I'm more worried about the progress of humanity so I don't just follow dollars. Why else would anyone possibly be a scientist? The women? The prestige from the science loving nation and Bush administration?

I have to buy my health care. It's illegal for the university to provide me health care, because the grants that fund us can only be used to pay a student's stipend.

Of course my salary expectation will go up when I graduate, if I can find a job. And if I'm lucky enough to find one, my compensation will be comparable to an auto worker.

I wasn't actually arguing for a conservative economics, or even against unions in general. Although I think the UAW is bad for the country and so are teacher's unions.

But there are few things a government can invest in that give a better return on tax dollars than science. Compare the meager National Science Foundation budget which almost single handedly trains all of our scientists to the tax revenue generated from high tech industry. The effect is completely causal. No NSF money given to Stanford, no CS education for Larry Page and Sergei Brin. And there's a thousand other similar stories.

The New York Times article was correct and straightforward. Olbermann is wrong. Olbermann claims the NYT claimed $73/hour wages. They never did. They correctly said $73 was the average compensation per worker, and Olbermann doesn't refute that. These gigantic health and pension and survivor benefits should rightfully be included in the compensation.

I'm a Ph.D. research student, basically a professional scientist, and I get paid about $25,000 a year. Zero benefits. No health care, no maternity leave, no retirement, nothing. If I'm lucky I'll be compensated as much as a UAW assembly line worker when I graduate after 10 years of impoverished higher education.

>> ^Trancecoach:
$28.00 / hr with benefits? Where do I sign up?


That's an average. Starting salaries begin at $14.00/hr, as of a 2005 negotiation between big-3 and UAW.

This is so sad how much it's being twisted. The heads of the "Right To Work" lobbying firms and corporations colluding with the Southern GOP senators is pitting every-day-citizens against eachother, and it's working. They've been able to teach citizens to hate workers.

Anyone buying this $71(3?4?)/an hour shit should be embarassed.

so lets take $38 to include benefits...
$38 * 40hrs/week * 52 weeks = $79000 / year.

I went to college get a BS degree. I have 13 years experience in my field and I'm making quite a bit less than that. Now I see that an uneducated Joe is making more than me and complaining about it. I think the UAW can go fuck themselves and the horse they rode in on. The UAW is seriously out of touch with the times. Here is a couple of videos where the UAW goes to Congress and complains that they are only making $45/hour ($94000/year).

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-162123
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-162125

The UAW needs to come to terms that they needs to take some serious pay cuts for the American auto industry to be competitive. I seriously hope the auto industry declares bankruptcy so they can dump this outrageously stupid union contract.

^ It's not $45 an hour plus benefits, it's $45/hour if you count paid vacation and benefits as salary.

Here's a graphic from the analysis the NYT did.

Note the actual wage difference is $3/hr. Also, note that in the full article, they estimate the difference in labor costs (using the all inclusive $73/hr and $59/hr figures), would amount to an $800 difference in the price of each vehicle.

Labor costs account for about 10% of the cost of each vehicle. Suppose the UAW decided to agree to become slave labor -- working the same hours for free. That amounts to a 10% discount on the sticker price of each car.

Now, go find an American-made car you like, give it a 10% discount, and go try to get a loan to buy it.

You can't? Wonder if it might have something to do with banks not making loans because predatory lending and BS derivatives sunk the credit market.

But hey, gotta be those lazy ass auto workers, or the stupid American car companies, right?

Never mind that such giants as Honda and Toyota are cutting back, too.

I'm not a fan of people getting something they didn't earn, but that's not what happened with the UAW. I'm not a fan of many of the decisions the big three made, but that's not why they're in this much trouble.

I am a fan of keeping these companies from going out of business and having to lay off millions of workers, when our economy is already in the toilet.

Democrats are demanding restructuring, and this whole "bailout" business is in the form of a loan that is expected to be paid back, with interest.

Sounds like a good investment of taxpayer money to me.

They didn't come well prepared to this meeting it would seem. I also disagree that predatory lending is the leading result of the auto industries problems. The foremost problem would be the UAW, us much as they would like to think they are entitled to more than the average worked, they aren't and they are strangling these companies from the inside out. I'm sorry but a guy turning bolts all day should in no way get $45 an hour plus benefits and a pension. The second problem is the slow speed at with the American automobile companies are adapting to the change in the public's opinion of larger less economical vehicles.

