Economy...

Economy....

Yeah, your old pal Big Stupid Tommy's found himself a little worried about the economy, like a number of folks. He's not going to stand up on a soap box too much, at 2:47 in the Ay Em...

I'm in a weird place with this auto maker's buyout. By and large, he's a laissez faire type of gentleman, who believes that if your company fails due to the condition of the market and your inability to cope...well, that's how the cookie crumbles.

Also, your old pal is anti-union.

Maybe I get that from my grandfather, who was mean as a snake, but smart enough to say he wasn't going to pay in a percentage chunk of his salary to get people to do for him what he could do as easily for himself by saving his money...his reasoning was that he'd seen bad times, where people worked for cents a day, who'd gotten mangled by machinery and had lives ruined...and once we were past that as a way of the working world, we weren't in a bad place at all.

According to Mom, he didn't last on a lot of jobs, either, due to his stance.

I should say that your old pal's view on unions is also biased by professional sports unions, which I daresay are obsolete, if ever they were useful. If you're making 7 figures, your old pal Tommy says you need to make-do...a million dollar salary pretty much gives you the means to walk away from any position in which you feel mistreated. And trust me...I'd play baseball or football (or pinochle or dominoes or competitive full-tackle leapfrog) for the mid 5-figures that I'm making now.

Which kinda leads me back to the whole Auto Bailout thing. Again, I'm not for it in and of itself.

However...when you read that the mitigating factor in the whole deal was the United Auto Workers refusing to accede to salary cuts...

Again. Let's step back. A google search brought up an impressive array of numbers...the average Auto Worker Salary, depending on whom you ask, is one that ranges from $44 to $81 an hour...I'm not sure where these numbers come from, and truth be told, it's going to take a little more research. But let me whip a little math based just on that lowest figure....

40 x 44= $1760 a week.
1760 x 52 = 91520 a year

Your old pal Tommy looks at that number and will tell you a.) he makes quite a bit less than that. Less than half, if you want to have God's honest truth. And b.) He's not rolling in the dough, but he's got a roof over his head, health insurance and (importantly) a little bit of savings and (importantlyer): pretty decent prospects that his job will continue into the future.

Barring, of course, some neglectful piece of Tommy Stupidity which might seem him fired...but at the end of the day, that one will be in my lap, and nobody else's.

I didn't mean to get up on a soapbox....but my point is this.

I don't agree with throwing huge sums of cash to the automakers (or the banks or anybody who's made business decisions that didn't turn out flowers and butterflies). But, with the huge stake the Auto Makers have in the economy, in terms of produced goods and the huge numbers of people they employ (and apparently throw large amounts of cash to), it might not have been a bad idea to try a little something.

Why? The automakers aren't beholden to us. I hate to say it. There's no loyalty there. And aside from building employee loyalty, there's no real reason to keep paying people $44 (or 73, or 81) dollars an hour, if you've got Jose down in Teguciculpa, Mexico who will do the same job for an eighth (or tenth or thirteenth or twentieth) of that salary.

Apparently Tommy's pissed at the world at the witching hour.

To the autoworkers? Way I see it? 91,000 a year > 0 a year.

I dunno how many people work in the auto industry, to get that average salary. But let's say A million. Just for conversation sake...

To the lawmakers? $91,000,000,000 in the economy, buying houses and cars and gasoline and Happy Meals and Schlitz Malt Liquor and Juggs Magazines?

That much better than having to throw those folks unemployment benefits out of the government pocket.

So. Your old pal Tommy's torn. See, I want all the people at Juggs Magazine to keep their jobs, but I don't want my tax dollars to go for all of Detroit to be able to afford their monthly copy. See what I'm saying?

Next time I'll return to fart jokes and whatnot. I figure I'll field 9 million (or, at least 1, judging from my plummeting reader count) comment telling me how stupid I am and how I might as well have assholes for eyes for my views on the world....

Until then....