1)GMAC also owns Ditech ,you know the company with the bad comercials offering home loans.So they are asking for TARP money because they are bleeding on this end also.

2) #36 Retirees benefits aren’t safe,Just ask the Delta pilots.Here are people who had the lives of many in their hands and their expected retirements are lessened.

http://news.delta.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=10352

3)DB Cooper you seem to be thinking social security will be around for some time. This might not be true either,the government can pull that rug out anytime they wish.Hopefully you’re not counting on that money like the elderly automaker retirees currently are!!”THIS IS WHAT THEY WERE PROMISED DURING THEIR LOYAL SERVICE”

4)As I see it ,most benefits in the private sector are based on gov benes’. Holidays vacation,personal days are given by companies at a slightly lesser rate.A rate at which they can get away with,without upsettting the government..

Dont begrudge another,Get an application.

A re-print from MSNBC website. Regarding Northern and Southern Auto Workers.

Not much difference in pay
For all the divisions between the two camps, there isn’t much difference in their pay. The GM workers average about $28 an hour, though new workers receive far less. The Nissan workers make about $25 an hour, the company said.

“The overall compensation for a worker is not that different whether it’s a foreign or domestic automaker in the U.S. — they’re all in the same ballpark,” said Kristin Dziczek, assistant director of research at the Center for Automotive Research at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “They have to be. Good wages and benefits avoid unionization.”

The biggest difference in the labor costs is that the foreign automakers don’t have to pay for legions of retirees — their workers are younger and haven’t received benefits that are as generous, Dziczek said.

US is the only industrialized country in the world without universal healthcare.

Auto industries are giving healthcare instead of the government / tax payers.

BTW, if anyone thinks the effect of Big 3 failing is less than the $100B or so it will take to bail them out – they are in lala land. BTW, we have already paid $200B of our tax payer money to AIG and they continue to party, give bonuses etc.

We are looking at a loss of over 5 million jobs if the big 3 fail – and then the ripple effects of towns and cities going bankrupt. Depression is assured with something like 15% unemployment or more (double of what it is now).

I can’t even believe republican sothern senators think they can get away with this. They want to kill the American manufacturers to help the foreign manufacturers who have plants in their states.

The UAW may just deliver a new entitlement to its members: THE RIGHT TO BE UNEMPLOYED WITHOUT COMPENSATION. Let’s see how that affects their ability to grow and survive.