don’t bite the hand that feeds you

We all remember the drama surrounding the big auto bailout, with the CEO’s from the Detroit Three showing up in their private planes.  

Well, here is another tale that should be filed with the absurd.

Prior to the bailout the auto companies had filed suit against individual state EPA’s over their amendments to Clean Air Acts and emissions standards, for example what is happening in California.  Apparently, after taking taxpayer money and promising as part of the stimulus that they will pursue new ‘greener’ options in car manufacture… they are still moving forward with all of their lawsuits!!

California’s attorney general, Jerry Brown, observed today on NPR, “The irony here is the auto companies want a bailout, in many ways because they weren’t building the kind of cars that were compatible with today’s energy market—and at the same time, they want to keep going with their lawsuits, which have already cost millions and millions of dollars.”

You know what the saddest part of this whole thing is, however?  That we, the citizens, will probably do absolutely nothing in fighting the auto industry for this audacity.  The money that has come to these corporations is being taken out of our future holdings either through Social Security or the fact that we will have to pay back the Federal Reserve interest from all of these loans.  That we are going to sit by and allow this to happen is an atrocity.

This was first reported through the New Yorker.