Don’t you find it just a little bit ironic that Democratic leaders in Congress are demanding that, before they agree to a bailout, that the auto companies produce a plan, a long range plan, that will show them able to sustain business on their own and to remain profitable, when we just elected a new president without the slightest curiosity about what his plan is for the future viability of this country? Well I do.
“It is all about accountability and viability,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “We [need to] see a plan where the auto industry is held accountable. Until they show us the plan, we cannot show them the money.”
Just know that what we are witnessing is the ‘show’ of fiscal responsibility, before they bail out big labor, which is all they are interested in doing. Well, that and nationalizing yet another segment of our economy.
And the irony doesn’t stop there. Hearken back to the start of the economic crisis, the collapse of the finance industry which also took down Wall Street and financial markets around the world. While we see these democrats chastising the auto industry CEO’s for not seeing their problem coming, the same can be said of these same democrats, not only for not seeing it coming, but for not recognizing or accepting the warnings of things to come where Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are concerned by those who did. Back then, in 2003 and again in 2005, it was republicans that were sounding the warning. And it was these same indignant democrats we see today that were responsible for not seeing or heeding the warnings. Isn’t that like the pot calling the kettle black?
In this video, Rush Limbaugh puts it well in his own way and then some.
One of the main reasons the big three automakers can’t compete with other automakers IN THE U.S., (Hyundai, Toyota, Honda, BMW and Mercedes ) is the three-letter word UAW. That would be the United Auto Workers, aka Big Labor.
Automakers are in Washington today with hat in hand looking for some of our money to keep them afloat. Unfortunately for them, no amount of our tax dollars can repair the rotting hull in the auto industry’s boat.
Average hourly wage by selected workers.
Any ‘bailout’ would be a union bailout, not a company bailout. Nor would it be a permanent fix. The way out for the automakers is to reorganize under Chapter 11. Chapter 11 is the only way out of the union contracts. That’s the only way to reorganize in such a way for these automakers to have a chance of being profitable again. Otherwise, they’ve earned the right to fail.
Granted that it was the management of these automakers that agreed to such extravagant benefits, at the threat of a strike, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how labor unions can put not only the auto industry, but any industry at a competitive disadvantage, including small businesses that need all the help they can get. If unions go away, no one suffers. If large and small businesses go away, everyone suffers.
The only automakers in the United States that are profitable are the ones that are non-union. UAW president, Ron Gettelfinger is in total denial when he asserts that union costs and contracts are not the problem . . .
The domestic auto industry simply cannot succeed in today’s unstable economic environment without immediate help from the federal government.
Oh really? Can you say Hyundai, Toyota, Honda, BMW and Mercedes?
It is not the actions of our members that have caused the crisis in today’s auto industry; the crisis is being driven by economic factors that have nothing to do with labor costs or factory performance. To the contrary, our contracts have put our employers in a position to compete.
In his editorial, Gettelfinger calls the wage and benefit gap (see chart) an alleged wage and benefit gap.
A Nov. 8 Post editorial claimed that unionized auto manufacturers pay “wages and benefits that far exceed those of non-union competitors,” but recent labor negotiations with Chrysler, Ford and GM addressed this alleged wage and benefit gap.
Awash in delusion as he is, Gettelfinger says this . . .
Our 2007 labor negotiations with the companies transformed the domestic auto industry; when the agreements we reached have been fully implemented, they will largely or even completely eliminate the labor-cost gap between unionized auto plants and our nonunion competitors. One analyst has estimated that as a result of our contracts, GM will soon enjoy a labor-cost advantage over Toyota.
Speaking before Democratic Congressional lawmakers last week, Gettelfinger had this to say . . .
The prospect of concessions from the union came up during a meeting involving executives of Detroit’s Big Three auto makers and Democratic Congressional lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday. But UAW President Ron Gettelfinger made clear that concessions were out of the question, union lobbyist Alan Reuther said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires Friday.
“Workers and retirees have already made significant sacrifices,” said Reuther, paraphrasing remarks that Gettelfinger made to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D- Calif., and others in the meeting, including renegotiated contracts. “We feel we’ve already stepped up.”
Bottom line, those that still want a job can be rehired. And for any of the ‘2 million arguments‘ for a bailout that can not adapt or refuse to adapt to a reorganization, they also have an option. It is called Chapter 13. Get off of the taxpayers’ back. That the UAW accepts no responsibility for this mess is insulting.
The solutions are out there and currently available without another government takeover. And the solution does not include the United Auto Workers Union.
All in favor: Iraqi’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (end of table, center) and members of his cabinet vote to approve a pact that will allow US military forces to remain in the country until 2011.
