The Pendng 'Auto industry" Bailout

by jwright
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I'm a native of Michigan, retired on a shoestring and now live "Up North" in Cadillac. Ten years ago while living in Colorado I vacationed in Michigan for a short time. One evening after shopping at the new Wal-Mart in Alma and walking back to my car, I noticed that EVERY automobile parked in the row with my Chevy rental car happened to be American made. Curious, I drove around the entire lot and didn't see a single foreign nameplate in the place. 'Remarkable,' I thought to myself. My old Michigan friends and neighbors are really supporting our home-grown auto industry. Now it's 2008, what a difference 10 years makes, hmm?
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In my lifetime, I have bought and owned (even sold) nothing but American made cars, the majority of them being Chrysler products. I wonder how many of the folks clamoring for an additional $25-billion for the Detroit auto industry can say the same thing?
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It was reported last week that the average American made auto hourly costs are more than $70.00, compared with the average foreign name plate, even those built down south, are around $40.00. Quite a difference. Union vs. non-union? Corporate management?
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Several years ago, maybe three, I read on line where a UAW member mowing grass at a Saginaw MI factory was earning more than $70.00 hourly including his benefits. He must have been one highly talented individual to deserve that kind of money.
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I spent most of a lifetime working in construction. With my God-given talent I can build a house, or most anything else, from the ground up with the help of a few grunts for muscle. During my career as an hourly worker, I never earned more than $32.50 per hour, with no benefits, and I had to invest more than $8,000 in tools in order to do that. Maybe I should have invested in a lawnmower instead.
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I'm not complaining, it was my choice, just as it was the automakers choice to cave in to organized labor and be tied up in massive labor and benefit contracts that now have come home to roost.
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The taxpayers have already made a $25-billion loan to the auto industry for future retooling in hopes of manufacturing a “green” automobile one day, now we are asked to do it again. My question is simple: where does that kind of money come from? Printing presses? And how much of it will be going to bail out the UAW? And the pensioners that are NOT working but are ENTITLED to fat retirement checks and health benefits according to their previous contracts with the automakers?
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As you may know, when Uncle Sam (federal government) gets involved in anything, many times the situation deteriorates and gets worse. I don't want and we don't need Senator Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or even president-elect Barack Obama micro-managing the designing and manufacturing of our cars.
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I say let the Detroit auto industry do what most any of us that don't qualify for massive government loans would be forced to do: file for bankruptcy, restructure, and start anew. Learn to operate their company's in a logical, mature, business like manner for a change. They could look at the successful American auto industry in the southern states and maybe follow their lead?
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Will it ever happen? Who really knows?
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The Liberal Democrat politicians choose to use the expression "auto industry" when speaking of Detroit's "Big 3," including our next president, Mr. Obama. It's intentionally misleading. The American auto industry outside of Detroit and Michigan in particular is thriving; building new autos with foreign nameplates using high quality American labor (non-union of course.) They are a major part of the "auto industry" and don't need or want a bailout.
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This latest $25-billion fiasco that Obama, Majority Leader Reid, and House Speaker Pelosi & Company want stuffed down the taxpayers throats is nothing but a UAW labor union bailout, and guess what? The AP recently reported that UAW president Ron Gettlefinger says workers will not make any more concessions, and that getting the automakers back on their feet means figuring out a way to turn the economy around. (No kidding. What an amazing grasp of the obvious.) So, in essence, screw the taxpayers and the country; we got ours and we ain't gonna' budge.
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Having lived in Michigan most of my life, it's my opinion that that type of attitude is what put us, and the auto industry, in the shape its in today.
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Just for the hell of it, did you know that GM has more non-working retired former employees receiving benefits and health care coverage today than it has actual auto builders in the factories? And GM will run out of money soon and won't be able to keep their promises agreed to in the 2007 contract agreements with the UAW. Talk about corporate mis-management coupled with labor greed.
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On top of that, with all of the multiple billions of dollars the elected representatives in D.C. are doling out today, this country is in hock more than $36-TRILLION in 'future unfunded mandates'? (Future Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid promises/commitments made to our retirees and financially disadvantaged.) Or is that $36-Trillion stored away in some secret "lock box?" LOL!
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$36-TRILLION is more than the United States is worth if every bit of our combined assets, private and federal, were liquidated, and yet the politicians still get starry-eyed with their power to incessantly spend the taxpayers money. It has to end one day. Will it?
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jaq~

