This article appears in Dec 18-24, 2008.
No bailout for you!
Why should we, as a people pay for people who fail in business? When should we reward someone who ran their company to the ground? I’m sorry, but I find myself, making a fraction of what an auto worker makes, not even counting the benefits, feeling not
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This goes hand in hand with my Lobster bitch. I couldn’t agree more, I think all this bail out talk gets me going more these days then anything else. Like I said, if me or you blew all our money, didn’t put any away and then found ourselves unemployed TOUGH SHIT. If these billion dollar corporations couldn’t do the same, well don’t worry we’ll take care of you. I heard a story the other day from a friend of mine in the business. Apparantly there was a big meeting to discuss the current situation between several companies, now all these companies showed up in style and big numbers (no one was flying coach or staying at the best western) but one in particular showed up in their private jet complete with full crew including an army of flight attendants. I have no idea why these people are going under.
Hi,I thought I’d put in a letter that was recently sent to my email regarding the similar situation in the United States. DON’T PIT THE POOR AGAINST THE POOR, PEOPLE! Did the bankers in the States have to take a pay cut before a deal was signed? Um, no, no they didn’t. We should use this an opportunity to get rid of these old dinosaur cars and build hydrogen fueled ones or natural gas hybrids. I say good riddence to the car industry. We can start form the ground up this way. The planet would thank us.LilacLetter From Michael Moore;Senate to Middle Class: Drop Dead Friday, December 12th, 2008 Friends, They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers start building only cars and mass transit that reduce our dependency on oil. They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers build cars that reduce global warming. They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers withdraw their many lawsuits against state governments in their attempts to not comply with our environmental laws. They could have given the loan on the condition that the management team which drove these once-great manufacturers into the ground resign and be replaced with a team who understands the transportation needs of the 21st century. Yes, they could have given the loan for any of these reasons because, in the end, to lose our manufacturing infrastructure and throw 3 million people out of work would be a catastrophe. But instead, the Senate said, we’ll give you the loan only if the factory workers take a $20 an hour cut in wages, pension and health care. That’s right. After giving BILLIONS to Wall Street hucksters and criminal investment bankers — billions with no strings attached and, as we have since learned, no oversight whatsoever — the Senate decided it is more important to break a union, more important to throw middle class wage earners into the ranks of the working poor than to prevent the total collapse of industrial America. We have a little more than a month to go of this madness. As I sit here in Michigan today, tens of thousands of hard working, honest, decent Americans do not believe they can make it to January 20th. The malaise here is astounding. Why must they suffer because of the mistakes of every CEO from Roger Smith to Rick Wagoner? Make management and the boards of directors and the shareholders pay for this. Of course that is heresy to the 31 Republicans who decided to blame the poor, miserable autoworkers for this mess. And our wonderful media complied with their spin on the morning news shows: “UAW Refuses to Give Concessions Killing Auto Bailout Bill.” In fact the UAW has given concession after concession, reduced their benefits, agreed to get rid of the Jobs Bank and agreed to make it harder for their retirees to live from week to week. Yes! That’s what we need to do! It’s the Jobs Bank and the old people who have led the nation to economic ruin! But even doing all that wasn’t enough to satisfy the bastard Republicans. These Senate vampires wanted blood. Blue collar blood. You see, they weren’t opposed to the bailout because they believed in the free market or capitalism. No, they were opposed to the bailout because they’re opposed to workers making a decent wage. In their rage, they were driven to destroy the backbone of this country, not because the UAW hadn’t given back enough, but because the UAW hadn’t given up. It appears that the sitting President has been looking for a way to end his reign by one magnanimous act, just like a warlord on his feast day. He will put his finger in the dyke, and the fragile mess of an auto industry will eke through the next few months. That will give the Senate enough time to demand that the bankers and investment sharks who’ve already swiped nearly half of the $700 billion gift a chance to make the offer of cutting their pay. Fat chance. Yours,Michael MooreMMFlint@aol.comMichaelMoore.com
How much does Michael Moore make a year?I’m sorry, but if you are making $75.00 /hr you are not POOR. Throw that shit right out the window. And if your rival could still produce on a salary that is $45.00 /hr then they can go fuck themselves and should have saved up all those earnings. I scrape by with far less and they are not willing to concede saying they are ‘poor’ after they make that much an hour. FUCK THEM. And I’ll tell you this now, let someone lose their job at Burger King, would they get a full year’s pay for being layed off? Or KEEP getting paid until they rehire them? FUCK NO! That’s what you get from an auto union. So they could say all the shit they want, they are privilidge fucks the lot of them and now they have to get a job that pays less. Sucks to be them but I will not shed a tear, I’ll just buy a Nissan..In fact if they are bailed out I will NEVER buy another US manufactured car because they are bleeding me dry. That is my fucking protest.