The Iraqi government, fearful of what Obama might do in terms of precipitous U.S. troop withdrawals, just rushed approval of a longer-term security pact between Iraq and the United States—-which would keep the United States in Iraq through the end of 2011.
Key revisions on sovereignty issues, demanded by Iraq and accepted by the US during months of fractious negotiations, led Iraq’s highest-ranking Shiite religious figure, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to indicate over the weekend he would not object to the sweeping deal. Although the pact has experienced pockets of resistance, many Iraqis say the victory of US President-elect Barack Obama was a factor because of his promise to withdraw troops within 16 months of taking office.
Also a factor to an agreement is to maintain some political stability since a United Nations mandate, under which US forces currently operate, expires at the end of this year.
What is Barack-nophobia? Monica Crowley defines it like this:
Barack-nophobia: Noun. Fear of what a President Obama might do. Symptoms and signs: high anxiety, palpitations, selling of assets before he can tax them into non-existence, depression, fatigue, excessive sleeping or insomnia, excessive consumption of refined sugar products, cold sweats, and generalized nervousness.
Does his victory mean that America is now officially beyond racism? Does it finally complete the work of the civil rights movement so that racism is at last dismissible as an explanation of black difficulty? Can the good Revs. Jackson and Sharpton now safely retire to the seashore? Will the Obama victory dispel the twin stigmas that have tormented black and white Americans for so long — that blacks are inherently inferior and whites inherently racist? Doesn’t a black in the Oval Office put the lie to both black inferiority and white racism? Doesn’t it imply a “post-racial” America? And shouldn’t those of us — white and black — who did not vote for Mr. Obama take pride in what his victory says about our culture even as we mourn our political loss?
White Guilt Emancipation Declaration
We, black American citizens of the United States of America and of the National Black Republican Association, do hereby declare that our fellow white American citizens are now, henceforth and forever more free of White Guilt.
This freedom from White Guilt was duly earned by the election of Barack Hussein Obama, a black man, to be our president by a majority of white Americans based solely on the color of his skin.
Freedom is not free, and we trust that the price paid for this freedom from White Guilt is worth the sacrifice, since Obama is a socialist who does not share the values of average Americans and will use the office of the presidency to turn America into a failed socialist nation.
Granted this November 4, 2008 – the day Barack Hussein Obama was elected as the first black president and the first socialist president of the United States of America.
Where the Left and the so-called ‘gay rights’ movement is concerned, it appears that the only kind of elections they accept are the ones that go ‘their way.’ There have been ballot initiatives in 30 states so far that felt compelled to legislate the definition of marriage as a union between members of the opposite sex, and those measures passed in all of them. Given the opportunity to vote on it, it passes every time. Most recently in California and Florida.
Yesterday, we got a chance to see just how tolerant proponents of ‘gay marriage’ can be by staging protests, some not so peaceful, all around the country.
At Mount Hope Church in Michigan, a radical homosexual group disrupted an evangelical church service last Sunday. The activists rushed the pulpit, throwing condoms and buckets of glitter, using noisemakers and megaphones to scream at churchgoers and frighten children. Women ran to the pulpit and began to kiss; others shouted, “Jesus was gay!” Protests erupted outside Mormon temples in Utah and Seattle to protest the church’s support for the California marriage amendment.
Their strategy to link their cause to ‘civil rights’ simply does not fly with Americans, and certainly not with Black Americans. There is no right that straight Americans have that gay Americans do not have when it comes to marriage.
A gay man is just as free to marry a woman as I am. Similarly, a gay woman is free to marry a man. No problem. No one is preventing gays from getting married. Gays need to get a grip on the fact that they are not the mainstream of general society and learn to live with that fact, rather than trying to turn society upside down to suit their purpose, using judges that should be disbarred and politicians that should be arrested for blatantly violating the law.
I don’t believe ‘marriage’ has anything to do with rights. If it’s rights they’re after, then legislate some rights, call it a civil union, or even ‘gay married,’ but not simply ‘married.’ The latter being reserved for respect and preservation of traditional family values. Marriage is something that happens between members of the opposite sex. A judge can’t change the definition of marriage. Society via legislatures can, and I hope I’m not around if/when that ever happens.
Getting ‘rights’ for the gay lifestyle isn’t, on its face, a bad idea. Trying to equate it to normal heterosexual marriage however, is.
If gays were as proud of their situation as they seem to be, then one would think they would also be proud of that which defines them. Why not invent another hyphenated class to further delineate us? Along with ?-Americans (insert your word of choice), we’ll now have Gay-Americans. And Gay-Americans can be “gay married.” That seems to me to be a fair solution for gays that are tolerant of societal norms.
