Devils Night was the way Halloween was described in Detroit back in the 1980s when arsonists torced abandoned properties. Twenty years later the bonfire of the inanities returns to Motor City as Republicans begin the process of taking the “Mo” out of “Motown”.

So people are holding it against the execs of the Big Three because they all flew their Lear jets to D.C. O.K. but then please explain to me why AIG execs can spend your taxpayer dollars and mine on weekend retreats at posh resorts and hunting lodges and give their equally incompetent management bonuses and still get an extra $65 billion from the Fed to blow right through while the rest of us are bashing the auto industry asking for $25 billion loan combined just to stay afloat?

Apparently we have reached the point in this country where making things no longer are is important as pushing money around at the click of a switch. All of us have warned that if the Big Three go under, we’re in danger of losing 3 million jobs and a good chunk of our manufacturing base and we’ll still pay with our tax money for all the autoworkers pensions the feds will now be responsible for. But apparently that’s less of a concerns, at least to Henry Paulson, George Bush II and Republicans in the Senate, than watching AIG crash and burn. Why?

 Oh I forgot, AIG owes Goldman Sachs $25 billion and since this has become the Government of Goldman Sachs, God forbid we should let them take any losses.

As I said in a comments section over at Chronicles, will the last Republican in Michigan please turn out the lights? Even the lauded Michigan Republican Rep. Thaddeus McCotter supports helping the auto industry. Too bad his fellow Republicans feel bailing out financials are more important. And once upon a time Republicans carried Michigan in Presidential elections five times in a row. Now they’re determined to become a regional party.

Oh, and speaking of Michigan and the Republicans, Mitt Romney was in full campaign mode again, meaning Plastic Man was flip-flopping.  After winning the Michigan primary by promsing $20 billion in subsidies to the auto companies,  now he says against any kind of bailout whatsoever.  I guess he’s trying to impress Republicans in Wyoming.

Anyone who thinks Romney is a serious candidate for 2012 ought to have their heads examined.

I’m against bailouts of corporation in principle and I’m all in favor of forcing the Big 3 to fire their management and engineers, reopen union contracts and retool towards green cars in order to get this money. No sense pouring down another rat hole. But burning down the manufacturing base of this country just so we can make point is the evil incarnate of ideology. Perhaps we should have Democrats in the White House and in control of Congress more often so that Republicans can find their smaller government beliefs when they’re a minority. It’s so easy to do when you have nothing to be responsible for. Besides, Republicans have no credibility whatsoever to say “Burn Baby Burn” to the auto companies (and their suppliers and component makers let’s not forget those) and reward  AIG and the finanicals with more money from the federal treasury. They could have stopped the financial bailout (and some of them did to their credit) but many of them turned chicken at Paulson’s apocalyptic rhetoric. Now they want to grow a backbone when millions of the “Joe Six-Packs” they say they love so much face the loss of their jobs?

Play with fire and you will get burned.