Torture? No. War? No. Huge deficits? No?
How did George W. Bush earn one of Charlie Sykes' deep tunnel awards? Throw a lifeline to the Big Three. The winners? The UAW (although they are looking at making serious givebacks). The losers, in Sykesland? The taxpayer (who apparently would be "winners" if the U.S. auto sector tanked.
It's odd. Charlie seems to think that -- at least he claims to think -- that a modest sales tax increase or a sick day mandate would decimate jobs in Milwaukee.
But in his eyes an effort (imperfect, yes, but an effort) to prevent the destruction of potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs (though job loss in the the U.S. based auto sector will measure in the tens of thousands in the coming years even in a best-case scenario) in the midst of a recession is a shitty thing to do. (No, the Brawler does not agree with propping up zombie manufacturers for its own sake, but he doubts that's what the end game will look like in any event.)
Truly, Sykes boggles the mind.
Meanwhile, Dean Baker chronicles how the Washington Post (which, like most "mainstream elite media," in Sykes' parlance, has a deep anti-labor bias) revels in the prospect of UAW givebacks and screws up its numbers along the way.
Chapter XI will NOT dump all Detroit's UAW members on the street, homeless and starved.
It WILL force the B3 to rationalize their businesses. The UAW is hardly the only problem there, fella.
Creating a Gummint-owned auto industry is reminiscent of Peugeot. That worked, so long as you didn't have to actually DRIVE one of them.
Posted by: dad29 | December 22, 2008 at 07:25 PM