That would work, if only “tolerance” wasn’t missing from the lexicon of the gay “movement.”
I’d like to think that the rest of the world can learn by our example of how shifts in political power and leadership can happen peacefully and with public participation, without political and civil turmoil that is seen in some parts of the world in other, less free, countries. This blogger in India, who also happens to be the creator of the WordPress theme used by The Lunch Counter, sees it this way in speaking of President-elect Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain.
As I’ve said before. I did not vote for Obama, but he will be my president none the less. He has earned the chance to either make or break this country in the next four years. Lord knows the challenges he faces are enormous. May God bless him and guide him in making the right decisions for America, and may God bless America.
The Iraqi Defense Ministry reported the arrest of Riyad Wahab Hassan Falih, deemed one of the most brutal agents of Al Qaida. Falih, along with nine other key alQaida cell commanders, was captured in an underground torture chamber, five others were killed. Most of the anti-Al Qaida operations have been conducted by Iraqi military and security forces.
‘Iraqi forces received intelligence on a very dangerous terrorist known as the number-one butcher who was responsible for a beheading squad that slaughtered innocent people,’ Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed Al Askari said.
Dang, looks like I missed that in the U.S. media too!
Look at the opportunities that the surge created for us in Iraq. It is what it is hoped will happen in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well. . .
Over the last six months, Iraqi forces, bolstered by the Sunni-dominated Sahwa auxiliary police, have driven Al Qaida squads out of villages in Diyala. In some villages, the Baghdad government has restored order and established municipal councils to provide services.
‘Sahwa walks hand and hand with the Americans and that’s extremely bad for us,’ a Sunni insurgent in Faluja told the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. ‘There is no doubt we have been weakened. The surge was never the problem. The Americans are not that dangerous. They have the technology, but they don’t know the topography. But we’ve been betrayed by our own brethren.’
While the rest of us are watching certain businesses and industries getting in line for a turn at the taxpayers’ teet, in the name of a so-called ‘rescue package,’ no one noticed the real work being done to keep us safe by keeping on top of Iran. From World Tribune . . .
U.S. officials said the Treasury Department would block short-term money transfers in the United States, a method used by the Teheran regime.
The so-called U-turn” bank transfers were designed to move money through the United States en route to offshore banks.
Under the measure, Treasury would outlaw the processing of U-turn transfers by U.S.-licensed banks. Officials said the restriction would prevent most transfers by non-Iranian offshore banks for Iranian entities. “This regulatory action will close the last general entry point for Iran to the U.S. financial system,” Treasury said.
Officials said Iranian banks and the Teheran government were increasingly using U-turn to avoid U.S. sanctions. They said Teheran recruited Asian, African and European banks to handle Iranian foreign transactions.
The Bush administration has determined that Iranian banks were aiding Teheran’s missile and nuclear program. Treasury has already imposed sanctions on such Iranian state-owned banks as Melli, Mellat, Saderat, Sepah, Future Bank and the Export Development Bank of Iran.
The latest measure, announced on Nov. 6, stipulated that no U.S.-licensed bank could conduct a U-turn transaction for Iran. Officials said the exception would be the transfer of Iranian funds
to families or humanitarian relief. The United States contains a small but wealthy Iranian community, mainly located in Los Angeles.
Thank you President Bush for not dropping the ball. I can’t help but wonder how, or if, President-elect Obama would handle this?
For now, we have a new president-elect. In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president.
Apparently following Air America Radio’s lead, Al Gore’s answer to ‘fair and balanced’ news is not quite making it either.
A statement from Current put the number of layoffs at about 60 positions, with 30 more to be refilled, the company said in a statement. That’s less of a hard hit than the 20 percent cuts that a source close to Current hinted to CNET News on Tuesday. The statement read: “Approximately 60 positions have been eliminated in the company’s three U.S. offices, and approximately 30 new positions created,” the statement read. “Many of those whose positions were eliminated have been placed in the new positions. Current will have approximately 410 employees (after these staffing adjustments).”
The source also said additional layoffs would be coming in January, which a Current representative denied.
When you start hearing ‘Don’t worry, your positions are secure’ from your boss, it’s time to update your resume.
Potential investors will have to wait. Current’s plans for an initial public offering are on hold.
Orange County sheriff’s crackdown on gun permits comes under fire. Coming very close for the MRIOTD award, the new sheriff in Orange County, California feels that 1100 concealed weapons permits are way too many. She says that represents three times as many CWP’s issued in Los Angeles County. I don’t see anything unusual about it. After all, criminals and illegal aliens can not qualify for a CWP. They just carry them without permits.
