That works, I suppose. Instead of giving– sorry “loaning” GM, Ford and Chrysler $25b, Nancy Pelosi and Co. will tell voters that the money’s going to “help the Detroit 3 meet their obligations to newly created retiree health benefit funds.” So tax money’s not going to incompetent SUV-building American automakers. It’s going to blue collar retirees, who never did a thing wrong except show up for work and put in an honest day’s labor. This according to Automotive News‘ source familiar with the people close to the matter who are actually the people who are cutting the deal but are too chicken-shit to say so and therefore co-opt lazy journalists by getting them to let them go “off the record.” Perhaps this would be a good time to revisit the fact that the $25b Uncle Sam’s minion want to dump into the United Auto Workers’ voluntary employee beneficiary association (VEBA) will fall into the grasp of a union known for corruption, waste, fraud and mismanagement. If that link doesn’t convince you that the UAW may not be the best stewards of your tax money or the workers’ health care, have a browse here. Or have a look at General Motors Death Watch 165. As the Brits say, they’ll be tears at bedtime. Oh, and would it be churlish of me to point out that Ms. Pelosi, winner of the Cesar Chavez award, own a non-union vineyard and hotel, yet counts unions as one of her top three largets contributors?
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There is absolutely no way that the D2 is going to be able to fulfill their VEBA obligations in 2009/10 given their current financial situation.
They would need to borrow money to fund the VEBA. And since the government is the only one who will lend them money currently…..well, they might as well give the money directly to the UAW.
Maybe other creditors would feel better about the D2’s long term prospects because of this and lend them some money.
The D2 is not a typo. Chrysler cannot continue to exist in its current form. It needs to be rolled into other companies, either whole or in parts. That is a consolidation that IMO is inevitable and necessary for the survival of the last two American auto manufacturers, GM and Ford.
The UAW may be greedy and shortsighted, but I would perfer that the money go to them. There it actually has a chance to go to the people who really need it, and that means that GM and Chrysler may be allowed to go down. Which they need to, simply for Darwinism more than anything.
Is anyone surprised at Nancy Pelosi’s hypocrisy?
And the winner of the Cesar Chavez award (for what???!) certainly wouldn’t get any praise for pushing amnesty for illegals. Chavez, who had a good understanding of economics, and wished to preserve his members’ decent wages, reported any illegals he was aware of to INS.
Runfromcheney :
The UAW’s retirees would be better off with a federally-administered program, and that’s saying something. I mean, I lived the NHS.
I say let the auto workers get screwed over by their own union, that way they’ll have nobody to blame but themselves.
Ooh look, shares of Ford are down to $1.98 now !. I don’t know whether to buy two cheeseburgers off the value menu or one share of Ford stock.
This is almost incomprehensible.
There will be a big backlash to this. The public doesn’t want to use tax dollars to pay for gold plated retirement benefits for the UAW.
Congress will hear from their constituents, and it won’t pass.
Better for a Democratic Congress to ensure the well-being of 600k union retirees and keep those votes safe than gamble the $25b on 300k current union workers. Votes are votes, and 600 beats 300.
Actually it would be 600+300+900K because they all fall under that plan. And it will be done before Obama takes office and bush leaves so the Republicans can say it wasn’t us and Obama can say I wasn’t in office yet. It wasn’t me.
Robert Farago:
I must say that I agree with you there. What I was trying to say is that the money is better off going to the unions instead of the big three themselves. Besides, I believe the fact that the money is going to the union could be a sign that Uncle Sam woke up and realized that GM and Chrysler are beyond saving, and just are going to let them die. Which is what I want, I was always opposed to bailing out GM and Chrysler. (Ford is an exception, because they still have a chance at survival) GM and Chrysler are broken companies past the state of repair, and they need to just be left to die. It would be devistating, but it was coming. GM is so screwed up by the mismanagement of Roger Smith and Wrong-way Rick that just throwing money at them isn’t going to fix it. GM and Chrysler going down is Darwinism and/or the circle of life in action. It was going to happen sooner or later.
There will be a big backlash to this. The public doesn’t want to use tax dollars to pay for gold plated retirement benefits for the UAW.
Congress will hear from their constituents, and it won’t pass.
Really? Just like the HUGE backlash that resulted from the proposed 700B financial bailout, that caused constituents to SAY NO 100 to 1? And then what did “our representatives” do? They passed it anyway. With an additional 150B of pork.
This will pass without a whimper. And have absolutely zero effect on saving the D2.5.
