Jobs vs Wages? Worker will have to decide what they want..

Posted in National stories

Dec. 12, 2008 at 14:43

by BrendaBee

The measure failed in dramatic fashion late Thursday after Senate Republicans balked at passing the bill without more wage and benefit concessions from autoworkers.

Senate Republicans were able to block the passage of the $14 Billion  bail out for the auto industry.  Why did the measure get  turned down by Congress?  Because the United Auto Workers Union refused to make  sufficient and meaningful concessions  on their  wages and benefits packages. 
 
I have seen this happen  before when Big Steel died in this country.  And the reasons for its demise was very similar to what is happening with the auto industry.  I watched it from a ring-side seat as my home town became a ghost town in a ghost river valley.

 Weirton Steel Company, Weirton, West Virginia  was one example where the workers greed closed the plant for good.  The Weirton Steel Company was the  "home" company for the Weir family and was really  kept open and operating long past the point where a reasonable profit was being made.  It was a matter of sentimental value to the family and that was all. 

The workers in the Weirton Steel Mill were always as well paid as any other workers in the steel industry of the northern Ohio Valley until steel companies in the United States began loosing out to those overseas.  Eventually all of the steel mills closed their doors and the northern Ohio Valley  actually became a series of ghost towns.   The Weirton plant was one of the first to go.

It was a bitter battle and difficult time as the company owners actually turned over their books to be examined to show the workers that they simply could not pay any higher wages or benefits.  In fact, they were possibly going to have to cut back some to continue to break even.  The workers refused to believe the company and so the doors were closed.   No company, no jobs, no pay,  period.

The workers bought out the Weir family in the early 1980's and tried to run the mill themselves but found they had to keep cutting wages and benefits  until the plant eventual closed all together.

The other company I was close to was a tool factory in Athol, Mass.   The workers demanded more money and more benefits and the company kept giving and giving until the workers were some of the highest paid in the area.  The last time the workers went out on strike they were told there was no leeway for increased wages in the budget.  Profits were not doing as well as they had in the past.  The company owners said they would close the plant if the strike continued.  The workers continued to walk outside the plant carrying signs and were still walking a month after the gates were locked for the last time.  The company never did reopen.  The greed of the workers closed the plant.


The reason the steel companies in the United States were closing was the demand for more  wages and/or better benefits.  This is the reason for the closure of most of industries that have died in the United States.  Americans are the most productive and the most hard working population in the world, but they are also among  the highest paid.  

So it just may come down to the workers in the three big auto makers plants to agree to take a little less money and keep their jobs.  t It is possible they are going to lose all if they do not bend.  GM announced today that they are "temporarily" closing 20 of their plants.  Is there anyone out there who would care to make a little wager with me that those plants will never open again?   I'll even give you good odds.  Those jobs are lost!  Gone and never coming back.  

Now I hope the remaining workers in the plants that are not closing get the message and perhaps keep the auto industry afloat and keep their jobs. We tax payers may be forced by our weak kneed Congress to bail them out this time but the measly $14 billion will be lapped up like so much water and they will be back for more.  And if this recession doesn't get them then the elections coming up in two years certainly will, because someone making $28 an hour sure has no sympathy for nor desire to prop up the man making $84.

It is time perhaps for a tax payer strike  in this country.    BB

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Bail Out Insures Failure

Posted in National stories

Dec. 9, 2008 at 15:13

by BrendaBee

Tuesday, December 09, 2008
"Economic fluctuations cause recessions. Political ones cause depressions. The Bush bailouts in September created a $700 billion bad precedent, and now the feds have about $8 trillion in direct and indirect financial bailout obligations, which is half the size of the entire U.S. economy. Coverage by The New York Times showed that even big-government advocates were amazed: Federal officials hoping for economic revival were "sending a message that they would print as much money as needed."  ( http://townhall.com/columnists/MarvinOlasky/2008/12/09/what_if )

Has our government gone mad?  These are supposed to be intelligent people but they are  on a spending frenzy at a time when  all logic would demand prudence.  The people understand what is happening and have cut back considerably in their spending, but the people who are responsible for holding the purse strings of our country having found our purse empty are merely stealing from the yet unborn with ever increasing abandon.  And if that suicidal stupidity is not enough they are throwing money away in such a way that failure is sure to result.

Giving the Big 3 Automakers a bail out was beyond insanity.  There is no way this industry can reverse its self-inflicted demise.  Self-inflicted  due to an  unfounded attitude of superiority and  an  belief that they were insulated from failure because they are "just too big  to fail".    Detroit auto makers have decided for 30 years that they were right and the world was wrong in producing economically operating automobiles.  Detroit insisted that  oil supplies would feed the gas hogs they produced forever and people would buy them even with all evidence to the contrary.  All it would have taken was management getting out of their private jets and taking  a short drive down the interstate (any interstate) to see just how many foreign cars were on America's highways.

