Truisms

Some things I learned from watching CNBC today

1. The auto industry is in trouble and the bailout failed because the auto workers get paid too much and wouldn't budge on negotiations regarding future wage concessions.Their problems have nothing to do with the fact that GM sells less cars than Honda but has 10x more dealerships. Furthermore, the fact that the Republicans in the Senate think it's a good idea to forcibly legislate the wages of working Americans is in tune with their belief in a free market economy.

2. The SEC failed miserably in the last decade not because they have been starved as an organization by successive Republican administrations, but because they've lacked a strong leader.

3. Nancy Pelosi is really to blame for the fact that the Treasury has poured a trillion dollars into banks, insurance companies and brokerage firms. She said that the Democratic Congress would be more frugal than the Republican one.

4. Larry Kudlow thinks that Mitt Romney should be the car czar because his father ran AMC, and he used to live in Detroit.

5. Nobody in Detroit has even lost their job, like on Wall Street. It's been like a big party out there.

6. Sen's Corker, Shelby and McConnell did a great job because they were tasked with brokering a settlement. The fact that they failed at this should not in any way get in the way of Corker being named by MNBC as a new "star". Their failure also has nothing to do with the fact that they each represent states with large non-union plants for Toyota, Mercedes, Nissan and BMW.

Meanwhile, read Joseph Stiglitz' article in Vanity Fair if you'd really like to understand how we reached this point. I'll be wrestling my neighbor for a dead squirrel in the street.