Robert, the link you provided was from National Legal and Policy Foundation. That far right think tank is funded by Scaife foundation, also known for funding the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
Why not wait for details of the loan program before you trash it? President-elect Obama has clearly said many time that he wants to help the U.S. auto industry. He was elected on this platform. The people have spoken.
Of course giving the money to the VEBA fund isn’t that different than just giving it to GM & friends to use however they want. It now frees up any earmarked billions to be spent on lights & more lobbyists to go get the next bailout.
tulsa,
GM wasn’t planning on paying for the VEBA anyway. They were just going to stiff the UAW. If anything, this is a UAW bailout.
“Just like the HUGE backlash that resulted from the proposed 700B financial bailout, that caused constituents to SAY NO 100 to 1? And then what did “our representatives” do? They passed it anyway.”
No, more like the huge backlash that derailed immigration reform…
“Oh, and would it be churlish of me to point out that Ms. Pelosi, winner of the Cesar Chavez award, own a non-union vineyard and hotel, yet counts unions as one of her top three largets contributors?”
Hypocrisy? In our government leader? Really?
RF, don’t you realize that it is do as I tell you, not as I do.
Usta Bee, either one you buy will turn to shit
Sellphone, I wrote my congressman (Dan Burton, R-IN) and pledged not to vote for him if he passed TARP. He promised he wouldn’t, didn’t the first vote, did the second time. Unlike him, I kept my promise and didn’t vote for him.
Hey, Obama & Co. think America needs “universal health care” so instead of Uncle Sam paying for the UAW’s gold-plated health benefits, why not start with UAW workers and retirees? There’s even an existing federal program that could take them in. It’s called Medicaid.
Of course, once a retiree hits 65, he’d go on Medicare. If that’s not enough, he can buy a supplemental policy from AARP or whoever, using his own money. We wouldn’t want to give UAW members better treatment than other Americans get, would we?
Let’s see if I got it right: Taxpayers, 95% of whom have no pension whatsoever, will have their earnings taken from them under threat of force and given to those who have fantastic pensions.
Sort of take from the have-nots and give to the haves. This here that redistribution of wealth I been hearing about?
Typical Democrat – firmly in the back pocket of the unions, but this time, she’s picking all of our pockets to help pad theirs.
Glad to see you’ve got our backs, Nancy.
Ronin,
So what’s the solution, make sure nobody has a pension including those who had their pensions guaranteed in their contract? I would propose the opposite; let’s give a semi-decent universal pension to everybody; something a retiree can very modestly live off, nothing lavish like they have in Europe. Then if your company goes belly up and your pension with it there would be no real need for the government to take over or top up the private pensions. But I suppose that would be too socialist for America, wouldn’t it? It’s better to take from the needy to give to the less needy because that’s capitalism, correct?
“So tax money’s not going to incompetent SUV-building American automakers. It’s going to blue collar retirees, who never did a thing wrong except show up for work and put in an honest day’s labor.”
And how about the white collar retirees, like my father, who haven’t suckled at the union teet all these years and as of Jan. 1 will no longer have the GM funded healthcare he was promised?
While the UAW has successfully coerced money out of GM for its union brothers and sisters, it has done so at the expense of its former co-workers, simply because they didn’t pay the dues. It’s one thing to cut the benefits of people who are still working and can at least theoretically adjust. It’s a completely different thing to cut the benefits of people who are no longer in the workforce and relied on those benefits to get by in their retirement years.
Way to go Pelosi. You suck.
It’s going to blue collar retirees, who never did a thing wrong except bolt together some of the most badly assembled cars ever seen and they couldn’t have cared less – maybe now, they do.
I would propose the opposite; let’s give a semi-decent universal pension to everybody; something a retiree can very modestly live off, nothing lavish like they have in Europe. Then if your company goes belly up and your pension with it there would be no real need for the government to take over or top up the private pensions. But I suppose that would be too socialist for America, wouldn’t it? It’s better to take from the needy to give to the less needy because that’s capitalism, correct?
Hmm… I could be wrong about this, but don’t we already have something called “Social Security” that performs this function? Too bad the government pissed away the funds that were supposed to go towards actually paying for this archaic program.
ra_pro: So what’s the solution, make sure nobody has a pension including those who had their pensions guaranteed in their contract?
The contract was between the auto makers and the UAW, not between the UAW and the taxpayers.
Sgt_Joe: We also have Medicare for retirees. The UAW has resisted shifting retired members to the Medicare plan because it isn’t nearly as generous as the one provided by the auto makers. The UAW, despite its claim that we need nationalized health care, sure hasn’t be been in any hurry to shift retirees to Medicare.
ra_pro: So what’s the solution, make sure nobody has a pension including those who had their pensions guaranteed in their contract?