Now our Congress is giving them a measly $15 billion dollars with instructions to turn around and remake themselves  almost instantly.  This with the threat that there will be no more money coming.  But of course the auto makers and everyone else knows there will be more money coming.   In fact a great deal more money from the pockets of the unborn because not to spend more money on them would be "throwing" this first  (and last we are being told) installment away.

I have been adamantly opposed to any bail outs of any failing company period because a failed company up to the present has gotten there by their own poor business practices.   But darn it people, if you are going to give  a bailout then give one that is large enough to do the job!  $15 billion  for the Big 3  will be swallowed up in one gulp with no sign of any improvements in the situation.   It is akin to giving a homeless person enough money  for today's meal  instead of enough funds to get himself  some sort of shelter and the ability to get himself cleaned up and able to go out and get himself a job to earn the money for his own daily food allowance.  (Of course this is how our government  funding for the poor has always operated with the result being more homeless!)  However the example is valid because this is exactly what $15 billion will be for the auto makers.

So I repeat, " And if that suicidal stupidity is not enough they are throwing money away in such a way that failure is sure to result."   While our bail out debt has iincreased to $8 trillion.  Me thinks the country is not going to Hell in a Hand Basket  as my Dad wopuld have said, but  in a out of control locamotive pulling the entire nation behind it towards a dive into a  deep, deep gorge. BB

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American Tax payers to bail out GM's Brazil Operations.

Posted in National stories

Nov. 28, 2008 at 08:13

by BrendaBee

Why does this not surprise me?  The American tax payer is being asked to bail out the American Auto makers just so they can  beef up their plants in other countries.  And you know what?  Our Congressmen are going to give them the money!    The of course since the money will be spent outside of Detroit the Big 3 will have to come back to Washington with their hand out saying they need more money to keep the plants in Detroit open and save American jobs.  BB




General Motors to Invest $1 Billion in Brazil Operations -- Money to Come from U.S. Rescue Program
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=14090&ArticleId=320903
By Russ Dallen
Latin American Herald Tribune staff

"General Motors (GM) plans to invest $1 billion in Brazil to avoid the kind of problems the U.S. automaker is facing in its home market, said the beleaguered car maker.

According to the president of GM Brazil-Mercosur, Jaime Ardila, the funding will come from the package of financial aid that the manufacturer will receive from the U.S. government and will be used to "complete the renovation of the line of products up to 2012."

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Too Dumb to vote? Or just, too dumb to be elected?

Posted in National stories

Nov. 26, 2008 at 15:55

by BrendaBee

Oh Dear.  I guess I have been right all along in saying Americans aren't equipped to understand the issues of today because they lack knowledge of the past.  Only thing is, I wasn't  "right" enough.  I really had no idea just how bad it really is/was and most certainly is gonna be.

"A new report from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) on the nation's civic literacy finds that most Americans are too ignorant to vote.

Out of 2,500 American quiz-takers, including college students, elected officials and other randomly selected citizens, nearly 1,800 flunked a 33-question test on basic civics. In fact, elected officials scored slightly lower than the general public with an average score of 44 percent compared to 49 percent.

Only 0.8 percent of all test-takers scored an "A."

There was an interesting article in The Princetonian   http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2007/09/20/news/18641.shtml ).

 It up held the finding that incoming freshman knew more than graduating seniors.  Both groups however failed the test as far as  the grading scale is concerned.  I suppose this is one where we have to fall back on the old Bell Curve for the Stupid grading system.  But only of course after throwing out the very few high scores.

I got a sad laugh out of one more of my bitches about the so-called "Intellectuals" or "Intelligensia".  You know,  those people dictators usually knock off when they come into power along with the people in the asylums.    It is called ridding the population of the undesirables and misfits.  I'm not in agreement with the dictators that those with mental disabilities should be placed in the same class as  the "intellectuals".  No I think I would allow the mentally disabled to live.  

Anyhow, the article said, "Some Princeton professors questioned the report's claims."   You bet they did with brick bats from "it means nothing"  to  "it is political"  to the dumbest of all:   "History department chair Jeremy Adelman said, "Not knowing is not the same as being ignorant," he said. "And if we can teach our students that there's a distinction between the two, then I think we have done a good job. I have a feeling that some people who ran that survey don't understand."

Well if a graduate of Princeton University doesn't know  in his/her senior year then I simply do not understand the meaning of ignorant, and Dr. Jeremy Adelman with a slew of degrees and awards for outstanding scholarship hanging on his wall, was quite correct that some of us, who by the way passed the test with a score of 100%, simply "don't understand".  BB

Take the quiz yourself at:

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx 

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Are You Ready to Hand-over American Sovereignty to the United Nations?

