As some of you may know, I sit on the Indiana Port Authority. Our executive director, Rich Cooper, sent this New York Times article out to us the other day. It describes the thousands of cars sitting on acre after acre at one of the country’s biggest ports, Long Beach, Calif. (See photo at right.)The “lame duck” Congress is making our Big 3 (GM, Ford and Chrysler) jump through all kinds of hoops, without a doubt because of the UAW contracts with American automakers.
This is typical. In the meantime, the first bailout rolls right along, with Bear Stearns and especially AIG, which has no shame and keeps sending its management teams on $2,000-a-night junkets that we taxpayers are paying for.
Why wouldn't you bail out the American auto industry and have them retool (which means construction jobs) our assembly lines to manufacture fuel-efficient and hybrid cars?
What was the figure? Something like one in 10 jobs across our nation is directly related to the auto industry. And I believe I heard here in Indiana or maybe it was Michigan the ratio is more like one in five jobs connected to the auto industry.
The banking industry wouldn't make a pimple on an ass as compared with employing the American worker and number of jobs. The damn banks won't loan the Big 3 the new taxpayer $$$. They say let them file bankruptcy, like the airline industry did. Yeah, that's a great idea.
The bottom line: The judges let them out of their union contracts and pension and health-and-welfare and retiree obligations. Thus creating an even poorer “middle class.” Ha, that's a joke! Class warfare?
