Failout

Let's see. The economy is melting down. A key segment of the US industrial economy is on the verge of dying. India and Pakistan are edging closer and closer to war, each side polishing its nukes. The Taliban is coming back, smarter than ever if not actually stronger.

But we have news stories like "The top five movies that make Jennifer Aniston cry."

Do I care what moves make Jennifer Aniston cry? NO!
Do I care what Jennifer Aniston thinks? NO!
Do I even know who the hell she is? NOT REALLY!
Do I care? NO!

On a different subject:

I don't understand what's gotten into Congress. As as of the last time anyone fessed up to me, the US government has hosed in excess of $300 billion on various financial companies, and usually without requiring the financial companies to do anything at all. We (meaning the taxpayers) had to pay to bail AIG out twice, and that was *after* their swanky retreat. I heard a radio report (since quashed, I imagine) to the effect that the various financial "institutions" (I guess it makes them sound more noble than "financial companies") had spent about a third of the bailout money on things like stockholder dividends and executive compensation. Not, in other words, what we naively expected them to spend it on.

Then the automakers come to Washington to ask for between $25 billion and $34 billion in credit, loan guarantees and direct loans, and all of a sudden Congressmen turn into Scrooges. "What? A bailout? We can't just give you money! What do you think you are, an investment bank? Get real!" So to get the bailout, the Congress lays increasingly bizarre conditions on the automakers. "You have to fire your CEO. You have to stop using the letter 'X' in car models. You have to reduce by one third the number of restrooms in your factories. We want to see at least forty thousand retirees be killed, skinned and recycled into cat food to reduce pension costs. You have to alter the universal gravitational coefficient."

Why can the US government hose money all over the banks, who produce nothing tangible, and not all over the carmakers, who at least produce a product that can be seen and felt and, in principle, exported? Is this some kind of bizarre discrimination against blue-collar workers? Or, even better, another manifestation of the government's fairly widely perceived hostility toward unions? Are banker types seen as intrinsically more worthy than line workers at a GM transmission plant? Is Gordon Gekko combing his hair with a piece of warm bacon somehow more entitled to help than a guy that runs a CNC mill in a transmission factory? Is it because the Congressmen in question hope to score rich consulting positions for Wall Street firms once the electorate throws them out on their flaccid, ineffectual backsides?

This is really incredible. Congress has apparently decided that their hypcrisy doesn't stink. It makes me think that maybe there are too many lawyers and bankers in Washington, and not nearly enough engineers, doctors and machine tool operators.

Mind you, I do think it is appropriate for the carmakers to present a business plan that details what they're going to use the money for and what steps they're going to take to regain viability. And I further think it is entirely appropriate for the old guard corporate leadership to step down - as the consultants always say, you get the behavior that you reward, and rewarding failed executives doesn't seem wise to me.

But at the same time, the pretense that white collar Wall Street jobs are somehow deserving of bailout while blue-collar manufacturing jobs are not seriously pisses me off. Seriously. Full stop.