I'd be all for a bailout of the Big 2.5.  My house is in Michigan, and I'm rarin' to get the Hell out of here, so any short-term bump to the state economy would be to my advantage.  In fact, if it does happen I recommend anyone with the opportunity take that same advantage that I plan to take.

The great big things that would actually help the Detroit auto industry aren't even under discussion: loosening of CAFE standards, and busting the UAW with right-to-work (preferably at the national level).  Any outpouring of Fed funds (i.e. money from the pockets of hundreds of millions of Americans that had nothing to do with the crapping out of Ford, GM, and Chrysler*) without impossible alteration of the regulatory environment or the way Detroit does business would be the equivalent of setting the money on fire.

UAW and management walked into this poopstorm hand in hand, with the expectation that the good times for Detroit would never end.  Neither of them has any chance of fixing this now without the binding arbitration of Chaper 11 bankruptcy.  Without UAW holding management's hand in a death grip, we might not have got to this point.  Look around on the blogs right now, and find plenty of UAW astroturf.  Sentiment against them is growing, and they're waging the same sort of PR war that Axelrod waged on behalf of Obama during the election.

If we're very, very lucky, DC democrats will crap on Michigan.  Most of them have nothing to lose by doing so (and plenty to gain in their home states by being "against the bailout"), and there's already a good chance that Dingell will lose his commitee headship.  We'll see how this plays out, I suppose.

*for limited meanings of the word "Chrysler"

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 06:43 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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