With President Bush’s declaration that the government will give General Motors and Chrysler up to $17.4 billion in short-term loans, the whole world will be watching Detroit to see whether the cash makes a difference in the automakers’ long-term profitability. The observers won’t include a car czar – Bush’s plan includes no such position. But the plan does call for autoworkers’ pay concessions within 2009.
Registered?
Commenting on WE Blog now requires you to be a Kansas.com member. Use the links above to register, if you haven't already, or to log in.Contact us
Follow us
Daily Archives
-
Recent Comments
- ANTI on Open thread 11/24
- Pleefer on Open thread 11/24
- DavidB on Open thread 11/24
- JimJohnson on Open thread 11/24
- JimJohnson on Open thread 11/24
- DavidB on Open thread 11/24
- situveux1 on Whose ‘unchecked spending’?
- Phantom on Open thread 11/24
- Phantom on Open thread 11/24
- Pleefer on Open thread 11/24
21 Comments
Some Christmas present.
Bush will take his place in history along with other greats, I’m thinking Karl Marx! Waaaaaaah.
Isn’t it funny/ironic the repubs and bush have ushered in the era of American socialism?
Thing about the UAW pay concessions is that bush will be long gone in 2009.
Does this mean that other countries can sue the US under the WTO for unfair auto and banking subsidization by the Government? We sure a hell would holler….maybe the’ll put a punsihing tarriff on all auto sales and international banking transaction to compensate for unfair trading practices.
Let em holler, we’re just joining the club.
“Isn’t it funny/ironic the repubs and bush have ushered in the era of American socialism?”
ironic yes. funny no.
Of course Bush didn’t have to twist many democrats arms to get them to vote for:
150 billion Trickle Up Stimulus Program
700 billion+ Bank and financial industry bailout
United Socialist States of America
“Does this mean that other countries can sue the US under the WTO for unfair auto ”
What do you mean “other countries”? How about the 2.4 million Americans who work jobs which build Toyota’s, Honda’s, etc… right here in the good ole USA?
Fair competition?
Obama just said the U.S. is going to insist on reciprocity, if a country is exporting their goods to the U.S., we are going to be able to sell our goods there.
That was a foreign concept to bush, and to China, the one way highway of the past is going to become a two way. About time.
“we are going to be able to sell our goods there.”
Funny. Ha-ha.
First, we have little goods to sell.
Second, what little we have cost more to produce in America. They can make their own.
Third, America doesn’t know how to compete.
Let me tell you about the third one as it may not be clear.
I once lived in Iwakuni, Japan (main island of Honshu close to Hiroshima) for three long years.
Once in my travels, I saw an American car in a Japanese auto dealership. So I thought I’d go check it out.
1. The car had the steering wheel on the American side.
2. The owners manual in the glove compartment was in English only.
3. The car was big.
1st. It is very difficult to drive a car with the steering wheel on the wrong side. Try passing sometime from the front passgenger seat.
2d. No attempt to meet the Japaneese public’s needs.
3rd. If you’ve never been to Japan, you don’t know the roads are NARROW. How narrow? On turns, they have mirrors up high on telephone poles (concrete by the way) so you can see if someone is approaching in the other direction. Even driving a small japaneese car – we sometimes “touched” sideview mirrors when we passed other oncoming traffic.
We can’t smuggly expect to sell our goods in foreign nations. They have to want them and manufacturers (private industry) has to build things which other people want.
A government can TELL all day long. But it won’t sell one car in a foreign country.
All this whining by Farmgirl about unions is much to do about nothing.
At one time more than a third of American workers belonged to unions. Today, less
than 12 percent of workers belong to unions – even fewer than that in the private work force. Less than 8 percent of the private sector are union. Government/public employees make up a third. Think about how few a number that is. By some estimates – this is less than the number of gay and lesbians in the USA. A small minority. The day of the evil management forcing workers to slave away in cold or excess heat are gone. Today,
the American taxpayer supports fully one third of those on union rolls. Teachers, police, fire, and federal employees who are threatened not by an evil corporation and CEO’s – but by local citizens and small town politicians.