Obama and the Faltering Economy

by jwright
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I'm not an expert on the economy by any means , and by the looks of what's happening today in the markets here and abroad, it appears that no one fits that description.
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However, on November 1, three days before the presidential election, NEWS Corporation chairman Ruppert Murdoch was quoted in Australian.news.com saying Barack Obama 'could worsen crisis.'
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Since the election, the market has lost 14% of it's value. That on top of what it lost in the few weeks before the election when the $700-billion (70% of a trillion, or about 26% of our 2008 federal budget of $2.6-trillion.) bailout legislation passed by Congress.
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Being retired and living on a shoestring, I'm not an investor, but if I were, I'd be converting any investment holdings to cash in a heartbeat.
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Looking over the ''new hires'' that pres-elect Obama has in the fold thus far, it appears to be "Clinton II", and we all should remember what was happening to the market at the end of Clinton's tenure; it wasn't pretty then. Why should it be different today or tomorrow with mqny of the same folks getting ready to run the show again?
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With Obama's constant pushing for another ''stimulus'' package, when the first one didn't work, and his penchant for ''saving" the Detroit auto industry' (read: the UAW pensioners etal) along with his seeming eagerness to spend tax money that doesn't exist, save for the printing presses, it's obvious to me why the market is skittish, saying the least. We saw it coming near the end of the campaign. As candidate Obama's stock (polls) began to rise, the market dropped. With the exception of a couple of recent spikes, it really hasn't stopped.

Quoting Murdoch again, "To some extent it is beyond the power of politicians. You are going to find that the politicians are very limited in what they can do: they can make it worse but they can't stop it."
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Noted economist Lawrence Kudlow wrote recently:
In a few weeks Barack Obama will inherit the mantle of the capitalist system. What will he do with this responsibility? That’s the question being asked everywhere.
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Since the election, and up until President Bush’s important G-20 speech, stock markets sold off nearly 15 percent. Investors want to know if economic rewards will be encouraged or penalized. Will trade remain open and free? Will we maintain competitive businesses that can compete worldwide? Or will we resort to the protection of ailing or failed businesses?Will the U.S. lurch toward the semi-socialism of Old Europe? Or will we stay with free-market capitalism? Will we expand the nanny-state economy? Or will we keep the door wide open to entrepreneurial spirit and gales of creative destruction?
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Investors want to know which way President-elect Obama is going to go. Might he reach back to the Democratic pro-growth supply-side policies of John F. Kennedy’s tax cuts, free trade, and strong dollar? Will he opt for Bill Clinton’s free-trade and strong-dollar policies, or even his capital-gains tax cut? Or will he fall back to the hopeless government tinkering of Jimmy Carter or the welfare-statism of Lyndon Johnson?
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I’m keeping an open mind on Mr. Obama during this post-election honeymoon period. After all, he stole the tax-cut issue from Sen. McCain during the election. And surely he knows the conservative red states that joined his campaign for change didn’t vote for a leftward lurch to socialism lite.
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Mr. Obama has a huge opportunity and an outsized responsibility to mend and revive the economy. It may be too much to ask, but perhaps he will give President Bush’s marvelous speech a close read. There is much wisdom there. And there is no iron-clad reason why a Democrat can’t adopt the economic-growth model that has worked so well and so long for this country.

— Larry Kudlow, NRO’s Economics Editor, is host of CNBC’s Kudlow & Company and author of the daily web blog, Kudlow’s Money Politic$.

jaq~

A Polite Re-hash...

