MORALITY AND THE LAW CLXVII

By Stephen Ellis

NOBODY LOVES AN AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURER

Nobody asked me, but…

Even with the verbal support of President-Elect Obama…even with a Democratic majority in the Senate...even with the support of Republican President George W. Bush…the United States Senate again displayed the corruption and “I don’t give a damn” attitude towards the citizens of this country. How I wish I could fire some of those Senators on the spot!

The Senate turned down what is the single most important thing the Bush Administration could have accomplished in eight years of inept, sloppy, slipshod leadership of this country. Maybe…just maybe there is still hope for the American Automobile Industry to get sufficient money to follow-through on the turnaround they’ve started. But for the failure of the proposed $15 Billion in loans, we can thank the Republican members of the Senate. I may never vote Republican again!

The Republican members of the Senate voted against the loans stating that that GM, Chrysler and Ford could always file Chapter 11 under the Bankruptcy Code and work their own way out of it. Brilliant!

In the meantime, while going through the legal machinations of the Bankruptcy Court (who might well decide there is no practical reorganization possible) what’s going to happen to the million or so employees of these companies? If the “Big 3” (I use the term loosely) haven’t got the funds to pay their workers before bankruptcy, they sure aren’t going to have the money to pay them after filing bankruptcy. Oh well, what’s another million people without jobs going to mean to our Senate? Obviously, Republicans simply don’t care.

Or maybe they do care: it seems that the most vociferous voices from the Senate opposing the bailout for Detroit are Senators from States that have Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Hundai and Mercedes plants in their states. Their Senators do care…but not for this country.

Granted, Detroit has some major problems to overcome, not the least of which is the Automobile Workers’ Union: Unions, for all the good they did in the days when management was virtually enslaving workers, are really a very unnecessary evil today. A simple example:

Last year, Toyota sold 9,700.000 automobiles world-wide…and netted $17 billion in profits. Coincidentally, Detroit manufacturers also sold 9,700,000 cars last year…and lost almost $70 billion. Toyota pays their factory workers (non-union) $35 per hour (not a bad wage). Detroit (strictly union) pays their factory workers a minimum of $70 per hour.

I certainly don’t have a problem with automobile workers getting a better wage…but when it impacts the American economy in a negative fashion, there are some corrections to be made. Union supported wage earners are not the only problem: Executives at Toyota make from $250,000 to $2,000,000 per year. Executives at Gm have an average wage of more than $2,000,000 per year. This, too has to be corrected. Detroit spends billions of dollars per year on experimentation and new ideas. Toyota copies those ideas at pennies on the dollar. This, too has to be corrected.


A word about our banks and insurance companies: These companies were quick to accept bail-out money…but not one of them has done anything to help ease the economic crisis our country is going through. That’s what the bailout money was for. But our inept Treasurer, Henry Paulson, just dished out the money as fast as he could without telling the banks and insurance companies how to use it.

Bank of America received almost $100 Billion. How did they thank this country for their taxpayer money? They fired 35,000 employees!

Citi Bank received almost $100 Billion of the bailout money. How did they thank this country for their taxpayer bailout? They fired 63,000 employees!

One bank even had the blatant audacity to use our taxpayer money bailout to buy a bank in China for $9 Billion. Now that’s really going to help our economy.

AIG is so thoroughly corrupt that they have been spitting in the faces of the American taxpayers since receiving their bailout money.

This entire economic recession can be squarely based on the banks and other financial institutions who packaged and sold mortgage-backed securities. For Paulson to “reward” them as he has done is nothing short of “criminal”.

I don’t know how, but I really hope an Obama administration will put an end to this bold thievery by our banks and insurance companies, and an end to incompetent people who are sitting in Cabinet positions..

As I said, nobody asked me