AMERICAN SOCIALISM, NOW WE ALL MAY PAY FOR IT

The economy, specifically domestic auto production:

There is nothing about the way Detroit and the UAW currently go about their business that is sustainable. Not one thing. Now, it's only a momentary layover on the Oblivion Express.

Peter DeLorenzo, below with his latest model, knows his shit from the inside

and if you're interested just go here. There is no summing up his piece, or cutting to the chase; if the UAW and the companies can't junk what they are doing---and both sides are smoking the same bad shit---it's over. When I posted last week that the UAW compromise was great, I was wrong, and if you doubt it check Ford stock in the last week. Read this other post regarding the entire issue of selling off the GM financial services unit, the only part of GM making money. Like he says, management and UAW are snorting from the same line and neither one is in touch with reality. Ford stock is down from $35 in 1999 to less than $8 today. There is a late article in Weekly Standard that spells it out for Delphi;

the union says it will strike if a judge tries to throw out their insane UAW contract: More than 12,000 auto workers, including 4,000 from Delphi, are put in a "jobs bank," meaning that they show up at a plant and spend the day doing no work. Others do community service. Including healthcare and pension benefits, the cost runs from $65 to $71 an hour per worker--$135,000 to almost $150,000 a year. This program comes after a worker is laid off and has exhausted their company-financed unemployment benefits, which are equal to 95 percent of their former pay. The total cost to the industry is $4.5 billion a year and growing.

Energy: As I posted yesterday, the main cause of the downturn in energy was caused by the huge number of people who had to unwind positions at Refco. So after trading most of the morning way below $59, (low was $59.15) crude made a big move to the upside closing at $60.63, up $1.40 from the lows and around $.60 for the day. Unleaded is up two and a half cents.