A few thoughts on the auto bailout.
- The woman who cleans my office said to me "I've lost a couple of clients because of the recession, is the government going to help me? Yet these auto workers expect me to help them when they've been making about three times what I make."
- It occurs to me that the UAW could have paid for a lot of college degrees for the hundred of millions of dollars they've spent on political campaigns. Providing educational opportunities for their members would have softened the blow of mass layoffs.
- What concessions will the UAW make in all this? It occurs to me that if we spend 38 billion, the workers will continue to pay their dues to the UAW, who will, in turn, use those dollars to fund more democratic candidacies. Will they freeze those activities? If not, aren't we are basically giving public funds to democratic politicians?
- What is the rank in file auto worker doing to save their own job? I just wonder how many used sick days to go deer hunting this season.
- Hasn't the average American already voted on this issue. After all, the combined Big 3 market share is currently at 44%. If the average American supported a bailout, wouldn't they have just bought one of their cars.
- I keep hearing about how American quality is up. Currently the Gekko's are looking to buy a new car. Our choices, a Honda CRV, an Acura RDX, a Toyota Rav 4, and a GM Acadia. Granted these cars not comparable head to head in price but go to Consumer Reports (subscription only), look at the historical maintenance history on these models and tell me who makes the better auto.
- What concessions is congress going to make in this deal? Reducing increase CAFE standards will help the auto manufacturers engineering burdens. My guess is they won't do anything.
- How well is that bank bailout working so far?
These guys will get their money and they'll be back next year. Oh happy days.
1 comment:
Yeah, this big 3 bailout is total BS. Its just sick. I blogged some recently here.
We're looking for a car, too. It was very painful to make the decision to buy a Honda, but that is what we are looking at. Never owned a foreign car before.
The UAW needs to be broken, but as you say, they'll be back next year.
(Whatdaya think of my new graph?)
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