by jwright

A long time Internet friend of mine, Mr. Alan Sherman, attorney at law and professional "world traveler extroardinaire" recently added my name to a political emailing list of his; a broad, informed list containing many of his friends and acquaintances from across the planet.
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One of his friends in particular struck my fancy with his sensible postings and it's my pleasure to share part of a recent exchange we had prior to the election, or immediately afterward, one... allow me to introduce K. Murphy:
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Re: GWB
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Jaq posted in part: What JFBurk (another long time Internet friend) posted earlier is close to my opinion too. GWB initially offered to bring a "new tone" to Washington, DC and look what it got him; the most maligned president since Abraham Lincoln (and look where Lincoln's place in American history is today).
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K. Murphy's RESPONSE: Actually, by the end of Lincoln's presidency he was greatly loved and respected. Warren Harding, Ulysses S. Grant (who I greatly respect even though I am a southerner), Calvin Coolidge and Jimmy Carter were maligned at the end of their presidencies and history (with the possible exception of Grant) has not treated them well.
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I truly hope that GWB winds up with a high place in our presidential list but I solely doubt it. Bush did not really realize he was the President until 9/11. Attorney General John Ashcroft created a new category called a "person of interest." This is McCarthyism at its worst. No more is a person innocent until proven guilty. He (Bush) had (Secretary of Defense) Rummy, a man who did not listen to his generals and as a result did not put enough units into Iraq (putting aside whether we should be there or not-- if we go in we should at least try to win.) It took four years before we had a strategy that seems to be working. Bush abdicated his responsibilities and let the neocons take over. Shame on him.
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From 9/11 on the Dems gave him everything he wanted. Look at the financial cost of the war and yet we do not have Bin Laden, even when we had the chances. I do not like Michael Moore but maybe there is truth to the comments about Bush's relationship with Bin Laden's family. Further, we are no safer in the world than before.
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Finally, in 2006 the Dems started to have some backbone and said, "enough is enough!" Can they be effective leaders? Only time will tell but I do not think they can do any worse than what we have had. It is convenient to blame the current financial crisis on Clinton and Greenspan-- they deserve a share of the blame no doubt but Bush has been in charge of the nation and the economy since 2001. I spent five years in the USMC and as an officer when I took command, everything related to that command was my responsibility even if the problem predated my command. Shouldn't it be the same for Bush? It does not seem so. He has been in charge of the economy for almost eight years. He has plenty of time to correct problems. (By the way, Truman said the buck stopped here- He understood command, responsibility and accepted it.) He (Bush) did not do it (correct the problems) and the financial crisis fell on his and McCain's head like a ton of bricks.
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The fact is the Republican party has been controlled by the neocons and the Christian Taliban. It is time that true conservatives take back their party and quit complaining about the Democrats, Clinton, and Obama. When they do, I will probably vote with them. While I like McCain as a person he was not the right choice. He further aggravated the problem by choosing someone that made the Christian Taliban happy but not the rest of the country. About 56 million people felt it was time for a change. I agree with them.
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Finally, one of the people in this email pointed out that the Prisoners at GitMo are not covered under the Geneva Convention. OK. Then they should be covered under America's laws. Further, no president in our past has ever authorized torture as acceptable national policy. Shame on him and the fact that he allowed such a policy to be acceptable. We stand for much more than that. Have a great day.
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K. Murphy
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Jaq responds: Well said, K. Murphy, I find little fault in much of what you wrote and don't chose to nit-pick. (However, one could write pages on the obstacles the Dems placed in GWB's way during the first six years bewfore they took over in 2006. Non-stop obstructionism IMO.)
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Post Election, GWB got off to a bad start, at least that's my recollection. First, the "dangling chad" fiasco in Florida that allowed Al Gore to attempt to cherry pick Dem strongholds for recounts that led to the USSC telling the FSSC to go pack sand.
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Then Bush got off to a very slow start after his inauguration because of that hassle, IMO at least. It took him forever to get his administration approved and in place, to the point of keeping some Clinton appointees; Tenet, for one. Questionable to say the least. At the same time, we had two Senate majority leaders, Trent Lott & Tom Daschle, who "shared" that post on and off for a while. Talk about gridlock.
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In May of 2001, Vermont's Republican Senator Jim Jeffords decided to jump ship switching parties allowing Dashle to run the Senate for the next 19 months. Adding to that mess, the country was coming out of a Clinton tenured recession brought about by the bursting of the tech bubble. Blue collar friends of mine in the construction industry were losing big bucks fast from there 401s and weren't too happy about it. Of course, the media took the bait and began beating up Bush, claiming adnauseum that the economy was "in the tank." It never stopped. All that prior to 9/11.
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Barring another one of those national tragedies, president-elect Obama will have it better, although if Rahm Emmanuel decides to be Chief of Staff, we might forget about "coming together." He is more partisan than Karl Rove ever thought of being, even his friends say so.
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I totally agree with your assesment of how the Iraq incursion could have been handled better. (Especially in the later stages following the fall of Baghdad and Saddam's capture.) Too many bureaucratic egos imbedded at the Department of State, Defense, CIA and in our military at first... (Many left-overs from the previous Clinton Administration). We were basically at "war" with ourselves for several years. Sadly, we took Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi at his word at first, an Iraqi politician who hadn't been in country since 1958? Leader? Jeesh!
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I also am of the opinion that the entire eight years of Bill Clinton's tenure were an unbelievable waste of a great talent (and mistakes as well). Too bad ol' Bill didn't govern as he could have.
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My biggest disappointment is the way the national media have during the last decade unashamedly and outwardly fallen into bed with the elitist liberals. Instead of reporting facts, as is their journalistic mission, they are seeming to emulate Woodard and Bernstein, or trying to be opinion columists. Pretty shabby IMO. The same goes for the broadcast media, and we can thank CBS's Walter Cronkite (remember Tet?) for that. Where are the new Edward R. Morrows?
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Regards,
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Jaq~

