Posted on 11/11/2008 1:42:51 PM PST by Fred
WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she will push legislation next week to help the ailing auto industry.
"I am confident Congress can consider emergency assistance legislation next week during a lame-duck session, and I hope the Bush Administration would support it," the California Democrat said in a statement.
Rep. Pelosi said she tapped House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) to craft legislation that would give the industry "limited" assistance under the recently enacted Troubled Asset Relief Program.
"In order to prevent the failure of one or more of the major American automobile manufacturers, which would have a devastating impact on our economy, particularly on the men and women who work in that industry, Congress and the Bush Administration must take immediate action," she said.
The speaker added the assistance would be conditioned on limits on executive pay, rigorous independent oversight and other taxpayer protections "to ensure that any companies that benefit from this assistance -- and not the taxpayers -- bear the full burden of repaying any costs that are incurred."
The speaker's decision comes a few days after General Motors Corp. warned it is rapidly running out of cash, and Ford Motor Co. announced its situation was only slightly better.
The plight of the industry has drawn attention from the White House and the incoming Obama administration. Last week, President-elect Barack Obama prodded the Bush administration to do more to help the industry, and on Monday, he raised the issue with President George W. Bush in an Oval Office conversation meant to underscore a smooth transition of power.
Before adjourning for the elections, Congress passed legislation providing for $25 billion in government-backed loans to the auto makers to prod them to retool their factories to make more efficient vehicles.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
How much do the guys in the job bank get per hour?
2-3 times the national averages.
If they cut wages to national average figures, the auto companies would be the most profitable big companies in America.
The unions sucked them dry & wrecked them - cut them in half, drove the remainder to bankruptcy - and now they want more.
Walk off a bridge...
No bailout, until after restructuring of deals with unions.
Are you saying that GM would amount to a subprime loan?
Now where have I heard about problems with subprime loans?
RE ‘This auto deal is probably already a done deal.’
You have reason to be bitter and expect the worst but the election with house republicans being tricked into the financial bailout losing seats tells me that democrats will have to go it alone this time. I would guess republicans are deeply bitter at democats, Bush and McCain, like WE have been for a while. I am saying we may have a smaller party but more principled, how much?? Time will tell.
If GM goes under - perhaps. The bridge loan does not require the government to cover pension or anything like that. GM merely wants a chance to survive the credit meltdown which those who have already been bailed out caused-in between taking their expensive trips and shafting their stock holders of course.
The treasury would turn a profit, bondholders would get hurt but no more than they already think they are, existing stockholders would be wiped out but the anyone brave enough to be a new one would be richly rewarded in the long run for helping save the American auto industry, and the UAW would only give up pipe dreams, while they'd all keep decent jobs paying a fair rather than an obscene wage.
I did say, if they were business-like. Expect them instead to just give $100 billion to the industry, which will just give it to the existing UAW vampires and let the companies die two years from now anyway.
Right. They’ll dump the healthcare on the government later on. I honestly don’t believe the union ever intended to manage it.
Perhaps, however I promise you that if millions of people are thrown out of work with no health care and no real job prospects, we will have it much sooner. Large Job losses will lead to socialism. It’s ironic that trade policies favored by mostly conservatives(Dems are wish washy on trade)have lead to massive job losses in the Mid West and more to .This will certainly usher in a new era of socialism.
Maybe you should multiply the wage and benefit packages of the rank and file worker by the number of workers, and then multiply the salary and benefit packages of CEO’s by the number of CEO’s, and then look for problems.
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