Mr. Kotter! Mr. Kotter! I have a question.
posted by The Vidiot @ 3:44 PM Permalink
Why aren't
these guys bailing out the car companies?
Exxon Mobil Corp. on Friday reported a profit of $45.2 billion for 2008, breaking its own record for a U.S. company, even as its fourth-quarter earnings fell 33 percent from a year ago.
I mean, their PROFIT is almost double what the car companies asked for, no? And wouldn't it be in their best interest to make sure cars are produced so their oil is used?
I'm not rocket scientist, but that seems to make sense to me.
Labels: automakers, bailouts, corporate greed
Wow.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:44 AM Permalink
The lame-duck republicans managed to
block the auto industry bailout. I did not think that would happen. I assumed that some sort of lame-assed compromise would be reached and everyone would be disappointed... just like always.
I had mixed feelings about the bailout. On one hand, I figured, let the f-ckers fail. They f-cked up. They made really bad decisions. They did a piss-poor job of keeping up with the technology. They're dinosaurs. They should be extinct. On the other hand though, there's all the people -- the employees, the suppliers, and the distributers -- that will lose their jobs.
What happens now? Well, short term, the market will probably tank today. I don't think that even the plunge protection team will be able to save today. Long term, who knows. A LOT of folks will be out of a job. If I had any advice to give, it would be for those workers to pull together, democratically come up with a newer and better business plan than those lame-assed corpororate monkeys, take over the factories and do it themselves. Kind of like
they're doing in Argentina. That's the only way I see out of this mess; having the workers own the means of production.
May you live in interesting times...
Labels: automakers, bailouts, Economy
