Category Archives: Organized Labor

2010 Election, Economy, Media, Organized Labor, Politics

As Not Seen On CSPAN

Labor union leaders from the SEIU, AFL-CIO, and the UAW met in Washington yesterday to (one could only guess) threaten to withhold support for Democrats in the 2010 election if the President went through with his wanting to levy a tax on people who have a good health insurance policy.

President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats stand within days if not hours of striking final deals on historic health care legislation after key labor unions won concessions and pledged their support.

What we could not see is the smoke and mirrors accounting they are applying to mask the cost to appease big labor. Taxing those policies was supposed to be part of paying for this plan. Absent that, there’s  more snake-oil on the health insurance menu.

Unfortunately, we could not see this ‘negotiation’ in action like the President said when he was a candidate. We couldn’t see who was representing who, like the President promised he would do, and on this very subject. The negotiations weren’t on either of the two CSPAN channels I get. Did you see it?

link: Health talks in overdrive with Obama pushing

Organized Labor, Politics

ACORN Trashes GOP Voter Registrations

The more light that shines on the activist (and SEIU affiliated)  group ACORN, the worse they look. This time it has to do with voter registrations. But not fraudulent ones like they’re under indictment for all over the country. This time it has to do with legitimate voter registrations.

From Atlas Shrugs . . .

In February of 2008, Fathiyyah Muhammad of Jacksonville, Florida, heard that ACORN was paying three dollars for each voter you could register. Fatiyyah claims she registered voters for Acorn there (at three dollars each), but that the group threw out her votes and fired her when she brought them GOP registrations.

link: ATLAS EXCLUSIVE: ACORN Threw Out Republican Voter Registrations

Economy, Organized Labor, Politics

Cash For Clunkers, What A Deal

Democratic Math, OR, how you got screwed without even a kiss.

Look at how hard working Americans got taken to the cleaners.

If you traded in a clunker worth $3500, you get $4500 off for an apparent “savings” of $1000.

However, you have to pay taxes on the $4500 come April 15th (something that no auto dealer will tell you).  If you are in the 30% tax bracket, you will pay $1350 on that $4500.

So, rather than save $1000, you actually pay an extra $350 to the feds. In addition, you traded in a car that was most likely paid for.  Now you have 4 or 5 years of payments on a car that you did not need, that was costing you less to run than the payments that you will now be making.

But wait, it gets even better:  you also got ripped off by the dealer. For example, every dealer here in LA was selling the Ford Focus with all the goodies including A/C, auto transmission, power windows, etc for $12,500 the month before the “cash for clunkers” program started.

When “cash for clunkers” came along, they stopped discounting them  and instead sold them at the list price of $15,500.  So, you paid $3000 more than you would have the month before.  (Honda, Toyota, and Kia played the same list price game that Ford and Chevy did).

So lets do the final tally here:

You traded in a car worth:   $3500
You got a discount of:       $4500
———
Net so far                  +$1000
But you have to pay:         $1350 in taxes on the $4500
——–
Net so far:                 -$350
And you paid:                $3000 more than the car was selling for the
month before
———-
Net                         -$3350

We could also add in the additional taxes (sales tax, state tax, etc.) on the extra $3000 that you paid for the car, along with the 5 years of interest on the car loan but lets just stop here.

So who actually made out on the deal?  The feds collected taxes on the car along with taxes on the $4500 they “gave” you.  The car dealers made an extra $3000 or more on every car they sold along with the kickbacks from the manufacturers and the loan companies.  The manufacturers got to dump lots of cars they could not give away the month before.  The used car market takes a hit when the clunkers are destroyed. And the hard working American consumer gets saddled with even more debt that they cannot afford.

Obama and his band of merry men convinced Joe consumer that he was getting $4500 in “free” money from the “government” when in fact Joe was giving away his $3500 car and paying an additional $3350 for the privilege.

Oh yeah, they’ll most likely do a good job with your health care too.

H/T Provolone Greg

Media, Organized Labor, Politics

Political Tacticts Of The Left, Page 2, 'Health Care'

In the previous post, I document the tactics that the Obama administration is using, basically lying to the American people, to advance their disastrous health care reform bill, which has deftly shifted to health insurance reform.

That shift is not by accident. That shift is focus group tested. Why? Basically the reason is that most Americans are satisfied with the health care plans they have, and don’t want Obama or the government to mess it up, hence the angry citizens at town hall meetings trying to defend and protect what they have and to voice their objection to the whole socialist v private sector war that the administration is waging.

