A few moderate Democrats joined forces with Republican senators to kill the $14 billion bailout bill after the UAW refused to cede wage and benefits to match those of foreign carmakers like Toyota and Honda. But now it seems the White House may step in to help Big Auto with TARP funds.
Here’s what bothers me. Japanese companies, which for years have benefited from one-way deal by which they could sell cars in the U.S. while U.S. companies were stymied in selling cars and trucks in Japan, set up non-union plants in low-wage, low-education, right-to-work states where they can pay less wages and benefits to their workers. Of course, in Japan, these same companies recognize and work with unions, but not here, where they have a chance to undercut American firms that work with unions. Corker and these other great patriots want to allow these Japanese companies to dictate the wages and benefits that American companies pay their workers. It’s despicable. Imagine, for a moment, American companies being allow to operate in this manner in Japan or South Korea. It would not happen.
Yes, that is part of the problem — unfair trade practices between Japan and the U.S. But keep in mind that the Democrats control the House and the Senate and soon the White House! Why hasn’t even one Democrat draft legislation to reverse this unfair trade? All they are thinking about is where and how to give more government handout, filling the media and our heads with images of an unemployment apocalypse triggering Great Depression II. Putting it bluntly, Democrats control the federal government, but they are not leading the nation.
Put it this way. What we have learned from the economics of the Great Depression is that in order to end the spiral of unemployment, government has to throw money at companies and consumers. It should be trying to raise wages, not lower them. The Wall Street bailout was a fiasco, but it was probably better than nothing. And the auto bailout was considerably better thought-out. Now there is a good prospect that two of the Big Three will fail, jeopardizing, perhaps, as many as a million jobs. That’s exactly the kind of thing that Americans should not be doing. But don’t tell that to those great patriots Corker, DeMint, or Shelby. They know better.
Anyone with basic understanding of capitalism and the fundamental economic principle of supply and demand would know Judis’s thinking is flawed. Instead of the government throwing money, how about just not taking as much in taxes to let the companies and consumers decide what to do with it? Instead of trying to legislate acceptable wages, why not just let the market decide? The Great Depression was prolonged because of government intervention. The government should just get out of the way — Americans have always found a way to recover and thrive without handouts!