I usually agree with Maddow. She's smart and compassionate. But she's off the mark here with her obvious unconditional support of the UAW. They are not the entire problem, but they are part of it, and perhaps a significant part.

But the biggest point of concern I have is that nobody seems to be talking about why they are failing. It's not the economy, otherwise the Japanese companies would be failing too. But they're profitable, and by many measurements they are the most reliable vehicles. So what is the real reason the Big 3 are failing? And will a cash infusion do anything to turn that around?

I say let them fail. Other companies will pick up the pieces and they'll have better chance at sustained profitability than these bloated behemoths. That's how capitalism is supposed to work, after all.

Huh? Top 15 for this ideologue?

The entire conservative philosophy is as sound as a "philosophy" of medicine based on the principle that since organs sometimes fail, people will be healthier if we just removed all of them before anything goes wrong.

Fighting for reduction of government spending in a recession is like applying leeches to a patient with anemia -- not just backward and misguided, but the exact wrong action to take.

Even so, while Paul was against the bailout for ideological reasons, most of his fellow Republicans were against this for more pedestrian reasons. This was, as Gettelfinger put it, about piercing the heart of the labor movement in the US, while also sticking up for the foreign automakers who they do business with in their states.

The deal fell apart, not because conservatives were sticking to their conservative principles, but because they demanded that unions cut their pay to below the levels of the foreign automakers in 2009 instead of 2011 (the latter had been offered by the UAW). Isn't that a case of government trying to tell business how it should operate? I seem to remember Republicans saying so when it was talking about limiting executive salaries for the TARP ($700bn) program. Guess they were just blowing smoke. Reminds me a bit about how tax cuts for the middle class were socialism, but tax cuts for the rich is good conservative governance.

Oh, and the bill failed in a vote of 52 for, 35 against. Obstructionist filibuster much?

From a purely political POV, I couldn't be happier with how this turned out. The word "Neo-Hooverite" is getting some play, and there's no doubt at all about which party will be responsible if either GM or Chrysler end up collapsing, or having major layoffs.

On the other hand, from the perspective of someone who cares about our country, I'm disappointed, and hope there won't be too many more chances for the Republicans to successfully implement their childish, misguided, hypocritical corrupt class warfare bullshit.

Congressman Paul did make a great point: take the money from somewhere else.

The Pentagon's budget would be a great start.

Per the discussion above:

Unions are supposed to be a way for the laborer to earn a fair share of the pie.

If it weren't for the UAW, Toyota, BMW, et al. would not be paying comparative wages.

Bank on it.

Yes, unions are imperfect and some are corrupt.

And yes, most Americans are too god damned stupid to understand the strength of collective bargaining.

Yes, the average American would be better off with more unions in our economy levelling the "paying" field.

Bank on it.

>> ^quantumushroom:

The America-based Japanese car companies have no unions, their employees make good wages and their companies aren't facing extinction.


...and yet their take-home pay is similar once you subtract the union dues from the UAW pay scale. Unions are just another form of government outside the Government, acting like a business where it tell it's shareholders what to do, rather than the other way round.

I'm actually a car carrying member of the UAW at a small factory here in PA, and I wouldn't mind at all if this union failed.

Our company is struggling and we recently had a wave of lay-offs. As per Union contract, we had to lay off according to seniority and not ability. This has left us with a skeleton crew have filled with the most useless workers and the hard workers have to take up the slack. The younger crew we had were bright eyed and relentless, and now they're moving back in with their parents while we work overtime. The company also has it's hands tied as to who can move up the chain and into the jobs that require a higher IQ, those jobs also must be offered by seniority and they can't even use the most qualified people to fill them.

As you can imagine, the management is resentful of us and is treating us consistently worse as the year ends. To make matters worse, the union recently raised dues and now we're paying $500 a year, even though our pay raises are on hold indefinitely. State law prevents us from not paying the dues whether we're members or not.

