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AUTOMAKERS' CRISIS * USA - Commentary: Washington's whipping boys
Indeed, we know there's a side door, too, reserved for the country's lower castes, which apparently now includes American automakers and anyone remotely linked to them
Detroit,Mich,USA -The Detroit News, by Amber Arellano -December 8, 2008: -- If the Midwest hadn't realized before there was a front and back door to Congress, we know now... Just call us the whipping boys of Washington's anti-bail-out backlash... While Wall Street was welcomed into the front door on a Sunday night and served a bail-out with hot cocoa, Michigan's auto chiefs have been publicly humiliated before the national press so Congress and the Bush administration can show voters they're finally holding someone accountable for this disaster of an era... While Wall Street's 1990s orgy of deregulation wrecks the economy and the Manhattan Brooks Brothers set gets a true bail-out of more than $170 billion, the Detroit Three automakers beg for a loan -- and get mocked as if they're janitors at an arrogant New Jersey country club... The United Auto Workers slash their wages down to $14 an hour -- little more than McDonald's wages -- and humbly prostrate themselves in front of the altar of Beltway egos... What did Wall Street sacrifice? A few brokers and Starbuck's mochacinnos... Wall Street needed no plan. No hearings. No apology. No oversight. No proof of its importance to national security... Wall Street didn't have to leave its comfy New York City skyrise perch, while Detroit has had to succumb to scoldings from fools such as Sen. Richard Shelby... Shelby represents Alabama, one of the most federally subsidized, bailed-out states in the union for the last 150 years. Michigan has been a sender state in taxes -- meaning we send far more to the feds than we get back -- and has helped fund endless jump-starts in economic development in less developed states such as Alabama for most of the last century... And he's busting our chops about a temporary loan? ... Excuse Mr. Shelby, but you should be praying for Detroit's survival. Somebody's gotta pay for your subsidies! ... It's tougher to do what true leaders do: look out for everyone with equal respect and investment, taking care to leave no one region or group jobless and hungry in a ruthless global world... (Cartoon)Labels: automakers' crisis
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