UPDATE: GM asks for an additional $12B

No, you’re not missing a period in-between the 1 and the 2. That’s t-w-e-l-v-e billion dollars on top of the $18B they already wanted. If they don’t get it, they’ll run out of cash by March, and might have to consider bankruptcy.

Look, I’m not happy about this at all. GM employs lots of folks who happened to live in this country (and Mexico, Canada, and South Korea). And a bunch will get laid off, and almost all with see a reduction in the health benefits and other perks they were promised. Which totally sucks. You shouldn’t have to shaft the little guy, especially considering the state of healthcare in this country.

I totally blame the UAW. I am usually a pro-labor person, but in my mind the UAW represents everything that is wrong with unionization. Why is that relevant to GM’s woes? I mean, certainly GM has done a lot to dig it’s own grave, with enough brands/models competing with each other, and enough management to make the combined bureaucracy of Europe look streamlined. But the UAW has apparently bludgeoned the industry into accepting insane “legacy costs.” Which is a fancy way of saying, we’ll promise all sorts of benefits, to be paid off in the future, betting on great sales and market dominance. And it’s falling apart like Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme (which is exactly how I view the situation).

The taxpayer ends up with a lot of the burden for the mistakes of private enterprise. That makes me really angry. If GM achieved “parity” with the cost and benefits of other sectors in the US (including the domestic workers for foreign automakers), and stood up to the UAW, they’d be in an arguably better position, and you, Joe or Jane America, wouldn’t be worrying how much of your tax dollars are cleaning up the mess.

OK, in case you can’t tell, this turned into a full-blown rant as I actually thought this whole thing through. I actually hope it riles you up too, because it should.

[Source: NYT, pure unadulterated anger]