I think that the fact the taxpayers once again have to bail out corporations is sickening. However if we don't the trickle down could be worse then Wall Street. With Detroit and the big 3 we are dealing with all the mom and pop shops that go along with it, you know the people in the neighborhoods who have business that are supported by the workers, the independent truckers, the dealerships and their neighborhoods, the people who assemble components across the country and countless more people whose welfare depend on the big 3.
In bailing out the big 3 I think the American taxpayer has the right and duty to demand concessions from them. Something that should have been done with Wall Street and the insurance companies yet wasn't.
The major concessions I see are;The current executive officers resign or are let go and any golden parachutes or just plain retirement does not apply. They are one cause of the collapse and should not be paid let alone rewarded for their part in it. Let the lawyers scream foul who cares there isn't any money in the corporations to pay the golden parachutes so we don't bail them and they don't get paid in any case. Or is there and we are just not being told there is money for it?
Any new contracts for the new executives needs to be approved by congress and does not include golden parachutes but rather a pre-nuptial of sorts that if the company doesn't make a profit they get nothing but their salaries.
Unions have to get real. They have killed the golden goose with their demands. The pay and benefit scale is so out of touch with reality it needs to be cut in 1/2 at a minimum. If they don't like too bad. We don't bail them out. A job and a paycheck in the day and age is something to be treasured even if it isn't what their egos tell them they're worth. How many other Americans lost jobs because of the greed of the auto union by forcing companies to find lower priced labor out of America. The unions didn't care about that as long as they kept their jobs. Remember in bailing them out and letting them keep their jobs all of us taxpayers are going to take a pay cut. So why should we take one and not them?
Congress better stand up for America and do away with these free trade treaties with other countries. In very simple terms duties, tariffs and taxes placed on goods coming into a country are put there to bring the cost of the import up to what the cost is for the same product made in the country doing the importing, making for a level playing field. Certain countries use these duties to increase the price of the imported product to protect their home economies. Free trade does not protect the country whose standard of living is high and costs associated with it's products are higher. It just means that a country that produces something for $5 that costs $8 to make in the US will put the US workers who make that product out of jobs. Maybe in good times they may work that out somehow, right now America itself is on the line and that's what I care about. I don't care about China, Brazil, Germany, Spain, anywhere else I'm an American and I care about America. When we are back on our feet then we can help again until then sorry the piggy bank is broke.
So we need to contact our legislators and tell them America comes first and if they don't want to listen and put other countries first then their jobs will go to someone else next election no matter what party they belong to, America is more important then the Republicans or Democrats. So get those letters and emails going.
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