Thursday, November 20, 2008

The time has come...


...the walrus said, ‘To talk of many things: of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings. ...
Bail-outs. 
Seems like something a child would do at the beach or Gilligan on his boat. Bail out. These days there is another meaning. Numbers so big that there is really no reason to even type them, that is the amount of money that has been given over to these " bailouts" . And I have no idea if they are a good thing or a bad thing, I am going to hunker down in my little Shire and hope beyond hope that the powers that be there tossing around those 900 or so billion have the worlds best interests at heart. At this point, what else , really, can we do?
BUT, what I do see, are lots and lots and lots ( and lots) of suits and ties walking out with all this cash. Just back the truck up to any Wall Street Bank you pick and dump a ton or two of money in the lobby.  It seemed that Congress was all about this, " Save the Yuppie" was the chat of the day. A brighter day would follow.
Then it came down to  time to do something for the working man, the guy making cars in Detroit , throw him a Lehman Brothers / AIG life line . But the money all dried up. Let the big three go under, they have been making the wrong cars for years and years . " Why were they not making tiny electric cars all along" Because it was so obvious to everyone who has been to a mall in the last year or two that tiny cars are JUST what everyone wants.
And now bailing out the Auto Industry is becoming a civil war re-dux:
"Sen. Jeff Sessions, R- Ala., told reporters Wednesday, “I can not imagine a real justification for a worker in Alabama who does not have any health insurance at his company to be taxed to maintain a Cadillac health care plan for somebody in Detroit.”
But this guy did want to bail out the wall street stock broker who took home a 50 million dollar bonus last year. No one is talking about the fact that IF the big three , or any one of them, files a chapter 11 or 13 bankruptcy, that - I think - will let them null and void all previous union contracts and start from zero. You KNOW that no re-tiree, who now depends on that promise for health insurance will get to keep it. SO.. they will turn to the Federal Government for it. Pay up front, save the jobs, or pay later. 
This is just all TOO BIG OF A MESS for me to wrap my brain around. I need something pretty....

1 comment:

Neil Houghton said...

I thinks this grounds for divorce.