It gives me great pleasure to yet again say, I TOLD YOU SO. When the Congress and The Senate voted back in October to allow the FED to buy into banks, both those solid and those on the brink of collapse, it set the stage for a new way of thinking about failed or failing industries

Whereas in the past, bankruptcy was the path for struggling companies or industries, today it is bailout. But don't take my word for it. Here is an expert opinion.

Gordon Bethune, the former CEO of Continental Airlines (NYSE:CAL), now a CNBC contributor, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Dec. 19 the political process is being substituted for what otherwise should be a bankruptcy judge in determining the fate of the big three automakers.

"Wow, what makes them exempt from reality? What are the bankruptcy laws invented for?" Bethune asked. "I mean - if it works in airlines, works in steel - what's the matter with these guys? Why not have a judge decide instead of the political process? And, you know - you get some fairness in the federal court, so there's no excuse for this whole debacle I don't think."

Bethune is famous for saving a beleaguered Continental Airlines from near liquidation after it had filed for bankruptcy several times, giving him a different perspective on how to turnaround a failing corporation.

"The status quo is preferable to an unknown future and what a federal judge may kind of slice and dice you up to," Bethune said. "Here's - you know they got competitors, like a horse race, right? These guys got a 300-pound jockey on their butt. I don't care how good of a car they make, that's too damn heavy of a jockey. They got to clean it up and the only place they can do it fairly is in the courts."

So gone are the days of allowing companies to fail. From now on if it looks like that failure will have even the slightest negative impact on the economy, it's tax dollars to the rescue.

I place blame for this catastrophe at the feat of President Bush, John McCain and all of the Republicans in Congress that voted for the bailout of the financial markets. If time would have been taken to craft real repair instead of political season panicking, we would not be watching President Bush push us closer to Socialism with the $14 billion he gave to auto manufacturers that everyone knows are as dead as dinosaurs.

Thanks a lot guys.

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Or is it really that big of a payoff?

Of course, the big picture is that Solis will be a lightweight in this Administration, stuck overseeing the DOL bureaucracy while the big guns like Summers, Volker and Geithner continue the crushing restructuring that is killing the once proud American worker and their labor movement.

But what I find most shocking about Ms. Solis is her apparently contradictory views to the union mantra of higher wages. Or maybe the message is higher wages for some but not for others.

Solis’ real claim to fame probably lies in her interest in immigration issues and that’s likely why she and Andy Stern of SEIU are so cozy. SEIU has used a low wage immigrant organizing strategy over the last two decades.

As detailed at some interesting posts at GangBox, a rank and file website run by a construction worker, SEIU was unable or unwilling to stop the shift in their industry from highly skilled service workers at apartment and office buildings when those buildings put in place modern HVAC equipment and displaced largely African American union members. This was part of the battle to defeat construction workers, too.

Instead they began to orient towards much lower paid hispanic, largely immigrant janitors who were brought in to replace those displaced black workers through outsourcing and SEIU was willing to offer cut rate contracts to secure employer contracts for them.

Read the whole piece here.

Not surprisingly, Ms. Solis subscribes to the ideology of the most militant in the Labor Movement. In 1999 Assemblywoman Solis defended AB 1268—Condoning Violence in Labor Disputes (yes I'm serious - click the link).

A non-union Construction contractor pointed out that current law was well-balanced and AB 1268 would encourage more violence. Committee Chairwoman Hilda Solis responded, “Well, I don’t agree with what you say.”

Representatives of the California Chamber of Commerce, California Manufacturers Association, and Associated General Contractors all spoke against the bill.

The bill passed the committee 4-2 on a party-line vote. Democrats support; Republicans oppose.

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