Flying in on private jets and begging for money? This kind of abject stupidity from GM's board?

It's darned rare when I agree with George Will.

I think Pelosi and Reid are playing this right. Let Detroit come up with a viable reorganization plan before they get a dime.

... the hidden bias of a newspaper, you might do well to start with the editorial page. Seems to me that they're onboard with a bailout, albeit with stern conditions.

More Wagster!

Um, no, definitely not. East Coast white collar liberal is not "solidly left-wing" and never will be.

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH

It's solidly left-wing

Perhaps consider the bailout double standard as one disconfirming piece of info.

Or notice other parts of the F-P today -- there's a post comparing IF Stone's politics to Heidegger's nazism.

http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/the-i-f-stone-question-again/?hp

And a Friedman editorial wondering if Clinton could ever be as good a Sec. of State as James Baker.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19friedman.html?hp

Solidly left wing?

If General Motors goes under, people don't start worrying if their Toyota is going to start in the morning.

If a big enough bank goes under, we have a run.

The financial system is crucial to the economy in a way the auto industry is not and never was.

This place is my vacation.

It's an economically conservative paper with liberal social values, from a city that was never industrial (New York was a port, a commerce center, and a financial center. It did have some industry). This is why it has rarely been concerned with the industrial working class.

That said, most proposals are not to do away with the auto industry; just with the current companies running it and specifically their jet-setting, tone-deaf management, since the common stock holders are already screwed regardless.

It's also worth noting that the auto industry has been in trouble for years, has been making the wrong products, and has been firing the workers you appear to care about by the tens of thousands the whole time.

Of course not!

If the country is indeed in worse trouble when financiers are in trouble, then that's an indictment of a huge failure in our economic system.

It's a problem when we depend on companies that are too big to fail, and it's also a problem when 3 million end up on the streets if automakers crash. Isn't the US supposed to be the land of lean and mean startups?

How about universal health coverage? If those costs were subtracted from the cost of every car, we'd be cost competitive.

And oh -- those high paid union jobs? Don't exist any more. UAW has already compromised on wages, twice in recent years. The fact is, most of the scut work is being done in Brownsville and Matamoros. GM Mexico. Surprised to see how many of the models are exported?