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

[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?