That is why it is so critically important to the unions that they maintain power in the only place left: politicians. How is it that so few can yield such megaton power? The answer is simple: money. Money honey runs everything it seems. Union wages which are paid by union workers to the union, so the union can buy off politicians from both sides of the political aisle.
Using these union dollars, this minority population can make nearly any law they want. From the local city government (councils and school boards), to county, state, and finally the federal level.
So few in numbers, and shrinking, it is critical that during this next congress – they get their laws enacted. Self preservation! They must end Right to Work. They must ensure the ballots are public – and they must do it now. Along comes Obama and his democrat
Majority.
So despite a union population which is graying, fewer younger people joining, and declining manufacturing based jobs to unionize – the union will continue to thrive. As long as they have the memberships money and now the money of the American people.
All for 8 percent of the “working” population who belong to unions. That’s power.
But not all is well. Declining memberships, disgruntled union workers, and an American population which is becoming wise to the unions ways are all contributing to their decline.
In a recent survey, Americans said that “ nation’s two major teachers’ unions are more interested in protecting their jobs and benefits than ensuring the education and opportunities of their young charges.
[T]wo-thirds of U.S. voters (66%) say the teachers’ unions – the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers – are more interested in protecting their members’ jobs than in the quality of education.
Only 23% of voters say educational quality comes first for the unions, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Twelve percent (12%) are undecided.
Men and women are equally critical of the teacher’s unions. Married voters are more critical than unmarrieds by 12 points. Seventy percent (70%) of voters with children at home think the unions are more interested in jobs, compared to 63% of those without children in the house. “
Cry alligator tears all you want for your fellow small minority Farm Girl, but the truth about the labor unions is starting to show.
Bet the relative wages were better, and the middle class stronger, when we had 30% unions. It’s been a rush to the bottom since then.
Always the good old days Phantom.
Your broad brush paint job doesn’t change a thing.
AmWay has his anti-union talking points down cold.
“At one time more than a third of American workers belonged to unions. Today, less than 12 percent of workers belong to unions – even fewer than that in the private work force. Less than 8 percent of the private sector are union.”
And why is that? Thirty years of union-busting by Reagan-Bush-Bush. Clinton didn’t help much either.
In addition to union membership, church membership, civic club memberships and every other kind of club you can think of (except maybe Alcoholics Anonymous) is looking at vastly reduced membership.
People are too damn busy working to do anything else. Driving in between the two and three crap jobs that people are piecing together to survive, they listen to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity–paid shills of robber barons to insure that the working class stays stupid and powerless.
BUT, the tide is beginning to turn. The Employee Free Choice Act WILL BE PASSED in the new congress and President Obama (wow, do I love saying that) WILL sign it.
Autoworkers must agree to pay concessions.
Executives and middle management?
Uh, yeah, not so much . . .
Since when is a loan considered socialism or a subsidy? Loans do have to be paid back with interest (unless you’re a Republican then you just keep on borrowing more and expect the taxpayers to foot the bill).
Amway,
“First, we have little goods to sell.”
We could sell a lot of beef there if it was tested for mad cow disease, but Bushco wouldn’t permit the beef producers to test their beef and sell it in Japan at the premium prices it commands there. So much for free markets ‘publicanism!
Cap’n,
One of the main reasons for decline in union membership is that under federal law, nonunion hourly workers at a company get any benefits the unions negotiate for their membership. Get that unfair provision overturned and you can bet that union membership will rise!
Early Christmas for GM and Chrysler
=========================================
Sure is, the workers are off for 30 days With 95% of salary.
Great job libs – pay people for NOT working.
How fuking backwards is that in America?
Dims.
AmWay – agreed. I am currently looking at the possibility of purchasing an 8-passenger minivan. Toyota and Honda make them. Detroit does not. So, what do I buy?
Most automated forex trading platforms have American socialism. In American socialism however, they are worlds apart. For American socialism, a country might be a hell dollar.