Beggars

General Motors, makers of mediocre vehicles, are losing scads of money as a result of the global economic downturn. That and nobody wants to pay for their wares when they could purchase a Toyota or Honda and be assured of a quality ride. With their fortunes slumping, the company has decided to lay off 500 workers in Oshawa and more than 3,000 in the States. As seems to be the trend when enormous corporate fuck ups wreak havoc, the world's biggest welfare queens turn to government for hand outs and tax payer cash. Yay free market capitalism.

The news came the day after the heads of Ford, Chrysler and GM -- once called the Big Three, due to their dominance of the industry -- as well as the head of the United Auto Workers union went to the U.S. Congress seeking $50 billion in federal aid to help them ride out the crisis.

Of course, Rick Wagoner the CEO of GM is pulling in about $8.5 million smackeroos for piloting the company into the dumper. I don't suppose he'd like this math but if you cut his salary and compensation in half and did a little division... well he'd still be frickin' rich and a modest salary of $25,000 could be provided for 170 workers. But that's crazy talk, after all, without exorbitant compensation you can't get the very best corporate minds. The sort necessary to preside over losses of billions of dollars in a single quarter. I wonder how much they could have managed to lose if they'd paid him $12 million.