As much as I agree w/ you Joe - that we ought to stop this bailout (or really wealth redistribution) - I would think the automakers would run for their life from it. Just look at the reaction from their flying in on corp-jets to mooch money from us. If we own them, why stop at what jet they all use? I’m not sure I approve of the price of their shoes. Come to think of it, maybe I don’t approve of yellow cars.

They want to sell their soul (read whore out their company), they deserve to rot, and fast!

We should have let all these companies go belly up. Talk about “spreading the wealth,” these corporate fat cats need to take a major pay cut if the companies are failing. So much for capitalism.

How about the automakers take care of their own problems. The execs need some huge cuts and the union members too. Why is it my problem to take care of a private company? Every company needs to work out their own problems. This is so ridiculous and so easy to fix. I want to see everyone involved in their own company work to help their own company survive! Not Joe tax payer!

Quoting David Brooks (NYT) from a couple of days age, “It is all a reminder that the biggest threat to a healthy economy is not the socialists of campaign lore. It’s C.E.O.’s. It’s politically powerful crony capitalists who use their influence to create a stagnant corporate welfare state.”

We should help the working families that will bear the brunt of the American auto industry’s failures however not one dime should go towards giving life support to the poorly managed companies themselves.

We owe them nothing. Help those that will lose their jobs but let the companies go down the tube.

Be careful what you wish for. Do I want a blank check without Chapter 11, NO. Do I want Chapter 7 for the automakers, NO. That would absolutely devastating to a lot of American Workers. I want a implicit guarantee that GM or Ford won’t be liquidated. This can be down without the ridiculus circus yesterday.

Finally, Rick Wagoner’s the CEO of GM salary dropped to 3.5 million. How many ballplayers in the Cards organization get that? How many of us run a world wid organization employing hundreds of thousands? Knocking down these CEO’s shows just as much ignorance of the situation on our parts.

It is getting confusing and perhaps shows one more time how inept the Bush administration can become. The Secretary of Treasury rushes out and says he needs X number of dollars and he needs it now. He also tells us how he intends to use it. When congress goes along and provides the funds the Secretary then changes his mind as to how to use the money. Now he says that he does not need all the money right now and will use less than half of it, leaving the rest for the next administration. Remember just one month earlier if he did not get all the money and get it now there would be serious problems.

At the same time while they have no idea what to do with the remainder of the $700 billion Paulson has said that the money cannot be used to help with the credit card crunch of the average person. He also says that the money cannot be used help the auto industry.

Yet with $350 billion dollars allocated and sitting unused, Bush has suddenly become a fiscal conservative. According to him it would not be fiscally wise to offer an extension of unemployment benefits, which would go to the average person. This despite unemployment jumping to a 16 year high, which was also when a Bush was President.

The Dow is down below 8000 and in 3 months the Nasdaq fell from about 2600 to almost 1300. This has pointed out that investors have lost confidence in the American economy.

What is going on at this time is just highlighting how inept the Bush administration has been.

Just an update. In an earlier posting I said Bush does not support an extension of the unemployment benefits. He now says that he will. Evidently a jump to a 16 year high unemployment has moved him some.

Hey, did anyone hear how those great paragons of society, the UAW execs showed up? That’s right, in private jets.

The pensions should never have been granted - it would have been better to have the plants close than to have given in to the UAW. Holding current execs responsible for terrible decisions made 20-30 years ago is ridiculous. That being said, they certainly don’t have a plan to go forward with.

Here it is - the pensions have to go while in Chapter 11. Offer reasonable buyouts to discharge the obligation as best the auto makers can but let them and the UAW know the country believes in freedom and accountability so it will not subsidize their past excesses.

The GOP sure didn’t mind bailing out their bank executives….Go figure?