Barack Obama today on the possible domestic auto industry bailout:
“What we haven’t seen is a sense of urgency and the willingness to make tough decisions. And what we still see are executive compensation packages for the auto industry that are out of line compared to their competitors, their Japanese competitors, who are doing a lot better”.
Jonathon Cohn wrote in The New Republic, Nov 21, 2008:
"According to Kristin Dziczek of the Center for Automative Research--who was my primary source for the figures you are about to read--average wages for workers at Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors were just $28 per hour as of 2007. That works out to a little less than $60,000 a year in gross income--hardly outrageous, particularly when you consider the physical demands of automobile assembly work and the skills most workers must acquire over the course of their careers." (My emphasis)
Oh yeah, but considering the the skills and education most tenure track faculty members must acquire, we're (in most disciplines) not worth $60,000. It has dawned on me that some of the folks lobbying for a bailout for these autoworkers are the same folks who figure someone with 1 or 2 MA's plus a PHD is worth about $50,000 or so to start teaching college.
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