[lbo-talk] U.S. auto sector socialized! WITBD?

Max B. Sawicky sawicky at verizon.net
Tue Apr 28 12:34:19 PDT 2009


During ClintonCare, the Admin tried to make a deal with the auto companies that entailed off-loading the retirees' costs to the Feds. Now the owners are out of the picture politically. With a new health care reform the retirees potentially come out whole. Don't know what "equity" anyone was referring to. Obviously the stock is kaput. Methinks a big health care reform would address the 'medigap' (gap between end of service and employer-paid coverage and eligibility for Medicare, for you young persons).

-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Eric Beck Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 1:12 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] U.S. auto sector socialized! WITBD?

On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 11:55 AM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> So with the UAW about to control 55% of Chrylser, and the U.S. gov
likely to
> take a majority interest in GM (with the UAW holding a large stake
as well),
> this means the effective socialization, at least in potential and/or
theory,
> of a large chunk of the U.S. auto sector. What does this mean? Does
anyone
> know what to do with it? Or is this just lemon socialism on a very
large
> scale? Has anyone thought about this?

Isn't this effectively what you've been advocating for for a couple of years at least?

Like the handing over of health care responsibilities to the UAW, I don't see how this can end well. The auto makers are, of course, deeply, deeply effed, and the unions have no idea how to run something this large and complicated. To run it well, they'll have to fuck their current employees and, even more, their retirees (in part, at least, because of their not advocating for single. If anything goes wrong, and lots will, the unions will take all the blame. I see no opportunities for anything decent here. ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk



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