graphic by twolf

According to Harry Reid, apparently an auto deal has been reached, except for "outstanding details".  I take this as meaning they wanted some good press before folding for the night, and that they now understand the price Republicans want for passing the bill.

As Jane noted earlier, the talks were fundamentally about screwing union workers, since Republicans won’t pass a bill that doesn’t cram down wages: 

Officials said the negotiations centered on possible wage and benefit concessions from the United Auto Workers union as well as large-scale debt restructuring by General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC.

One can only wish that Democrats, when the bailout had been willing to do the same sort of thing in exchange for the 700 billion dollar bailout, and had held out for some serious regulatory reform.  But apparently only Republicans get what they want by threatening to filibuster.

We’ll see tomorrow what this all means, but if I were an auto worker, I’d expect that my paycheck is about to take another big beating, and I’d be wondering why it was ok for Wall Street to pay itself 70 billion in bonuses with 700 billion in bailouts, and not ok for me to keep my salary and benefits and for my industry to get less than one-thirtieth of that amount.

Guess they don’t know the right people and have the right lobbyists.  Those who have get bailed out, those who don’t, get left to drown.

But perhaps Barack Obama will ride to save the day, as he did after the Wall Street bailout failed, coming in to bend arms to make sure Wall Street got its 700 billion dollars so it could continue to have the billions of dollars of bonuses it has grown accustomed to.  I’m sure he doesn’t do that sort of thing only for Wall Street fat cats, after all.