Normal for the auto industry perhaps.....

Id love to take June and December off while getting paid. Makes that 30/hr look a little different if one factors in the actual time worked. ;)

Become a professor then.

And C.A.R says that 40-59% will have their job back by 2011, course that means there's still over a million out of work collecting benefits, as well as all of the retired workers who lose their pension, that we'll be paying for.

or school teacher. ;)

or we could continue paying them billions and billions of dollars to subsidize their losses. Perhaps we should just put huge tariffs on foreign auto imports so that we dont have to change a thing and pass the cost on to american people while we're at it. :)


This isnt a short term gig - the Big 3 have been pretty good at losing money well before the credit crunch and house bubble.


BTW: Im not alone in my belief that people dont support a bailout of the auto industry. Heck, > 1/2 of our reps voted against the bailout plan for them - and that plan was only to hold them over til Q1.

We haven't paid anything yet, and if they close it definitely will cost money, if it's a loan, and they can restructure their labor costs I think they can make it. But restructuring their labor will move the retires over to the federal program (or at least I believe it will). So that's going to be a wash.

The problem is that people in congress who actually see their financial statements and do this for a daily basis now-a-days dont believe they can "make it."

In addition, the UAW has already said they wont take a pay cut cause it isnt their fault. Not sure how they get labor under control when their labor pool says no.

You are getting the auto industry confused with AIG

lol, you think the people in congress are qualified to read a financial statement, let alone understand the Auto Ind, most of them are lawyers!

Again, much of the problem is legacy cost. We are either going to let legacy cost put them out of business, possibly for good, or we're going to have to let them out of their labor contracts. In either case the tax payer is going to be hit with much of the legacy costs. Wouldn't you rather those 2-3 million keep working to pay some of those taxes?

1) Im guessing that a lawyer (one who's been through post HS education for 6-7 years) who has managed to garner enough funds to get themselves into high levels of the government is more than able to read and understand a financial statement. We arent talking about the sub 80IQ "joe sixpacks" here. In addition, I assume the days and days worth of meetings going over such things as the Big-3's finances are a little more than reading a couple CNN articles.

2) Im guessing the cost of those employees on medicare would be much less than the "primo" benefits they are currently getting. :) Sure, they will take a drop in their benefits, but sometimes life takes a shit on people...