Michelle Moquin's "A day in the life of…"

I haven’t talked about the bailout for weeks or has it been months? No matter, it is on my mind today and big time….All I can say is every time I think about it in passing, I get pissed off. Just where is all of this bailout money going?  Where is the accountability here? And why before they gave Wall Street billions did they not demand accountability of all this money; the money that we the tax payers are going to have to fork out for who knows how long? I mean billions and billions of dollars….and where is it all going, and what for?  

Now the Big 3: GM and those ‘other two’ want to be bailed out too. I feel for the Big 3 – no, not the Big wigs who are taking $1 salary for the year -Big deal. If the ‘ceos’ and the ‘coos’ and the ‘c-what-mess-you’ve-created-by-your-greeds’, don’t have a dime to fall back on after making millions over the years…well then tough luck Big guy. Oh..Boo hoo. I mean isn’t that what many are saying to those foreclosing on their homes? 

No, I feel for the 3 million employees around the country who are stuck in the middle of it all. They are the everyday worker working for the Big 3. They had no choice when working what kind of cars they were hired to build. If their job was to build Hummers for GM, then they were gonna build Hummers for GM. No you can’t be angry at the blue collars, the ones who shower after work. (I just love that and no, I can’t claim that line :) No it is those sparkly clean shower-before-you-work, white collars who need a little ass kicking. 

And isn’t it just interesting that GM is only worth $3 billion and yet they are asking for a whopping $18 Billion! Does this make sense? What idiot would loan a company way more than it is worth? Ah…our present powers that be.  If our government doesn’t see this as a bad business move then I don’t know what is.

Gee, I wish I could negotiate such a deal with my business. Do you think if I went to the bank and said that my company was only worth a certain amount but that I was asking for them to loan me 6 times what my company was worth, they would give it to me? Yeah, maybe if I bent over, lifted my skirt, and stuck my ass out…but somehow I don’t think GM is pulling down their pants and bending over. Nope, I wouldn’t get the loan – they would look at me like I was crazy. And if they gave it to me I would think they were. But hey, I’d be stupid to say no. Bottom line: Our government is considering giving it to the Big 3: GM and those ‘other two’.  

So…what exactly do they need $18 billion for if they are only worth 3? Do ya think they are trying to cover up their fuck ups from the past decade plus, where they were losing billions on the manufacturing of gas-guzzlers? GM has never been known for building small fuel efficient cars – Nope, they have been going down for a long time but that didn’t stop them from building these tanks even when overseas car companies were moving in and successfully chipping away at their market share. 

Nope…they continued in spite of the rising gas prices, and the fact that their vehicles are largely responsible for our decaying atmosphere and the melting of our polar ice caps.  But who cares? Hmmm…Do you suppose they were getting their cut from the oil companies?  Or support from the Bush boys?….remember Bush’s tax break for SUV’s? As usual greed took over.

So GM, Chrysler, and Ford, (the ‘other two’), are asking for a total of $34 billion. What exactly is this $34 Billion going towards?  I mean this is $34,000 million! A shitload of money when you break it down into millions. I want to know – don’t you? And initially they asked for $25 billion! – Hell, they don’t even know what they truly need to get them out of the hole that they dug and buried themselves in. Again, if I went to a bank and requested a certain amount and then up’d it, they would think, ‘Hmm…this person’s kinda stupid,’ and I would probably, once again, be denied a loan. I don’t know about you but sometimes I feel the larger the company grows and the more money they make, the less responsible, accountable, and the more dim-witted they become. Remember when anonz said he was drunk on money? Well, these Big 3 have been guzzling down the Big bucks and it has gone to their Big heads in a Bad way.

So..what to do? 

Michael Moore was on MSNBC last night giving his two and I have to say, I like his proposal. Michael says, ‘This great, vast manufacturing network can redeem itself by building mass transit and electric/hybrid cars, and the kind of transportation we need for the 21st century.’ Here’s his plan – You tell me what you think. 

1. Transporting Americans is and should be one of the most important functions our government must address. And because we are facing a massive economic, energy and environmental crisis, the new president and Congress must do what Franklin Roosevelt did when he was faced with a crisis (and ordered the auto industry to stop building cars and instead build tanks and planes): The Big 3 are, from this point forward, to build only cars that are not primarily dependent on oil and, more importantly to build trains, buses, subways and light rail (a corresponding public works project across the country will build the rail lines and tracks). This will not only save jobs, but create millions of new ones.
2. You could buy ALL the common shares of stock in General Motors for less than $3 billion. Why should we give GM $18 billion or $25 billion or anything? Take the money and buy the company! (You’re going to demand collateral anyway if you give them the “loan,” and because we know they will default on that loan, you’re going to own the company in the end as it is. So why wait? Just buy them out now.)
3. None of us want government officials running a car company, but there are some very smart transportation geniuses who could be hired to do this. We need a Marshall Plan to switch us off oil-dependent vehicles and get us into the 21st century.

Hey, I think he has a good plan. In the 70′s, the national rail system was going down big time when the government stepped in and took over. A decade later it was a win win for all. The rail system was turning a profit so the government returned it to private/public hands, and got a couple billion dollars put back in the treasury. Cool.

The same thing could happen here; saving our industrial infrastructure as well as millions of jobs and create more jobs in the process. On the other hand GM says that if our government gave them 18 billion now, they would in turn eliminate 20,000 jobs. Ah…Hello – wake up! We are in a recession here – we need to create jobs, not eliminate them. Did I mention dim-witted? Geez…where is the logic?  How did these people rise to these positions? They need to be canned. Just my two…how about yours? Blog me.

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Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: Your Bad Ass Bitch Editor

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