Fucking Sadistic Republicans

[valarltd]

The Auto bailout didn't pass.
The Republican minority in the Senate killed it as a big "Fuck You" to the American Blue-Collar Worker. For being "Pro American/America first" they surely hate the people who make the country run.

I'm terrified. I may not have a job after the new year. We can't live on my husband's income. I carry the health insurance...and we have 2 mentally ill children, one with bad ears and I'm trying NOT to go into cervical cancer. The local truck lines are laying people off. The freight's not there to move.

It isn't just Michigan that will be affected.
The sheet metal stamping factory in Twinsburg OH, the manufacturing center in Belvedere IL, the plastic company in Mishawaka IN, the brake maker in Cincinnati OH, the Youngstown OH location, the assembly plants (there are 4) in Shreveport LA... Every one of those is going to go down if GM folds.

There are nine little family-owned dealerships I deliver to. The other driver on my linehaul has 16. Multiply that by 300 throughout the south, not to mention our office support staff... We're talking about 30,000 people. And that's just GM!

On a day when the Shrub looks like my last, best hope, I'm feeling very damn desperate. That's like depending on Charlie Brown to actually win a ball game.

Comments

[partly-bouncy.livejournal.com]

:( Crap. I wish there was something I could say which would be helpful. :(

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry. I think they're killing it on purpose, frankly -- hand Obama a big enough mess, he won't be able to fix it, and in 4 years, we'll go back to the Evil One's control.

[mother2012.livejournal.com]

Yep.

[moonstone-fae.livejournal.com]

My dad drove a truck and his entire company folded. My mom's company notified them yesterday that they are laying everyone off as of the 19th. The whole thing is pretty scary. I'm grateful that both Jack & I still have our jobs.

[kitzheng.livejournal.com]

... I have no words.

I've been so stressing about this. Both my parents work in auto industry/auto related industry and live in an auto-industry-dependent area. Both are quite grim about their future jobs. Layoffs were already going to happen whether the bailout happened or not, but now ... I don't know what will happen.

This makes me sick. They gave money to bankers involved in what was basically betting schemes on stocks. But not to people who make an actual, tangible product.

[reannon.livejournal.com]

I honestly think the CEOs are equally responsible as the Republicans for this debacle. They had no real, clear, concise plan for how they intended to save their companies, just "we need cash." The bankers at least had some kind of humility: they admitted, "Yeah, we fucked up, but here's how you can make sure we don't do it again." It was still incredibly unpopular, and politicians care about what's popular more than what's actually useful.

Their initial appearance was so clueless it made my teeth hurt. They had no real apologies for continuing to focus on gas-guzzling SUVs for their primary products as gas prices rose to $4 a gallon, they flew in separate corporate jets to beg for cash, they wouldn't agree to reduce their own salaries, they would not give any assurances that the bailout would, in fact, keep them out of bankruptcy... they made such a poor impression that they made it politically impossible for the Senate to approve it. I am frankly surprised that round two went as far as it did. I was shouting at the TV screen: "Don't you people have PR men? Did you LISTEN to them?" Icon aimed at them.

For once, the fact that Shrub has a foot out the door might help you, dear. He has no one to impress. On the other hand, he might not be smart enough to sign his name at this point. His sole act yesterday was giving a Santa Claus a fist-bump. Saw it on the Daily Show. *facepalm*

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

The Shrub doesn't want to go out as Hoover did.

OTOH, the bastages in the Senate want to make as big of a mess as they can so they can sneer when Obama can't manage their Augean Stables in 100 days.

The loan--not a bail out--was the least bad option. They needed money to keep them afloat until their pensioners died off. And they would have to repay, as they did in the 80s.

The second time, they came in with a decent proposal. The Senate said no, you have to cut your workers' pay to what every right-to-work foreign maker is paying (about $5/hr less), drop the ball on your retirees and their health care and generally balance it across the backs of the people who actually MAKE the product.

2010 is the earliest we'll see any new styles of car. They retool the plants in July.

There are two HUGE problems:
1) The economy cannot absorb millions of laid-off workers.
2) Do we really want to kill the last major manufacturing sector jobs in the US? What does it do to our future if we can no longer design and produce complex electro-mechanical devices?

[mother2012.livejournal.com]

I expect you're right, that it's a big 'fuck you' to the American people. And after all, the republicans don't much care about the working people anyway. We really don't count, you know. You have to be rich to count.

[lisichance.livejournal.com]

Didn't they buy off enough of congress to get their way? Maybe they should talk to the communications corps. to get some ideas on how to do that.

It is really scary how many people it would affect. And, it totally makes my paranoia kick in, when I read about this, then remember the articles I read a couple months back on how the armed forces are training their soldiers to "deal with uprisings" in the US. At the time, I couldn't picture food riots. Now I can.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

They bought as much as they could. But a bunch of anti-union asshats decided to stick to their principles.

[bittermint.livejournal.com]

According to this morning's news, now Bush is saying they could give the auto industry some of the banking bailout money. I can't believe he's gonna come out of this looking like some fucking White Knight.

