They would rather see American industry crumble than cooperate. What manner of persons have been elected to whom cooperation is worse than death. Who do they serve?

One thing is for sure, they are the ones who brought us to this point and not anyone else.

Once again they prove they will not be wrong, these economic jihadists…not so different from suicide bombers albeit in the economic sense. They will bring everything down if they cannot have their way.

They wanted it so bad that they were willing to send our economy further into the crapper (assuming, of course, they hadn’t gotten a wink from the White House, so they knew Bush/Paulson would fold on their resistance to using TARP $. They might have.)

It wasn’t really about numbers; there was no number that would have worked. The senators in question wouldn’t have agreed to the bill even if the UAW had volunteered to work for $1 a year and give the senators daily foot rubs. The senators would have demanded something, anything, that the UAW couldn’t agree to (coconut oil, or a different time for the foot rubs each day, or something) just to have the excuse to blame the breakdown on the union.

And, of course, set the Democrats up as stooges in the thrall of the unreasonable union for wanting to get the deal done. Why else would the Democrats be supporting such an “unreasonable” union position, if not because of the UAW’s campaign contributions? It’s a two-fer.

These senators aren’t actually interested in governance; they care less for the effects of what they do in the real world than for the effects it has in the kabuki power rituals and ideological dance of the Senate.

I hope Barack, being the smart guy I take him to be, is prepared for the fact that, for all that he might want to be post-partisan and pragmatic, there are still a bunch of bomb-throwers in the GOP who will be happy to derail any reasonable legislation, for ideological purity or just for the fun of it.

“I’d be interested to know exactly how much of the $25,000 I paid for my car actually went to the plant workers who assembled it. ”

Mrs. W, I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked in three different assembly plants over my 23+ year career. The answer to your question is: it depends.

Let me explain

On average, a domestic vehicle requires 22-32 hours of direct assembly labor to produce. That range is a consequence of the different content and complexity in vehicles, i.e. power windows or not, power locks or not, type of transmission, type of engine, etc. Pickup trucks and small cars tend toward the lower end, while complicated sports/luxury cars are more labor intensive. Add to that direct labor about 3-4 hours of indirect labor for maintenance, material and support functions.

Little known fact: the gap between domestic and import labor content has been narrowing for the last 20 years so that it takes GM about the same amount of labor to build a Malibu as it does for Toyota to build a Corolla, with the same or better fit, finish and quality.

Three women at coffee break– lefty me, middle-of-the-road Lucille (an Obama admirer and Bill Clinton despiser), and righty Angie (well-intentioned but brainwashed).

Lucille: “Well, the auto makers aren’t getting that bailout they wanted.”

Angie: “It’s because the workers refused to give anything up.”

Me: “No, Angie, it’s because the Republicans played bait-and-switch with the union. [I proceed to relate the Stabenow version of negotiations. Angie looks very surprised.] And besides, it’s all a question of scale. If one CEO gives up his $6 million bonus, how many workers’ annual health-insurance premiums would that pay? A thousand?”

Lucille: “Think how we’dfeel if [sotto voce] the bosses here came and asked us all to take pay cuts–”

Me: “–Or to give up our health insurance benefit.”

Lucille: “But the union workers don’t need to make $70 an hour.”

[I correct Lucille's figures, and point out that the Toyota workers make about the same as a UAW worker for the Big Three.]

Angie: “But Toyota’s making cars that people want to buy.”

[Frequently there's no causal connection with Angie's observations. I've learned to take it in stride, because in this manner she often wins my arguments for me.]

Me: “Right… the Prius, which everyone wants right now, because it’s fuel-efficient. Detroit has to stop making driveable buildings with four tires that get three miles to the gallon.” [A subtle dig at Angie, who only ever drives big SUVs.]

Lucille: “So why do we hear that it’s all the union’s fault?”

Me: “Well, where do you get your news? [A longstanding rhetorical point which the others need not answer, for I know that Lucille watches CBS and listens to Paul Harvey, and Angie watches Fox and listens to Rush.] The Republicans in Congress see this as their chance to do some union-busting, so they’re selling it that way. And if the news you listen to is just promoting their agenda, you won’t have the facts.”

Lucille agrees with this observation, I suspect because Katie Couric has begun to grate on her nerves. But it’s time for us to return noses to grindstone, so the discussion ends.

Moral of the story? The average cubicle dweller in Nebraska is more sympathetic to the UAW than you’d think. The trend in our thinking is toward working-class solidarity; in the last three months, the scales have fallen from many people’s eyes.

Oh, and Moral #2– someone needs to send us a big box of Russell Stover chocolates, stat, before we start throwing punches.

Rubbish and rot. It’s bad management combined with health-care costs that are choking GM.

The autoworkers at GM are part of this working class aristocracy, and hence their high cost is choking GM. Why should one working class person, such as an autoworker, make five times as much money as another working class person, such as a restaurant worker???

We’ve learned that the average GM autoworker makes just under $30 an hour. So you’re saying that workers should be paid $6 an hour (30 is 5 x 6)?

Republicans are betting against the US auto industry (which may be a smart bet) and forcing Democrats as a party to commit to save the industry. Leaving Dems up a creek if the indusry fails.

Bipartisan my ass.