I can't believe it, but Joe Scarborough was defending the auto workers!

[LittleApple81]

And did a pretty job of it with Gregory a minute ago. He agreed with Bernie Frank's statement about bailing out the fat cats with the white collar jobs in Wall Street and not the blue collar workers in the automobile industry. Miracles never cease!

[Turbineguy]

1. Yes, it does seem strange

I remember when Pat Buchanan started sounding like a reasonable person. It's all relative.

[Indiana_Dem]

2. It's probably because he knows it will ultimately cost taxpayers more

if they don't bail them out. If they are allowed to go under the taxpayer will still pay through unemployment, re-training of displaced workers, pensions that will be handled by the government, and then by all of the jobs lost that are connected to the auto industry! Then the retail sales will plummet....just a downward spiral any way you go.

[SecularisX]

4. So, can I propose something?

Now, I may get down and dirty and run some numbers on this over the next couple of days (it is sort of my job after all), but the $200bn cost that I've heard thrown around if we let Detroit go through bankruptcy seems like a red herring to me.

I think that $200bn could easily be recouped in 5-10 years if we let them fail and allowed a lean, competitive auto industry to rise from the ashes of the (you have to admit) failed businesses that currently exist. A well-managed bankruptcy would help a great deal.

Look, I know a fair amount about these companies and a bit more about finance. I truly believe that they need on the order of $150bn just to weather the current economic storm before they return to their floundering ways in an improving economic climate. Why not spend that $150bn helping the workers stay afloat while letting the industry reorganize and re-energize?

We can do this right if folks recognize that we need radical change in the auto industry, and that now is as good a time as any if the effort is supported by smart policy decisions.

Disclaimer: I am not a troll, a thug, or a fat cat. I am just a guy who voted for Obama and watches these companies closely on a daily basis for a living.

[Indiana_Dem]

5. So you're saying to let them go under--

but use 200bn to help the people who lose their jobs? I've also learned since my last post that it's expensive to file Ch11 and GM could technically find it easier to file CH11 reorganization with the 25mil than to change without it? I also forgot to note that my husband has gone through a meat packing plant that filed Ch11 reorganization--got his wages and benefits cut in half. He had a job for about 10 years longer but the place was ultimately sold, then they failed and then reopened non-union. Now Tysons owns the place and they have allowed the UFCW back in but the workers have had it nowhere near as good as the days in the 70s. (Long-story-short). Anyway, my spouse lost his job after 23 there in the early 1990s. Hired at another factory where they shut the doors about 3 years ago. He's now a custodian at a high school at 61 years old making more money than he ever made at the factories. Paying all those union dues never got him anywhere, I hate to say. It's a good concept but even they become as corrupt as the businesses sometimes.

Chapter 11 IS reorganization, right?

[truedelphi]

3. I think that Scarborough went down to NO during Katrina and got

A small taste of what it was like down there. He ignored the Network guidelines and reported what he saw and what others experienced.

SO he has loosened up somewhat on certain issues, though certainly not enough of them.