Double standards

AP:

Humbled U.S. automakers pleaded with Congress Thursday for an expanded $34 billion [with a "b"] rescue package, but heard fresh skepticism in a bumpy encore appearance.

While bankers aren't "humbled" at all, and make off with trillions (with a "t") with no accountability and no oversight.

It really couldn't be clear who runs the Village, could it? Big Money.

Leader Nance: "Unless they can show us the plan, we can't show them the money."

(Via Bloomberg.) No, she's not talking to the banks, silly!

To the automakers!

See, if you're an infestment banker who's just collapsed the global economy by speculating on "complex," "innovative" derivatives, and you need a trillion or two NOW NOW NOW, with no plan and no accountability, Leader Nance -- and her fellow Villagers George, Harry, Barack, and Hank -- are more than happy to oblige!

But if you actually make something? If you've got unions? If you've got health care to cover? If you've got pensions to pay? It's LATER LATER LATER!

Tell me how this is about change?

Saving the automakers with single payer

Bruce Dixon:

Universal free health care is the secret competitive weapon of the Japanese, Canadian and European auto industries. Unless and until this competitive advantage is equalized, manufacturing automobiles and practically everything else will be far more expensive inside the US than outside it. No amount of money thrown at the auto industry can solve that, and without medical and retirement expenses, foreign automakers are guaranteed to have the extra cash to match and beat anything US automakers invest in innovative green technologies.

Most US politicians omit this vital contextual information because they or their parties take big money from the private insurers. The private health insurance industry eats one third of every health care dollar to finance its executive salaries, its bad investments, its marketing campaigns, and the bureaucratic machinery with which it denies needed care even to the insured. Since they are integral to the our nation's permanent ruling elite, corporate media shamelessly speak for them and exercise remarkable discipline in keeping nearly all discussion of single-payer medical care away from the eyes and ears of the American public. But thanks in part to the internet, the mainstream media's conspiracy of silence against single-payer health care is not working as well as it used to.

So, look, if Leader Nance's plea for a "plan" from the automakers is some sort of Rovian triple bank shot to get GM to ask for single payer and shove the Overton Window left so the Democratic, er, leadership doesn't have to, I'll be the first to applaud. Heck, Wagoner might even do it. And now let's quote Dixon's lead:

No presidential administration keeps its promises without relentless pressure from below. It's never happened before, and there's no reason to expect any different.

So, if the dream scenario comes true, and GM -- of all corporations -- is cornered into taking point on health care, the trick is going to be making sure that GM's position is the floor, and not the ceiling.

NOTE Via Zuzu.

So, what's the difference between Big Money and the auto companies?

Sure, the auto companies are getting a special session of Congress. But are they getting anything NOW NOW NOW?

Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic congressional leaders blocked immediate action on a bailout for cash-strapped domestic automakers and told the industry to come up with a workable plan to submit to lawmakers in December.

``The sad reality is that no one has come up with a plan that can pass the House and the Senate and be signed by the president,'' Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said at a Washington press conference. He said automakers must submit a proposal that would convince Congress taxpayer aid won't be wasted.

Failure to bail out the Big Three automakers this year may leave General Motors Corp. facing the prospect it could run out of cash before a new Congress can come to the rescue next year.

``Unless they can show us the plan, we can't show them the money,'' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. She later told a reporter that the automakers haven't said to her they will go bankrupt within the next month without help.

So, Big Money gets a bailout NOW NOW NOW! And the automakers get a bailout LATER LATER LATER. Why is that?

Er, could it be that Big Money doesn't have any unions?

NOTE And why, oh why, isn't this idea on the table: Putting the autoworkers under "Medicare for All" right away, and getting the automakers out of the insurance business?