The sheriff is sending letters out to current permit holders asking that they justify why they ‘need’ one. And it gets better, or worse. Demonstrating the like-mindedness with President-elect Obama, ‘She said she is doing nothing to prevent people from owning guns; she is simply limiting those people who will be allowed to carry them in public.’
Then there’s this gem from Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens . . .
‘What if someone who had been issued a [concealed carry permit] by Carona went out and hurt someone? It certainly wouldn’t look good for the county.’
Note: Carona is the former sheriff. Oh I get it. Gangs ‘hurting someone’ looks good for the county. Ditto with the illegal alien drug dealer or crack head hurting people with a gun. That’s just normal, to be expected. WTF?
Update: Want to see a safe place to live? Washington County, Oregon has approximately 10,000 CWP holders. h/t Open Records
Among the first items on President-elect Obama’s agenda will be to pay back labor unions for their generous campaign contributions in the name of the Employee Free Choice Act. As if government is not already involved in all kinds of things of a socialist nature that it should not be involved in, but is, Democrats in Washington, if not by executive order itself by our new President, will resume the effort to boost labor union membership by enacting new legislation. Since when does boosting labor unions membership become a responsibility of the government? The easy answer to that is to follow the money. If you do that then you’ll know why the bill was sponsored solely by Democrats including Barack Obama.
The bill was mis-named on purpose. Had it been named correctly, it would have been named the Employee Forced Choice Act. The meat of the bill will remove the private ballot in union organizing and replace it with a public one. It is more than a little ironic that Democrats would have such contempt for a private ballot when every other kind of vote Americans participate in is a private one.
And be prepared also for the Left to attach this bill to their favorite political tact, class warfare. Last year, Sen. Hillary Clinton was speaking for this bill and said that it is for ‘the middle class’ because, she asserts, labor union members are middle class. Although Democrats purport to support ‘the working people,’ what they really support are labor unions.
Didn’t we just learn that small businesses create something like 80 percent of jobs in this country, and that most of these small business owners and their employees are ‘middle class?’ And that’s why Obama wants a ‘middle class’ tax cut while raising taxes on ‘the rich.’
Let’s examine Barack Obama’s economic theory. He wants to increase minimum wage to over $9/hr. He wants to increase taxes on small businesses with incomes higher than $120,000. He wants to enable labor unions to unionize small businesses. Does this sound like a pro-growth economic policy to you? It sounds like disaster that will only worsen our economic woes.
In 1983, 20 percent of workers in the U.S. were union workers. In 2007 that percentage was 12.1 percent, up .1 percent from 2006.
Much of last year’s growth came in the West. California’s rate of union membership rose one percentage point, to 16.7 percent, an increase of more than 200,000 members. Nevada showed an increase of 15,000 union members, reflecting the organization of casino and construction workers.
As you might expect, union membership in the Midwest decreased.
In the Midwest, manufacturing job losses reduced union membership. Michigan lost 23,000 union members. The largest decrease came in Illinois, where union rolls dropped 89,000. Ben Zipperer, research associate at the Center for Economic Policy Research, said the manufacturing sector — long the stronghold of U.S. unions — is being supplanted by the construction and private health-care fields, where union membership is growing.
The reason union membership has declined over the years is that employers have negated the need for them by paying more and offering benefits that employees want, without them having to pay dues to a union. This so-called Card Check legislation is a mistake for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is that it is not the government’s job to increase labor union membership. The other reason is the negative impact on business that come with unions in vastly increased overhead and payroll expense.
Look what labor unions do the the auto industry. Did you know that . . .
At a time when the average American company requires workers to pay more than $2,000 a year toward family health insurance premiums, the auto industry is among the 4% of employers that offer free family health coverage.
And these figures are from 2005, it is only worse now . . .
The cost of providing health care adds from $1,100 to $1,500 to the cost of each of the 4.65 million vehicles GM sold last year, according to various calculations. GM expects to spend at least $5.6 billion on health care this year, more than it spent on advertising last year.
Granted that it was the management of these automakers that agreed to such extravagant benefits, at the threat of a strike, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how labor unions can put not only the auto industry, but any industry at a competitive disadvantage, including small businesses that need all the help they can get. If unions go away, no one suffers. If small businesses go away, everyone suffers.
gay woman is free to marry a man. No problem. No one is preventing gays from getting married. Gays need to get a grip on the fact that they are not the mainstream of general society and learn to live with that fact, rather than trying to turn society upside down to suit their purpose, using judges that should be disbarred and politicians that should be arrested for blatantly violating the law.