Yes to Wall Street, No to Main Street

The Bush administration and Congress recently took a lot of flak for giving $700 billion (with pinkie finger salute) to Wall Street financial firms to keep the credit valve open for average Americans. While I was opposed to the bailout for reasons not to get into right now, Congress seems to be sending mixed messages to the American worker.

The Senate was ready to approve a $15 lifeline loan to the Big 3 automakers to keep them afloat for a while. The check was all but written until the UAW decided that they would not take a pay cut. As before, my opinion on that is irrelevant.

What I am concerned about is the fact that congress approved $700 billion to financial firms without blinking and hemmed and hawed about giving a mere $15 billion to the B3 where a lot more jobs are at stake considering that auto parts suppliers and dealerships are also affected.

I do believe that financial firms and auto companies need new management structures, but I think it is wreck less for Congress to casually approve an exorbitant amount of money for financial firms and give a fraction of that to companies that employee a lot more middle class jobs.