So, they need a better boogeyman to demonize, the insurance companies. Ahhh yes, that’s it, BIG INSURANCE. Who hasn’t had a bad experience of some sort with an insurance carrier at some time in their life? By shifting to this second ‘front’ in their ‘campaign,’ they hope to, and probably will, fool more people into thinking that Obama feels their pain and he is going to make it better. Fact is, the dumb masses out there won’t even notice this shift in strategy. You can depend on the media ignoring it as well.

Dutifully carrying the water for the administration’s bogus claim that that these protesters are astroturf and organized by BIG INSURANCE, and at the same time ignoring the truly organized effort to quell dissent, another paragraph on page 2 of their playbook is, don’t respond to the objections specifically, instead, paint them as evil agents of BIG INSURANCE.

The media won’t mention this union backed and union organized effort. To wit . . .

Our response is shaped by 3 things:

  • Our targets are Members of Congress who must vote “yes” for this bill. Our targets are not the rightwing extremists. The targets of these attacks are Members of Congress. Those Members are also our targets.
    We need to use these attacks as opportunities to work with the Members in ways that build our relationship in the field and bring us together as allies in health care reform. Members may be more receptive to partnering
    with us if they know we will help them combat the opposition.
  • Our core message is effective, and we should always come back to it. Our campaign plan has always anticipated opposition. No matter what the right-wingers bring up to distract the debate, we should always circle back to our key message. We are on the side of quality, affordable health care for everyone, and we are against turning over health care reform to the insurance companies and lobbyists who got us into this mess to begin with. We need to educate the press and the public that the protesters are aligned with the corporate lobbyists and insurance companies who are trying to stop reform.
  • Our ability to put the extremists into perspective helps us frame our narrative. We should be prepared to respond to the other side, but we don’t need to be reactive or feel pressure to answer their accusations point by point. Instead, we should treat them as agents of the insurance lobbyists who want to maintain the status quo. We can dismiss their radical rhetoric by circling back to the basic things that we know most people care about— affordability, access, and quality.

In many cases, protestors will show up at events or meetings you don’t organize but are participating in as an attendee or sponsor. You can still influence the outcome of these events or meetings, and it’s important for HCAN organizers and leaders to be ready to encounter these protesters in order to make sure that our volunteers and activists respond appropriately as well as capitalize on opportunities to also move our message, work with Members, and educate the public.

{emphasis added}

related link: The AFL-CIO and HCAN Plan Townhall Counterattack

Economy, Fair Tax, Organized Labor, Politics

Cash For Clunkers, A Teachable Moment

It didn’t take more than a few days of the ‘cash for clunkers’ program to illustrate a few things.

  • When people have money in their hands, they will spend it. And consumers spending money is what drives the economy. In this case, it stimulated the auto industry.
  • The program has already had its meltdown in red tape for car dealers, and has run out of money. And Democrats are looking for TWO BILLION more dollars from our grand children’s future to hand out.
  • That the Obama administration believes that they have a right to choose the winners and losers in our economy, instead of the people. They do that by choosing who they want to bail out (with money that hasn’t been printed yet), and ‘everyone’ is not among those that they want to bail out.
  • This cash for clunkers program could have been done BEFORE the administration fired auto executives, put their own people (who’ve never run a business) on the boards of directors, gave a majority ownership stake of the company to the United Auto Workers ahead of secured creditors, thereby nationalizing the auto industry.
  • That this whole scheme was done more as payback to the UAW than it was to improve the auto industry’s bottom line.

Returning to the first point. Once you realize that the money you earn belongs to you and not the government to selectively dole out, what mechanism puts money in the economy without committing inter-generational theft? The answer is tax cuts.

An even better answer to cutting taxes would be to let the people (there’s that ‘everyone’ concept again) keep all the money they earn and finance the government with a consumption tax as proscribed by the Fair Tax.

Organized Labor, Politics

Chicago Politics Spreads To Washington

2 Comments

President of the United States Barack Obama, is engineering his fix for Chrysler, another ‘private’ corporation. The ‘fix’ is giving a 55% majority ownership of the company to the United Auto Workers union by putting the labor union AHEAD of secured creditors in a ‘White House’ recovery plan. Secured creditors are people and companies who invested in Chrysler, and likely part of someone’s 401k. Under bankruptcy, the secured creditors are always FIRST on the list to recover what they can.

But that is not what happened.  What happened is Obama publicly chastised the few creditors that did not want to go along, and used his Chicago-style political tactics on them to play along with his bankruptcy plan.

A leading bankruptcy attorney representing hedge funds and money managers told ABC News Saturday that Steve Rattner, the leader of the Obama administration’s Auto Industry Task Force, threatened one of the firms, an investment bank, that if it continued to oppose the administration’s Chrysler bankruptcy plan, the White House would use the White House press corps to destroy its reputation.

