Big Dogs Weblog

Auto Bailout Fails, Moonbats Come Unhinged

by Big Dog on Dec 12, 2008 at 20:00 Political

The plan to provide the US auto industry a bailout (bridge loans) failed last night when the Senate could not muster enough Republican support to get the bill through. I am glad the bill failed because taxpayer money should not be spent propping up companies. They are private businesses and they should succeed or fail on their own. The foreign companies that manufacture cars in the US are doing much better than the Big Three and at least part of that has to do with the companies having more affordable labor because the labor pool is not unionized.

Many years ago the foreign auto makers (particularly the Japanese) made terrible products. They got good gas mileage but they were not very good cars. Detroit was putting out better products (but they used a lot of gas) and the companies were making money hand over fist. During this time the unions made a number of demands and the companies capitulated. When the union started talking about strikes they got what they wanted because the company needed the labor to keep making huge sums of money. The union labor costs the companies about $70 per hour when wages and benefits are figured in. This is 20 or 30 dollars more than non union companies.

Over the years, the Japanese started making better cars (as did other countries) and they eventually took a bite out of the US business. The Big Three still account for about 50% of sales in our country but they are selling fewer cars and they take a beating because they cannot compete on cost. The foreign companies make more money because it costs them less to produce their products. The companies now have huge union overhead but much less income. The problem is, the union hates to make concessions.

The Republicans in the Senate wanted the union workers to take an hourly wage cut. Since they get great benefits the cut would not be as bad as it might for workers in other industries that pay a higher share of the benefit costs. The union said they would take a pay cut but not until 2011, when their current contract is up for renegotiation. This is unacceptable because the problem is NOW. They were willing to wait until 2011 because they feel the economy will have rebounded and they could negotiate for higher wages and never have had to suffer the cut. The Republicans want the cut now. Besides, if the Democrats pass card check the non union companies might be unionized by then and they will all be paid inflated wages.

As one might expect, the moonbats have become unhinged. Christopher Dodd railed about how it was going to hurt the working class and that it was wrong to keep the companies from getting the money. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm said that it was un-American for the Senators to vote against the bailout and Michael Moron said that the blood sucking Republicans stuck it to the Blue Collar workers while discussing all the ways the government could have voted to fix this problem. These ideas were expressed earlier by him when he opined that the government should buy the auto companies and run them. Michael also expressed his outrage at the idea that Wall Street was bailed out but not the workers as he intimated that the Republicans were only interested in helping the wealthy. Barney Frank weighed in but does he have any credibility left?

Dodd did not care about the middle class when he was helping his criminal friends enact laws that caused the financial meltdown and made them very rich. Governor Granholm thinks it is un-American for our government to stay out of private business when it is truly un-American (and extremely Socialist) for the government to get involved in private business and that includes buying private businesses. Michael Moron is a Socialist so he would like to see that happen. As for blood sucking, the union blood suckers have been bleeding the companies dry for decades and now they are paying for their own greed. Certainly management has a lot to do with the demise of the companies but the union is just as guilty. The foreign companies seem to be doing better with lower wages and they still seem to be turning a profit. Perhaps the lack of union overhead is the difference.

More than 50% of the country does not want to see the auto makers bailed out. An even larger percentage did not want to see Wall Street bailed out. That did not stop them from doing it and that might have cost some on election day. The reality is, the money does not belong to the government. It is taxpayer money and it is the duty of government to spend it wisely. It does not matter what Michael Moron or Governor Granholm think because it is not their money to spend and it is not government’s to spend. It is money that has been confiscated from hard working people who cannot be put in a job pool receiving 95% of their wages when there is no work like the UAW workers can (Moore thinks it is bad they had to give this practice up). It is typical of liberals to want to pay people not to work and job banks are no different than welfare except the pay is better. One Chrysler employee spent his time with no work on the beach in Hawaii.

The screams from the moonbats are now in the direction of George Bush. They want him to intervene and use the financial bailout money to help the auto industry. That money was not intended to be used to bailout the auto industry but they want Bush to use it for that and he is considering doing just that. For eight years moonbats called Bush the dumbest man on the planet and they criticized everything he did. Now they want him to use his wisdom to find a way to fix the auto industry by circumventing the law. I would not be surprised if they investigated him for it when all is said and done.

The auto companies should make it or break it on their own. If they go under and people lose their jobs it will be rough but that is what happens in business, especially when the business is saddled with high labor costs and government mandates to build cars people do not want (who really wants an electric car that only gets 40 miles on a charge).

It is not up to government to meddle in private business. We need to get back to having them do what they are supposed to do under the Constitution and nothing more but FWIW, I don’t think there will be rioting if the bailout somehow succeeds as Senator DeMint does.

I am no Constitutional scholar but I am sure that Dodd, Moore, Frank and Granholm will not find anything in the Constitution that allows the government to involve itself in private business.

Tags: auto bailout, failure, michael moron, president bush, Senate