As an aside.The first time they gave the money was a state of fear. THen they started questioning their actions and realised that they fucked up.. NOW they are wising up and making sure there are stipulations otherwise America would become a banana republic…They should have done it to banking, however, they learned from that fiasco and arn’t making the same mistake with the auto industry.
“People didn’t buy American, so they have themselves to blame.”People don’t buy American because they prefer vehicles that aren’t gas-guzzling pieces of shit designed to fail after x-number of kms.
Before you go picking on the men & women who work building cars & trucks for making too much money, GM’s Exec.- Rick Wagner got & Ford’s Exec-Alan Mulally got 22 million. & they are just at the top of a very top heavy executive pile. Although to be fair I did read that the top exec’s in the U.S. auto sector did say they would do their jobs for $1.00 per year if they could have a bail out package. plus expenses (caaa– ching ! ! ! !)
Himmm, I for got to put in Rick got 17 million plus …What the hell does one do to deserve 17 million dollars for pay when the actual work that makes the product gets peanuts compared to his pay ?!?!?!?!
This one is sticky, although I agree with the message of the OP on this topic I don’t believe that people are viewing this completely with an unbiased eye. I am all for taking down the execs that have proven time and again to be untrustworthy and greedy, I mean come on, is there a person in the world that can honestly say that they have done between 15 – 45 million dollars worth of work this year? I don’t think so, there isn’t person out there that should be worth that. The workers receiving upwards of of $75.00 an hour is also rediculous, and it was very stupid for them to not accept a package that would cut their wages by a third so that they could remain, at the very least, employed. They also came off as being greedy and oblivious to the situation they are in.What makes me question why no bailout was given is the wider spread destruction this will cause. Just think about this for a second, towns that thrive off of the revenue that these companies create will die out. I am talking about towns that have companies who manufacture parts and accessories, towns that have service shops and dealers, that are reliant upon the money that these employees spend. Diners, stores, and other local small businesses are going to feel this too. It is well known that in places of high poverty there are high crime rates which bring all sorts of other problems.So do you still not see how this affects you where you live? All of these people that are newly out of work now become reliant upon the system, driving up your taxes, making it harder for you to access crucial services you may need, thousands of people from all around will be here searching for jobs which will in turn drive up our crime rates. The list of possibilities goes on and on.But knowing all of this I still can’t help but to think that these companies have abused people for years through vehicle costs, service fees, gas prices and so on, making me feel as though maybe they need to be taught a lesson. Sorry for the rant.
That’s just what happens when people buy foreign cars.
I wouldn’t give them shit1) Open company2) Make shitty product nobody wants3) Over pay staff4) Refuse to cut wages5) Fly to meeting in a private jet asking for cashNice!
Folks, let’s try to get our facts straight, OK?The notion of an autoworker being paid ~$70/hour is a lie. Period.That figure has been pushed around by Fox “News”, Forbes, Wall St (how many billions did they get again?) in an attempt to discredit the union and drive down wages. The average US autoworker wage is ~$28/hour. So where does the $70 figure come in? Some right-wing asshole decided to factor in what the automakers are paying their retired employees in pension and healthcare costs. You know, so they can afford to live, go see a doctor, get meds etc. And what do you think these people making $28/hour are doing? Living, raising families, contrubuting to the economy. Let’s see how much they can do that if they’re making shit wages and no benefits. The middle class – and the well-paying jobs that have created it – is dying. And the economy is going to be a lot worse because of it.
We wouldn’t give them money in exchange for a car, so now we’re going to give them money for nothing?! Sorry, if you couldn’t convince us to trade money for a car before it’s because you have a bad business model. I don’t think that should be rewarded and artificially sustained.
I do not care what their wages are. Not really interested in why they need a bail out. We can all speculate that. When some of the companies fail, they go bankrupt. They close their doors, sell their assets. End of story. This should happen to the Big Three that are struggling right now. Fuck them, they should be treated no different then if any us went into business and failed. It would be a terrible decision to bail them out. What is to stop everybody with a failing business to get a bail out?Let them shut down. Just to be spiteful, I hope a non-North American company buys them. Seriously, I hope some other company buys them and turns those companies back into the Big Three money making machines. You know, show them how it is done.Oh yeah. and Fuck the Union, they are a big contributing factor to financial ruin. Everything costs way more then it should, mostly, because of those cock-suckers.
The economy is kept up by people fixing and maintaining cars far more than making them in the first place. If the american car companies go under now, there will still be tons of cars on the road that need servicing, and they will probably have even more business because all the hard core american car owners will just want to keep driving them so they will keep cars on the road for longer and will need even more work done.So all you auto makers out there, start learning how to be an auto mechanic, and you’ll be fine.