I have watched the Big Three auto manufacturers and the UAW come before the Senate today to beg for $34 billion to keep them solvent. And I mean beg. If they go under, and it they don't get the government loan, they are certain to go into bankruptcy, and likely would never be able to raise private capital enough to restructure under Title 11. In other words, they fold. And all the associated workers and related industry workers are on the street, unemployed.
When they fold so do a minimum of 3 million workers, employed directly by the industry, suppliers and dealers. This does not account for the ripple effects of the tens of tousands of jobs killed in small businesses that serve the towns where the plants are located. This disaster would guarantee a long, viscious recession, the likes of which we have not seen since the 1930s.
With hardly a whimper Congress coughed up $7oo billion for the financial industry. Between the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac the total exposure of the tax payer is over $2 Trillion already and estimates are that when all this settles over $7 trillion will be at risk from the various guarantees made by the government.
Yet we are quibbling about saving the largest domestic industry by a total of $34 billion in loans, with the agreement of the manufacturers that the government can put any and all restrictions on the loans, including instructions on how the money is to be used, and reporting to a special Trustee or a special Commision that would control the way the money is allocated and when.
We are willing to watch another three million working class jobs, minimum, go down the tubes, retirement funds and health care guarantees evaporate, and people's lives destroyed because this may be a "risk'? The Treasury has wasted that much or more in throwing money at Wall Street!
Where the hell was all of our worrying about "risk" when we started the existing $2 Trillion bailout? We have given over $200 billion to ONE insurance company with NO guarantee we will get it back. We get a request from an industry that is populated by hard working blue collar workers and we can't have any compassion on them?
Congress feels it needs to "look tough" for constituents who don't understand the need for these bail outs, since they think that they won't be affected if some union workers' jobs are eliminated. They are wrong. But the auto industry bail out is a convenient whipping boy.
We are talking about people's lives here folks.
WHAT THE HELL IS CONGRESS THINKING?
WHAT THE HELL ARE WE THINKING?
Monte
Posts