Obama did prevail, ending up with them settling for 29 cents on the dollar out of $6.8 billion owned by Chrysler. The labor union that invested zero dollars into the company gets 55% ownership, and the investors get 29%.

Returning the nation’s wealth to its rightful owners. It is what he campaigned on.

Update 5/7/09: I’m just dying to call this The Lunch Counter effect, but I won’t. Rush’s podcast from yesterday echos the point.

related links:

Economy, MRIOTD, Organized Labor, Politics

aSide Order

President Examines His 100 Days Himself

Tomorrow completes President Obama’s first 100 days in office. What happens on that day is that the news media focuses on his performance for those 100 days. Except for tomorrow. Tomorrow Barack is going to take care of this assessment and do it himself. He requested prime-time hours from the TV networks to put on his own campaign speech, and FOX is the only network that isn’t bending over.


President Delivers Chrysler To The UAW

GM Chairman (or is it BM Chairman?) and President of the United States Barack Obama, is engineering his fix for Chrysler. Another ‘private’ corporation. The fix is the quid pro quo for their unwavering financial support, giving majority ownership of the company, 55%, to the United Auto Workers union by putting the labor union AHEAD of secured creditors. Secured creditors are people who invested in the company. Under bankruptcy, the secured creditors are always FIRST on the list to recover what they can.

But that is not what happened.  And this is why the Obama administration doesn’t want them to declare bankruptcy. What happened is Obama publicly chastised the few creditors that did not want to go along, causing public pressure on them to play along. Obama forced them into taking less for their claim, that they paid for, and giving the remainder to the labor union, who paid nothing.

Returning the nation’s wealth to its rightful owners. It is what he campaigned on.


TOTUS Responds To POTUS

Feeling the need to respond to the tongue lashing he got yesterday from ‘Big Guy’ (the President), Barack’s teleprompter started up his own blog to discuss the incident where Barack lost his place and became speechless.

Here’s a portion of the transcript.

Big Guy: “In addition to John – sorry, the – I just noticed I jumped the gun here.”
TOTUS: “What? Why are you looking at those file cards? Who gave you those file cards? Ah crap.”
Big Guy: “Go ahead. Move it up.
TOTUS: “WT*! I am moving it up. When we get back to the office, we need to have a sit down …”

Economy, Energy, Organized Labor

Energy Policy Under Court's Thumb

All’s right with the world now as far as energy policy goes. To insure our dependence on foreign oil and higher energy cost at home, setting the stage for yet more government assistance programs, this country’s energy policies are now controlled by the courts and the EPA.

A program to expand oil and gas drilling off the Alaska coast has been canceled by a federal appeals court because of environmental concerns. A three-judge panel in the District of Columbia says the Bush administration’s Interior Department failed to consider the offshore environmental impact and marine life before approving an oil and gas leasing program in the Beaufort, Bering, and Chukchi (CHOOK-chee) seas.”

Nothing new here. Just pointing out liberal tendency to put the wolves in charge of the hen house. EPA dictates energy policy, teachers unions dictate education policies, like labor unions and the EPA team up to dictate the future of the auto industry. All that, combined with a lack of business experience in the entire Obama Cabinet makes the Obama administration uniquely qualified to depress the economy even further.

link: Court Cancels Offshore Drilling

Organized Labor

What If The Boss Calls During Your Furlough

As noted in this post, the Gannett Company has asked its employees to take a week off without pay sometime in the first quarter of 2009. It is called a furlough. Here’s what should happen if your boss calls you while you are on furlough.

From Gannett Blog (not affiliated with Gannett Company),

“Federal and state laws require that employees, whether hourly or salaried, must not work while on an unpaid leave. That includes reading or responding to e-mails, calling or responding to calls from colleagues and being on site at your location at any time during your furlough days.
A furlough means you will not work.”

Economy, Organized Labor, Politics

Card Check, Intimidation?

Here’s an interesting take, and proposal on ‘Card Check,’ the quid pro quo of Democrats for labor unions.

Let the unions have their “card check” provision–allowing them to substitute publicly-collected, signed cards saying “we want a union” for a secret ballot vote. If the union gets 51% of the employees to sign the cards, it gets recognized. But let the employer also collect cards from employees who don’t want a union. If the employer gets 51% the union has to go away for five years. You’d hear soon enough about how collecting cards in public is unfair, opening the door to pressure tactics, intimidation, etc.. …

links: Kausfiles | Employee Free Choice Act Is Democrats’ Quid Pro Quo