Posted in National stories

Nov. 26, 2008 at 14:02

by BrendaBee

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A blog for Regular Folks

Posted in On Blogging

Nov. 24, 2008 at 15:30

by BrendaBee

I ran across this web site a while back and have stopped by on occasion to read how others  outside of NC feel,   and they sure seems to feel like  my kind of people.  It is entitled:
Regular * Folks * United    The bully pulpit for  Regular Folks.

http://regularfolksunited.com/index.php?tab=article_view&article_id=560

This article especially spoke to me.  We the tax payers are indeed allowing the drunken bums in Washington to bankrupt our great grand children.  I call them drunks because they had to have been drunk on something other than water to have passed the $700 billion Bail Out that was suppose to cure the ills of the economy and didn't.   Now the Big  3 American Auto Makers are begging our Congressmen to put them on the Welfare rolls too.  They want to be given a periodic check just like the  Welfare Mothers, only a whole heck of a lot bigger.  And, the recipients are not living in the slums or public housing;  they are in fact cruising around in their private jets.

No one in Washington seems to know what the H is going on and that includes the one who was put in charge of the $700 billion Hank Paulson.  But  everyone in Washington including our president elect is telling us we can not allow the economy to fail regardless of what it takes. And of course what it will take is Washington's sure cure for everything, "Let's throw more money at it."

Well, why the Hell Not?   I will tell you why not: We have been living too high and too loose and too arrogantly irresponsible and one day the balloon our country has been riding just had to hit the point where  the pressure within was greater than the pressure without and there was one great big bang.  Well listen for it because the bang is coming momentarily.  There is no stopping it at all, there is just throwing good money after bad into the wild blue yonder.  BB

I hope you enjoy this blog as much as I do.  BB

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Having the alcoholic design his recovery plan

Date: Monday, November 17, 2008, 9:33 AM EST,  9:33 AM EST from suleske

The government will do "whatever it takes" to revive the economy, Obama said. That means "we shouldn't worry about the deficit next year or even the year after," he said, adding that in the short term, "the most important thing is that we avoid a deepening recession."

"Whatever it takes"? "Whatever"? Biggest lie of the millennium right there, folks. (Biggest lie of the previous millennium? Satan convincing people he/it doesn't exist.)

Here's one thing the government will not do, which perhaps ironically is the one thing that will save the U.S. economy long-term: reduce its size dramatically.

Just to balance the standing budget, we'd need to lop 15% off the top. That's 15% from EACH and EVERY department. Add the questionable financial "bailout" package and that figure rises to 43%. JUST TO BALANCE THE BUDGET.

Imagine if you were 43% in the hole next year. How long would you last?

This doesn't even address the $11 TRILLION public debt we have amassed. That's $37,000 for every American. Not every household or taxpayer, every American.

I don't know about you, but I don't have that right now. In fact, my retirement assets have declined recently more than that figure, so how about we're now square, okay government? Seems only equitable, seeing as your fiscal policies fueled my losses. Want my $37,000? I'm referring you to Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd.

Oh, I almost forgot the unfunded entitlements, i.e. Social inSecurity and MediScare.  Some estimates place those around $50 trillion. That's another $170,000 on top of the $37,000 you owe. You can get yourself a pretty nice house in some parts for $207,000. That's what the Congress has either already spent or has promised to spend on behalf of each and every last one of us.

Back to this notion that the government will do "whatever it takes" to ensure a healthy economy, having the alcoholic design his recovery plan is a solution doomed to failure.

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Why we who said Hell No to the Bail Out were Right

Posted in National stories

Nov. 23, 2008 at 21:57

by BrendaBee

We who said Hell No to the Bail Out were Right.  Now on PBS has three videos that are a must see.  Insiders speak out on what really happened.  It was all greed that led to  creating derivatives with smoke and mirrors.  Check these out at:  PBS


Congress did not listen to the tens of thousands of  tax payers who emailed, phoned and wrote to them to say no to the Bail Out.  Now these same Congressmen being lead again by Democrat Barney Frank  and Democrat Senator Dodd the two most vocal and most influential people in this scam are yelling the loudest that it was a scam and they were lied to.  Well I'll be darned, can you actually believe the hoodlums on Wall Street actually lied to these dear gentlemen?  How dare they?!

Now just keep your eye on these two  guys because they are going to be the very top dogs in Congress who are going to  lead us all right into the black hole that bailing out the auto industry in America will be.  BB

For my posts on this whole deal look under National stories, National News.

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