workers make so much more money that their counterparts at southern, non-union plants is also B.S. For instance, according to the Detroit Free Press, non-union Toyota workers in the south make an average of $30 an hour.
This is simply the GOP exerting political vengeance on the unions.
The failure of the bailout will have disastrous repercussions. The Free Press reported this:
"Experts said it would take just days or weeks -- no later than the first week of January -- for the cascade of plant closures, layoffs and bankruptcies from automakers and suppliers to turn Michigan and its surrounding states into an industrial wasteland, where many in the unemployed populous would need to prepare for foreclosure."
The ripple effect will be devastating on our economy. Forget recession. We're talking depression.
Welcome to Mad Max America.
It's also strange, at least to me, that Congress would hand over $700 billion to the thieves on Wall Street, without any real questions asked, while playing hardball with companies that actually make stuff. The wealthy get wealthier and working people get the shaft.
See you in the breadline.
Here's Del McCoury and some friends singing all about those Breadline Blues.
It's big time for a vacation for you as you have done such a fab job during the election and all the following huzzahs. Please do like Maureen Dowd and take a well deserved break that you so well need to recharge your batteries. Now is the time, you are the man and we all appreciate your work. When I say oui i am not French. Thanks for a great job 2008.