UAW/Republican auto bailout insanity

Consider the following snippet (emphasis mine):
U.A.W. in Center of Dispute Over Bailout Failure - NYTimes.com

Late Thursday, the Senate did not take up an assistance measure passed by the House, after hours of negotiations between Senate Republicans with the auto companies and the U.A.W. The sticking point apparently was the union’s refusal to agree to lower wage and benefit rates as soon as next year.

Representatives for the union, which had already accepted a series of cuts in its current contract, sought instead to push any more concessions back to 2011, when the U.A.W.’s contract with Detroit auto companies expires.

In a statement Thursday night, the union said it was “prepared to agree that any restructuring plan should ensure that the wages and benefits of workers at the domestic automakers should be competitive with those paid by the foreign transplants. But we also recognized that this would take time to work out and implement” using programs like buyouts and early retirement offers to bring in new workers at lower rates.

It can be (albeit simplistically) be translated into:

"Yeah yeah yeah. We know our non-market salaries are high enough that it's driving the company down. Yeah, the union will accept pay cuts. But we want bought out/paid off before any of us actually have to work for market wages. Oh, and by the way, millions of other people's jobs be damned."

Interesting that the Republicans killed it, and now that it's Bush who may come swooping in from left field. Especially funny/sad is that the executive action to save things will probably give the U.A.W. what they want. That's likely to overwhelm the domestic automakers yet again even if a current bailout can save them.

Nice Nutcracker article on Michelle in the Austin Decider

The Austin Decider ran a fun piece on the role of snow within Ballet Austin's Nutcracker.  Michelle was the chosen snowflake:
House Lights: Backstage at The Nutcracker

Fall 2008 :: Probability Theory I Concepts

I'm a week away from finishing the first half of a year-long probability theory sequence at U.T. I (finally) managed to keep a concepts cheat sheet up to date for a course:

Probability Theory I: CAM 384K Concepts

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Mathematics Science probability statisti

Part of my motivation has been that while Durrett's text is useful, it is very difficult to find specific definitions and theorems within it while working problems.