Sometimes there is no solution. At least one that I care about. I have my own kids to worry about. Those pensioners never gave me a dime, nor did I ask for one. During their working lives they made three times the wages my family ever did, and they bequeathed cars to my family that rusted out in Ohio’s winters in to hulks that no longer had pillar to hold up windshields.
After all that, my father never had a pension, but saved what he could and never asked for a bailout.
I’m sure you’ll agree in the principal of fairness that they get not a dime from our kids. So, no, I have no solution from them. Maybe they could move to Cuba- I hear the cars of old are still popular there, and there is universal pension and health care for everyone in that island paradise.
How many congressmen who are in favor of this own/drive cars with American nameplates?
All of us peons have pensions – they’re called 401K’s, and they’re not guaranteed by public funds. However, since it is OUR money, we can control it and we know it will be there when we need it.
What makes auto workers so darned special to have their pension – which was never their money (as in possessed by them) in the first place – paid by the federal government?
Detroit has had to pay $2500 more per vehicle for labor than the other makers who have factories here in the U.S. precisely because of these unions, and now the unions are getting $25B?
Money for votes,and votes for money. That is what American politics has turned into. This is corrupt and sickening.
News Droppings: Looting The American Dream: Prevent the bail out of Chrysler and GMAC
Bullseet.
401k’s are the BIGGEST fraud of financial “engineering” bs every forced by a bunch of international financiers.
Pure bs. It was just a excuse to rip people off of money and loot it into S@P accounts of the pigmen.
The UAW doesn’t mean sheet. That “union” has had
power ripped away over the year and now controls a majority stake of its pensions which it can doll out at ITS CONVENIENCE.
Meaning this “bailout” is for the sale of the auto companies sans Ford. I bet you a buck they already have buyers, especially GM.
Listen, you want to know the REAL reason the auto-companies are in such trouble: Government selling them out in trade, overcapacity and poor management. Whaaa, whaaa lets blame the HISTORICALLY weak UAW.
Until this type of thinking and we get a government that enforces a America first, whatever interest group(business,labor,consumer etc etc) mentality 2nd, we are done as a nation.
This type of attitude killed the W.Germany and forced in a really incredibly productive but destructive regime in Nazism. a paradox we can do without the destruction.
It is the job of the government to come in and help its homegrown businesses. We owe the great Henry Ford and the Ford family that as he was one of America’s great men. The Ford company was in similar shape in the 1930’s and rebuilt into a powerhouse post-depression.
They will again.
Stop the self-righteous internationalism. If you hate this country as much as people like “Casual Observer” leave it. You love the sleaze fraud and mob tactics, leave it and get out.
For you others that want to rebuild America as a true power against the foreign bankers and international financial death doctors, lets march together. We can overcome.
Maybe they could move to Cuba- I hear the cars of old are still popular there, and there is universal pension and health care for everyone in that island paradise.
Nope, Cuba doesn’t have universal pensions, only for the ruling elite. Not for the people. Ditto for health care though they have tried to in recent years to make universal coverage a reality, they still fail because they don’t care.
The fact you don’t know that is sad, I mean real sad.
The other fact that you don’t know that is sad, that the financial and business elite of America WISH that is how Americans were treated.
Treat your country like sheet and then flee when the populace is ready for revolt from your “freedom”. Freedom is having any health coverage at all. Most of them are usually “free market” types. Frauds, all of them. Worship those Hewbrew economists. As bad as the Marxists. Same coin on a different side.
oh for your information, had a Honda Accord in 2005, got rid of it because it stunk like hell. Breaks were always breaking down. Got rid of it and got a G8. Terrific car. Should have never left GM. Only ever had one car from them that stunk and that was the Olds Cutlass back in the 80’s with Oil leaks.
Yeah, all those old sorry blue collar losers who made those “awfull” cars should be treated like crap. Uh, no you should be treated like crap sir. You probably have never produced a damn thing for this country in your life, thus your right to say that is a joke.
I live in a GM town. My immediate subdivision has about 100 homes, of those 100 homes about 80 recieve bluecollar GM pensions. Each of these homes get $2800.00 per month and health care benifets that cost ($1000.00 per month in premiums)thats $304,000.00 per month or about 4 million dollars per year. They also get $600.00 every Dec. for Christmas spending money that’s another $48,000.00 per month. Gm and the uaw (United auto workers) created and supports almost a half million of these retiree legacies. Hire in at 18 yrs. old and retire at 48 yrs. old. Do you want to fund this with taxpayer money? I don’t.