Comments on: Union-Busters Want GM To File Bankruptcy

By: ferrarimanf355

ferrarimanf355 — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 06:15:32 +0000

Union-busting? Come on, Jane, GM is in trouble, and they may have no choice to file chapter 11. Of course, if that happens, then it could be likely that the government nationalizes GM, and with the development of the seventh-generation Corvette on hold, that worries me…

By: tbsa

tbsa — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 06:14:39 +0000

GM shoud file bankruptcy while the fuckers who caused the economic mess get to rape what’s left of tax payer money. Sounds about right.

By: Jane Hamsher

Jane Hamsher — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 01:42:26 +0000

ding ding ding!

By: brandane

brandane — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:36:49 +0000

As I said, the oil speculation started with Bush/Cheney, they took office in Jan 2001 and they had their infamous secret energy meeting shortly after, enuff said. You obviously think GM or any car manufacturer can turn out a new model within months, when in fact they are lucky if they can do it in a couple of years.

By: nahant

nahant — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:07:35 +0000

Jane you are so right!!
The Rethuglian Talking heads have always wanted to bust unions because then the workers have no voice in their employment and the owners can ride rough shod over their employees! The shrill come back of “you can always get another job” is so empty in its rhetoric that it has become their rallying cry to the workers plight!
Unions have been the reason there is a middle class in this country! Regan started the real union busting and the rethuglians have ever since tried to minimize the place in the work place. I have had nothing but pure contempt for Regan after he broke the Air Traffic Controller’s Union. He was a pure Milty Friedman believer and he tried to put those “Theories” into policy and ever since his party has been doing the same thing at the cost of the Middle Class. And those same “Theories” of no regulations for the Market is the very reason we are in the pickle we are in now. It all comes down to pure pornographic GREED by the rich and well positioned Corporatist! Dam PIGS!!

By: PrahaPartizan

PrahaPartizan — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:42:22 +0000

Unfortunately, modern capitalism focuses exclusively on share-holder value (if it must) and the executives’ bonuses (if it can). Other stakeholders’ interests receive short shrift. This narrow self-interested focus has contributed mightily to the debacle in which we find now find ourselves ensnared.

Everybody who invested money in these dinosaur without holding the hired management accountable should be penalized by losing everything. The bondholders knew what the legacy costs were for any of the the Big 3, it wasn’t a secret. They just figured they’d bail out before the firm had to actually pay off on those implicit debts sometime in the future. The shareholders could have pushed their hired management to make better, long-range decisions, but the short term profits were just too sweet. Both categories, who had some ability to influence corporate decision making in a friendly way, failed.

Hell, when corporate management had a chance 15 years ago to actively support national health care, which might have assisted in lifting this burden off their backs, they ultimately screwed the Clinton Administration by first backing Hillary’s health care initiative and they finally coming out against it. The big corporations are reaping the whirlwind they’ve been sowing for the last thirty years. Let them burn.

By: Hugh

Hugh — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:42:17 +0000

Excessive speculation in the oil market began in 2004 when year over year prices went up by a third. The housing bubble would have been visible to financial analysts of which I’m assuming GM had a few from 2004 onwards as well. Its bursting together with knock on effects on credit and general economic activity would have been predictable from early 2006 and certainly by the time of the collapse of the two Bear Stearns in June 2007 or those of Paribas in August 2007. That was more than a year ago. And we have seen the most recent spike and fall in oil prices since then as well as the economic meltdown in September of this year following the Lehman failure. But GM had or shoulf have had plenty of warning about all these things.

Add into this how internal combustion engines figure into peak oil which is already upon us or the tight window we have to address global warming and yes, I would say that if GM execs didn’t have their heads so deeply up their butts so they could lick their tonsils they could have foreseen and reacted infinitely better than they did.

Re ImperialFlow, government economic policy like tax policy is about social engineering. Would I rather see $25 billion paid to autoworkers to keep them hired at good wages, increasing both the country’s economic and social stability, maybe retooling to build more fuel efficient eco-freindly cars in the face of peak energy and global warming as opposed to giving it away to JP Morgan? You bet.

By: DWBartoo

DWBartoo — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:40:50 +0000

No war but class war … now!

Democracy and the future hang (precariously) in the balance.

This ‘war’ which, of necessity MUST be non-violent on our ’side’, however extreme the actions and reactions of the ‘other’, will, someday, be termed a ‘good’ war, and, with any luck, it may well end all major war-making as ‘policy’ or as a money-making ‘proposition’ …

By: TrulyLeft

TrulyLeft — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:14:40 +0000

Oh and one more thing – autoworkers (union) get paid $25 to $35 per hour, depending on skill level, NOT $75 per hour. Upper management on the other hand gets a bunch more. I’ve been both with Chrysler. Californirealitycheck and others here need to get a clue.

By: californiarealitycheck

californiarealitycheck — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:02:25 +0000

exactly, we have to move to OPEN warfair to get it solved. it will not be pretty.