Yeah, ok, let's blame the economy:

UAW leader says blame economy for Detroit 3 woes



A little bit self-serving. Actually a lot self-serving.

I don't see a need for Goldfinger to defend the wages and benefits his men and women earn. If your employer is willing to make a king out of you, why would you turn that down? And any union that looked out for anyone but their own members and their interests is not a union you want. The Big 3 as employers are already looking out for themselves and have vast resources to do that. The UAW does that for their own members... and there is nothing wrong with that.

Having said that, it's a bit disingenuous to suggest or ignore that high wages and benefits are not a huge factor in causing the woes of the Big 3. No one questions that employee wages and benefits are a huge factor.

What people like Goldfinger should be doing is pointing out that the wage/benefit issue is SOLELY the blame of Big 3 management. They agreed to pay them, no one forced them to. People like Goldfinger should just put it starkly and simply: how many of YOU people would turn down better pay and/or benefits from your employer? How many of YOU people have hesitated for a second to worry about the present and future health of your employer when they shoved a raise in your face? And if your employer goes belly-up because it couldn't manage its financial concerns, how exactly is that YOUR problem?

And think about this: the Big 3 management made a conscious decision to offer more generous retirement benefits in lieu of better pay just so that their tough financial decisions could be put off until later.... later meaning now. Had the Big 3 dealt with those costs in the past, they wouldn't be such an issue now.

One of the Big 3 is going to go belly up, that much seems certain. And money's on Chrysler being that guy (hard to believe that Cerberus though they could make money off buying Chrysler a year ago, did they actually think things would get better for them?).

One of them should go down and the government should not front any of them a dime to help. Does anyone remember how the airlines got all those loan guarantees after 9/11 and then what happened? United went bankrupt anyway. Government loans to any of the Big 3 will just end up like what happened after guaranteeing loans to the airlines after 9/11: benefiting shareholders.

Two words for those guys: fuck you. Too bad, your investment went south, that is risk you take when you place the gambling game called common stock.

Nope. Give the Big 3 money and they will be back again in six months, or they will make sure their executives are comp'd well and their shareholders get a chance to sell to some other sucker, then declare bankruptcy.

Not a dime.