Lower the standard of living for UAW workers living in Michigan? I heard you can buy a house in Detroit for $1.00. Look, Mr. Mayor and other union thugs, when you are paying someone $78.00 an hour to make a product no one is buying, plus $31.00 an hour to ex-workers to sit on their a$$es, it doesn't compute! I want to know the exact amount of cash the UAW gave to BOH's campaign. I bet the amount could have paid wages to workers for quite sometime.

Thank you Republican Congressmen for holding out on the bailout. Come January 20 I'm sure Botox Nancy and Mentally Challenged Harry will bailout them out. But then the ball is in their court. They won't be able to use "it's Bush' fault" line then.

allow Chapter 11, get the contracts in line with the economy and perhaps they could have help. No rewards for bad behavior. All the anti war guys "we need the auto plants for national defence", 1st time i've heard that BS from them. Now thats funny.

 allow me to Love America

Thank you Peter Morici.

v

btw Peter, got something good to say about "the one"? 

Down here in Florida, retired auto workers brag constantly about how much money they made putting a wheel on a car on an assembly line somewhere in Michigan and still make as retired auto workers. They worked at something that a robot can do more efficiently and still want to live off the bragging rights. Michigan thought their s@#t didn't stink for decades because they had a monopoly on high paying auto jobs. They aren't laughing now because people around the world stopped buying their cars and now they can't catch up. The market for vehicles will not shrink because the number of manufacturers shrink. We will just buy different vehicles and if Toyota or Honda don't make what we want to buy at a competitive price then they too will go out of business.

Yeah, Olbermann.  The dork who fiercely and bravely defended the UAWs outrageous cost of labar (active, along with those just sitting around doing nothing) during one of his "worst person" rants the other week.  The Worst Person in the World?  The NYT reporter who dared to write an article describing the cost of uninionized labor.

Forcing GM into bancruptcy (restructuring) would be doing them a huge favor.   They'd come out of it a much more competitive company.

How about this craziness:

"Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s school of business, told CNSNews.com that one of the biggest problems the companies face is the UAW’s Jobs Bank – a program established more than two decades ago that guarantees nearly full salary and benefits to out-of-work employees.

Right now if a plant closes in St. Louis and a new one opens in Kansas City, the workers don’t have to move from St. Louis to Kansas City; they can opt to get a $105,000 payout or go on Jobs Bank where they can collect 95 percent of pay for the rest of their lives,” Morici said."

WFT??? What idiot would opt for a one-time $105K payout over collecting almost your full salary (with full bennies) for laying on the couch watching TV for the rest of your life? And relocating is of course out of the question for a UAW member, unlike how the rest of US workers relocate all the time to follow their jobs.

Oh, wait ... nevermind.

"All generalizations are false, including this one.” Mark Twain

I think it was Senator Coburn yesterday (or the day before) who argued that over the last year, GM and Toyota made about the same amount of money. However, Toyota showed a profit, while GM was deep in the hole. GM's cost of doing business was so much greater.

_ _ _ _ _  

That brings up a related point. Because of the bailout, Congress is now inspecting how the auto industry runs its business. Congress is now broadcasting Detroit's failures to the whole world. But think about it - Congress knew these figures before the economic collapse.

• A lot of people knew that Detroit (Big Three and UAW) were collaborating in disaster, but no one said anything.
• While you're thinking of that, remember that a lot of people knew that the mortgage and banking systems were rotting at the core, but no one said anything.

Maybe Congress should have been holding hearings about these practices before they became disasters. Well, OK, we don't really want Congress meddling in private enterprise. We'd like to throw some sunshine on these shady practices that wind up costing us money, but we don't want Congress to do it. Hmmmmm.

If only there was some other group of people who could investigate things and warn the general public of impending disasters ... people who could report about what's going on ... hmmm ... I wonder what that would be like?

Wow!  A pundit that tells the truth on the "all liberal all the time channel" NB is right on it!

So what?

We need conservative news media telling the conservative view point. 

Why?  Because this isn't working . . .

We know more of the machinations of liberals then we know of conservatives.  For example, who knew anything about Sara Palin until just a few months ago?  Know anything about a guy name Jindle?   Who are the conservative lights?  Where do we go to find out about them?  What are conservatives saying about the great issues of the day?  

Without knowing the above, we are bound to have the drive by media pick our candidates, conservatives staying away from the polling boths, and we lose another election.

Meanwhile, on the matter of the auto maker's bailout.  The republicans in the Senate held strong.  They are to be commended.  Write, e-mail, or call them.  They deserve your praise. Here is a way to do that:   http://www.senate.go....

Unfortunately, President Bush will likely cave.  And that lemonade - it is going to get really expensive - for taxpayers.    

 There will be a bailout. Get ready for it. Even if Bush doesn't do something without Congress, and it's looking like he will, it will happen in January when Obama and the new Congress take over. And then, in March, they'll be back for more, and they'll get it. Then, a few months later, they'll be back for more, and they'll get it. Then, after taking billions in tax dollars, they'll file for bankruptcy anyway, or close up shop, never to repay the billions they were given.

"Libs never let you down. You don't have to talk to one very long before the stupid comes out."

Expect Morici to receive his walking papers from U. Maryland sometime soon. It's a highly liberal school in a liberal county, so any conservative opinion, albeit realistic and well grounded, is not welcome in these parts.

I love how the "concessions" the auto-unions have made is to cut the salary of new workers in half. First off, that makes it so they themselves don't lose anything. The downside? It will have the same effect as it did on the NYPD. Facing budget crisis, the NYPD union was forced to make concessions, and they did it by cutting starting salary. Now, the NYPD is scraping the bottom of the barrel to get new cops, since all the good ones, or even vets at the NYPD, leave for the surrounding counties, where pay is much more even. Heck, NYPD forces the cadets/officers to buy their own uniforms and equipment. It's pretty unbelievable.