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So you may have heard by now, the execs for the Big Three automakers each took private jets to their testimony before Congress yesterday. Average cost for the flight from Detroit to Washington? $20,000… Northwest had flights available that day for $288 coach, $837 first-class.

"It's almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in a high hat and tuxedo," Rep. Gary Ackerman, a Democrat from New York, said of the dynamic trio. "Couldn't you have downgraded to first class or something, or jet-pooled or something to get here?"

Maybe they should have driven.

  “So Barney Frank wants to talk about income disparity?” asks a reader, responding to Frank’s allegation that the auto bailout is a form of “union busting.” 

“OK, let's try this one. In 2006, the average hourly wage of a person with a high school diploma was $13.46 per hour. For those fortunate enough to receive insurance and other forms of compensation, the average was $17.50 per hour in total compensation. These averages encompass all age groups.

“However, if you are a Detroit auto worker with a high school diploma, your total compensation comes to: $67.78 (Ford), $70.43 (GM) or $72.59 (Chrysler) per hour.

“Now, that is income disparity.” 

The 5: Hmmn... that would be some $150,000 a year per worker. Are we sure those numbers are right?

  “All of this brouhaha” writes our last, “about bailing out the auto industry and how destructive it will be to the country -- sounds a lot like the moans and groans of the steel industry (and steel unions) a few decades ago when the Japanese and Koreans were killing the U.S. companies with low prices for bulk steel. The biggies, like U.S. Steel and Bethlehem, went under.

“And you know what? Small, progressive and aggressive steel companies arose in the U.S. -- not for the cheapo junk steel, but for the better grades, for alloys and for hi-tech steels. And in a few decades, the industry bounced back better than ever. The U.S. was THE place to buy the good stuff. The Far East was where you bought the cheap bulk stuff. Did it ‘hurt’? Yeah, for a while, but you know, we got over it and came through it all the better. We just forgot what we learned.

“How many innovative car companies do you think will start popping up in the U.S. when the dinosaur Big 3, and their fat-assed dinosaur management, are finally gone? I don’t think that innovation is completely dead in the U.S.; it’s just been shut down in favor of huge management bonuses paid for killing industries through blind stodginess. Let’s see, how many U.S. car companies were still trying to crank out SUV guzzlers when gas prices were scaling Everest? Let the dead die so that the living can grow.   “Sorry, unions and union members, but the day is over that a dumb back can command a sizeable (read uncompetitive) wage and benefit package just for showing up to do a job that, in many cases, a monkey could be trained to do. Better get some education. The new companies will be high-tech -- there will be plenty of jobs for those with a reasonable education and training. Dumb backs will get to clean toilets at a commensurate wage.

“Hear that Fed and Treasury and Congress? Don’t waste money trying to resurrect dinosaur corpses. Put the money into opening up investment in new technologies, good products and well-run companies. Put the money toward training a labor force that can be part of competitive industries. And start the ‘do it or fail’ philosophy in the schools. First-grade would be good.”

What a mess…