The hard core members tell us that it would be a lot worse if we didn't have a union, and it's hard to argue with them. My take is that the company would still be there and only hard workers would be working. Their take is that after working there 20 plus years, it's the companies responsibility to keep them on, even though they're working less.

I wish I could give more insight, but most of my conversations with them are cut short by their religious fervor on the subject.

I'm with Kucinich on this bailout. I'm also in full agreement with the idea that the American auto companies need a huge wake-up call -- but if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not watch the big three unravel right when the economy is as unhealthy as I've ever seen it.

I don't think the Wall Street one was a good idea. I think something needed done, and something big, I just think the form it took, and the way it was handled was typically Bushian -- cling to ideology first, political maneuvering second, paying off friends in the industry third, and if there's time and money left over after servicing those, let's see if we can make a dent in the actual problem we're supposed to be solving.

From what I've read, Dems basically submitted to every one of Bush's demands in order to get him to not veto the bailout bill. That means this one is likely to be filled with bullshit landmines entirely designed to a) prevent the plan from working b) set back environmental and labor issues Democrats care about, and c) give congressional Republicans a chance to stand in opposition to a plan that Bush and Democrats agree on.

If I were just as evil as the average Republican representative, for political purposes I'd pray the Republicans block the damn thing, despite Bush ineffectually trying to convince them to vote for it. Then I'd have the Democrats say "call us when you grow up", and put the House and Senate on recess until Jan 20th. Then have them hit the talk show circuit to loudly gripe about how they tried their best to save the auto industry, but the Republicans stopped them from acting, and that they'll try again when they have more votes and a responsible President.

Part of me hopes that's how it'll play out...but I'd be really uncomfortable leaving things at an impasse like that, because I don't know that GM and Chrysler would make it, and I know their dying would not be good for the country.

I don't get the sense that Republicans give a shit about what's good for the country. If anything, they seem to actively want the American auto companies to die, and the Democrat-supporting UAW with it, impact on regular people and the economy be damned.

First off all, it's not a "bail out" it is a loan.

Second, if you'd like to talk about "small businesses", how many small businesses would you see evaporate with no auto industry to supply goods to?

If the automotive industry is able to declare bankruptcy, they no longer have to honor contracts such as those with the UAW. A LOT of GOP fucktards are pushing for the big-three to fail precisely to dismantle organized labor.

These fucks don't give one shit about "saving the taxpayers money", they are chomping at the bit to once and for all destroy unions for good and for anyone to fall prey to their rhetoric and propoganda is very very dangerous.

These numbers are full of conflation and misdirection. They want you to imagine that the "big 3" equal the US auto industry. As others have said above, that's a complete falsehood. So all "auto industry = $X" claims above should be halved, at least. Second, it's not like the money spent on theirs cars will just magically disappear if they go under. Not at all, it will just go elsewhere in the economy. And where that money goes, so also go new jobs for those laid off. Yes, Michigan would be terribly hurt, but them's the breaks sometimes. I'd rather spend $5 billion to help re-employ those workers elsewhere, than $25 to keep them working for failing companies.

And let's not leave out the UAW union. Their greedy contract negotiations are another key piece to why the "big 3" are failing. Things like "Job Banks" that force the automakers to keep fired workers on 90% pay are insane. This has fixed labor costs for those automakers and helped to put them in the bind they're in. This lock-in of their labor costs is part of why it made more sense for them to keep pumping out SUVs with rising gas costs, than to re-tool or cut back production.

Change hurts, but this path is not sustainable and having the government take on another $25 billion in debt is only going to deepen and prolong the pain by causing either inflation or increased tax burden down the road (to pay the interest). Things must change. Let's rip the band-aid off and stop mortgaging our future for some vain hope of fixing things now.

NO MORE BAILOUTS! STOP SCREWING UP THE ECONOMY!!!

We need to chill out with Rotty. My grandfather was a part of the UAW, but it didn't stop General Motors from replacing him with a robot. Unions are good.. but they can get out of hand, and the fighting that they cause is ridiculous. Scabs, and picket crossers, to much bullshit. If you have to work you have to work.

>> ^Rotty:
What the Demoncrats want to do to America:
http://www.unionfacts.com/