But honestly, I don't feel sorry for the Big 3 at all. The auto industry's known for years that this gas-guzzling SUV juggernaut couldn't last forever. They sat idly by while Honda and Toyota ate away at their market share and developed hybrid technology. They could have been much more pro-active about upgrading their product for the future, and instead they chose to do nothing. Frankly, I think these companies deserve to fail.

However, I do feel sorry for all the innocent workers who'll be left out in the cold if they do collapse. For that reason alone, I hope the Bush White House gets off its lame-duck ass and rides to the rescue. I hope they aren't cynical enough to put millions of people out of work just so the Repugs can torpedo Obama's presidency before it even gets started.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

There are serious problems of vision and design, yes.
I am NOT a fan of SUVs. (We call them PSVs--penis substitute vehicles)

But the smaller stuff has been on the drawing board. They just can't get it out before 2010.

Like I said, a day when George Bush looks like my last best hope to stay employed and keep my health insurance... AUGH

[nbrooks.livejournal.com]

I just love all the union blaming going on during the evening news tonight. Katie Couric's all: "Don't you union people get 42 personal days, 5 weeks of vacation, and 17 paid holidays? Don't you think that's excessive with the state of the economy as it is?"

Yes, because the true equalizer is to take good benefits away from everyone instead of making sure everyone gets good benefits. The USA is the kindergarten teacher who a few members of her students can't share toys. Her answer? Take all the toys away from everyone. There, you're equal now! How's it feel?

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

That "five weeks vacation" comes in July, when they do plant shut-downs for retooling.

17 paid holidays? Wowser. I get 5, and they pay me 1/4th of my pay.

Personal days=sick leave. They can be sick or go to the doctor, without having to sacrifice a day off or lose their pay. Used to be, that was considered normal.

(frozen)

[emmyjag.livejournal.com]

Polls have shown that over half of Americans are against any auto bailout. To be fair, most of the senators were likely voting their constituent's wishes. Which is sort of what they're elected to do.

I think borrowing $15 billion from China to delay the inevitable for 3 months if just throwing good money after bad. People *still* are going to prefer foreign cars in March, so what good would a bailout now be? We'll be paying hundreds of billions of dollars to keep the big three afloat until they can get it together and make a car that people will want to buy. Chapter 11 restructuring makes more sense.

I'm trying NOT to go into cervical cancer
Cervical cancer is the direct result of STD's (namely, genital warts) so....do we need to have the condom talk?

(frozen)

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Actually, cervical cancer runs in my family. And no, we don't need to have the condom talk. Old married lady. I've been having bad pap smears for a couple years now and I just had a very bad one.

(frozen)

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Ann, I appreciate you taking up for me. However, rudeness to other posters is out of line.

I assumed Emmy was making a joke about the condom talk and treated it as such.

The thread is frozen.

[nbrooks.livejournal.com]

Picking up frozen thread, but keeping on the topic at hand:

"People *still* are going to prefer foreign cars in March, so what good would a bailout now be?"

Because 3.5 million americans have their jobs at risk (and more as the aftershocks of 3.5 million ripples through the affected communities - restaurants, stores, tourism). People without jobs leads to less spending, less eating out. Less spending and eating out leads to cooks, servers, cashiers, stockers out of work.

People out of work leads to loss of health insurance which puts a toll on that system even worse than it's already got now.

I realize that those in the health industry have some job security at the moment. But the career also requires some compassion for the communities served. Having a whole shit-ton of new uninsured shouldn't be a medical professional's dream come true either.

What good will it do? Maybe nothing. But if it can even *possibly* keep more people in their jobs longer, we have to try.

[winterknight.livejournal.com]

I agree that something has to be done to help keep things stable, but I don't think the situation is hopeless. Marketing and vision needs to change in the industry, dramatically, and it needs to be made by people who aren't just interested in making their 'bonusable goals'. I think that a thinktank could make excellent progress toward redirecting the auto industry. Transportation will not become optional any time soon, and it will become increasingly more reasonable to purchase vehicles made close to home. I also think that a huge portion of the industry may be eligible for 'guided repurposing', that is a deliberate move of workers and facilities into other forms of industry and production in order to maintain employment and to relieve dependence on the auto industry.

The US is in trouble, and has been for years, in so many ways; it's really a matter of concern for Canadians, too. We just had a Toyota plant open here in Canada that was destined for one of a number of US sites. They built it here because it was cheaper to build here and export to the US than it was to deal with a 50% functional illiteracy rate among workers in the proposed American sites. They would have had to spend millions on re-education and the production of pictographic safety and instructional material. That sounds great, that we got the plant in Canada, but having a nation of uninsured, unemployable, undereducated people to the south as our major trading partner and economic ally... it's no good for us, either. I hope the US pulls out of it. It's going to mean people of all types getting up and saying, "change has to happen," for it to work.

[shinymarigold.livejournal.com]

Word. The Big Three may have their flaws, but they employ so many more people than the ones on their books. If they go bankrupt and can't restructure into something useful, we are all screwed, plain and simple.

My dad put in his 30 at GM, and was a good union man all his life. He was also honest and hardworking, and I have no doubt that he did a good job for GM every day of that 30 years. It makes me ill to think that a bunch of assholes in Congress would be pleased and happy to screw my widowed mother out of her health benefits just to count coup on the UAW. Bastards.