OK, it's over, I was wrong, now what?

by jwright

First, my 2-cents worth of predicting an upset victory for Senator John McCain went down the toilet like many others dreams on Election night.
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Second, sincere congratulations are in order to president-elect Barack Obama, I truly wish him luck.
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A close friend from California, knowing that I was not voting for Barack Obama emailed me Wednesday, “How are you dealing with it?”
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I replied that I had dealt with it on Election night while watching the TV screen and acknowledging that in my heart I knew McCain was really a loser, and with that, I turned off the TV and enjoyed a decent nights rest.
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Two things came to mind in answering my friend: McCain picked a future winner with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, regardless of whatever one will hear from the McCain camp about her inexperience (a lot of it possibly coming from some Romney-ites who worked for McCain after the primaries. Are they worried about 2012 already?)
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Second, McCain really exonerated former Senator Robert Dole (as I posted earleir) in running the worst presidential campaign in Republican Party history. However, that's what the media expected; what they wanted, and in my opinion, this is the first time the media picked both candidates and controlled who the next president would be.
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Now, I actually feel sorry for president-elect Obama. I don't think he's experienced enough for the office and it will be sad watching him attempt to grow into it.
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Picking ex-Clinton White House operative Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff (if he does) would show me that Obama, may NOT be about “Change” at all. Emmanuel is a rabid, hardheaded, North Chicago partisan who is not interested in "crossing the aisle" to serve the best interests of the country. He is more about the party. Emmanuel said in a recent interview, “Republicans can go fuck themselves”.
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Unless Emmanuel has suddenly changed his stripes, he intends to run the Republican Party out of business. That’s hardly “reaching across the aisle.” Is this the “Change That We Can Believe In? “ I pray not.
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jaq~

My 2-cents on the Election Outcome

by jwright
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My 2-cents… when all the dust has settled on election 2008, McCain-Palin will be the winners. That’s my opinion; and if I’m wrong, it won't be the first time.
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As political analyst Dick Morris has said repeatedly, IF Senator Obama’s poll numbers are at 49% or lower, (giving Ralph Nader 1or 2%) and Senator McCain can stay within 2-3% points, there are enough “undecided” out there to boost McCain past him. Then take into account those whom the pollsters called but didn’t participate in the polls, the non-participants that I believe are mostly conservative. You know those bitter clingers who tend to take refuge in their church and their guns and who have probably rolled the words "President Obama" around in their mouths and had it feel something akin to being third world.
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I wouldn’t be surprised to see a strong victory for the underdog, and with enough separation to not allow the Dems to cry “voter suppression!” Especially if we have a repeat of Gore-Lieberman 2000 with Obama receiving more popular votes (based on massive black voter turnouts in the states that are Blue already), while McCain wins the Electoral College votes.
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However it turns out, we’ll finally be rid of the incessant political ads now running on our TV day and night. We have one dumpy little state representative here in northern lower Michigan that is running the dumbest TV ad I’ve ever seen. His “thing” is that he can’t be “bought” by the rich and powerful forces that are backing his opponent and he needs our help (our vote I guess) to “fight them.”
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Very intriguing. Very silly… in northern Michigan I can't imagine “rich and powerful forces” that are interested in one small district mostly covered by forests with many dirt roads and a small village here and there. This is NOT the south side of Chicago by any means.
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Anyway, VOTE tomorrow, unless your have already.
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jaq~

Thomas Jefferson on Wealth Redistribution...

by jwright

Of late, there has been much said and discussed regarding “spreading the wealth around a little bit”, which for the uninformed is simply allowing the government or someone else to take a portion of your income or savings and give it to someone else. Don’t confuse this with charity where one gives to the disadvantaged of their own volition, free will.
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Thomas Jefferson, patriot, one of the nation's original Founders, best known as the author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States, wrote in a letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816: “To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”
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For decades, this has been the foundation of our free enterprise system. One of the presidential candidates doesn’t seem to accept that premise. If you agree with that premise, you’ll know whom to vote on Tuesday November 4.