Race To The Bottom

The former head of Obama's auto task force, Steven Rattner, while speaking at a luncheon in Detroit, expressed that he wished he would have made the UAW sacrifice more.

Rattner also mentioned, "Friends on Wall Street were concerned by GM's earnings and communications with the market."

The three-tiered pay structure has the highest 900 workers making $29 an hour, $16 for those 200 workers in the middle, and $9 for those subcontracted at the bottom. Which means that the top worker has gross earnings somewhere near $60,000 per year; the middle worker somewhere near $33,000; and the bottom somewhere near $19,000.  

The article goes on to note that GM's North American division posted profits of $5.7 billion in the past nine months of this year. So, even though the workers are not making lavish amounts and the company is profiting handsomely, the Wall Street and Republican mindset is on full display - the rich deserve more, while the workers should sacrifice more.

This is class warfare people. Wake up! 

Stay Classy, GM

Whether or not this was just a public relations position Fritz Henderson - GM CEO - was delivering, he took a classy stance with Glenn Beck regarding the auto industry and the UAW. [Paraphrasing] "They [the UAW] have been more a part of the solution than part of the problem." All the while Glenn Beck attempts baiting Henderson and smearing the unions. And, Glenn's closing admonition classically encapsulates the expanse of Beck's boundless stupidity.

Las Cucarachas

Here is an impassioned, well-written artile by John Drew, of UAW, about the travesty of taxpayers bailing out Chrysler - while they are now planning on building a new plant in Mexico, yet closing down the plant in Kenosha.

But this is exactly why the deal went through. American workers had to be expendable, production had to be allowed to use new cheaper (Mexican) labor. All in the name of competitiveness and cost reduction. Somehow, executive salaries are never part of this restructuring.

The middle-class American worker must continue to make sacrifices so that hedge fund managers and bankers don't have to.

Corrections to the $70-Per-Hour Myth

Class warfare is alive and well. And what better time for it to rear it's ugly head -- when we're teetering on a depression. But, then again, if you were the financial wizards, free marketeers, and laissez faire capitalists whom had boosted, brokered, and gotten us into this mess, you'd want to find a scapegoat too. Well, who better to blame than those damn unionized workers. Luckily, there are still a few good journalists out there to squash such nonsense.

Detroit's $70-an-hour auto worker
Do Autoworkers Make $70 Per Hour?
$70 per hour meme
Countdown's Worst Person in the World
Rachel Maddow & Ron Gettlefinger of UAW
Rachel Maddow Dissects White Collar V. Blue Collar Bailouts
Unions Being Scapegoated

Let's also take a look at what the executives are making.

Executive Excess 2008
Executive Incentives
Executive Pay (Business Week)
Executive Pay (Economic Policy Institute)
Executive Pay (PBS)
Executive Pay (NY Times)
Executive Pay News
Executive PayWatch (AFL-CIO)
Five Lousy CEOs Who Get Fabulous Pay
My Big Fat CEO Paycheck
Pay Without Performance

Now, for some perspective, let's look at inequality in the United States.

By The Numbers

And, some basic income numbers (obtained from the Census Bureau).
Percentage of the population & income:
30% earning under $25,000
55% earning under $50,000
75% earning under $75,000
85% earning under $100,000
95% earning under $150,000

An attempt was made here to conceptualize this issue and present it with a bit more breadth than it is being given by the mainstream media. We can see the problem isn't that workers are making extraordinary sums of money and putting their employers at a competitive disadvantage. The problem is the greed of executives, their mismanagement, and their unwavering obsession with short-term gains and share price manipulation, rather than the long-term sustainability of their companies.

But this is class warfare, never mind the truth. I'm off to Washington in my private jet to ask for a bailout. Damn those unions!