re: [Bush] can at least claim that he is not another Herbert Hoover

Yeah, when it comes to wrecking America, he makes Hoover look like an amateur.

When I was doing the auto mechanic gig, I was required to join

a union if the shop where I was working had a union. All the new car dealers in Mpls/St. Paul had either a Machinists &Mechanics or Teamsters Union. I went to a union meeting one night. At that time, there were over 150 members. There were about 20 members at this meeting. Being a good union member, I raised my hand to ask a question about some minor financial matter. I was ignored. After the meeting, my shop steward pulled me aside and told me I was not supposed to ask questions, especially financial questions

Everybody knows what the Teamsters union was when Jimmy Hoffa

ran things. There's a rumor out there that Hoffa was offed, not

by the Mafia, but by members of his own union.

It's not that I'm anti-union, I'm just anti-corruption.

Like I said, the ENTIRE auto industry is toast:

Global car crisis far from over, executives say

Top European car makers warned of a bleak 2009 as signs grew the deep crisis in the auto sector went far beyond the U.S. industry's life-or-death struggle.

The heads of Renault-Nissan and Fiat said the car market would decline further next year...The world's largest carmaker Toyota Motor Corp was set to report a loss of about 100 billion yen ($1.11 billion) for October-March...German premium car maker BMW, which also sells Mini cars and Rolls-Royce limousines, is putting up financial aid to its German dealer network for at least 100 million euros...Daimler aims to cut costs at Mercedes-Benz by 10-15 percent in 2009...A renewed rally in petrol prices at the pump will mean further misery for the global car sector...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081213/bs_nm/us_autos_3

The grim economic reaper will play no favorites.

Critics of the bailout claim that UAW members make $70 plus an hour but how they come up with that figure is truly an example of "fuzzy" math at its best. The hourly pay of UAW members is about the same as non-union workers in the South. The biggest difference are the health care costs. In Europe and in Asia there is universal health care coverage that is guaranteed by the people through their government unlike in the United States where health care is the responsibility of business and workers. Not only does this create an unequal playing field for American automakers, you also have the unique situation where foreign automakers see the United States as a "third world" country where they can manufacture cars more economically than they can in their own countries. Thus it can be argued that senators from Southern states are aiding in the colonization of the United States by foreign powers. What must Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley and others who promoted American imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th century must be thinking?

those car companies. We ought to factor in what these non-union workers are costing the taxpayer in those states. So much for the Republicans belief in free enterprise.

Does anyone believe that if the Big 3 unions agreed to reduce the hourly rate by 50%, give up most of their health care and other benefits, the result would be better designed, more environmentally friendly and less expensive cars? In reality, it would mean even higher executive compensation and the increase in profit margins would be used to try and make make the stock more desirable and priced higher. The philosophy of the Big 3 for many years now has been to build the most poorly, therefore cheaply designed and manufactured cars that could get away with and sell them to the dumb asses too lazy to do their own research and comparison. Toyota is doing so well not because Toyota workers work for less pay and benefit, but because Toyota and other Japanese and European automobile makers have invested heavily in R&D and polluting reducing technologies and make safer, less polluting and far more sophisticated cars.

The American auto companies and the unions cut their own throat. To try to blame the failure of the union bailout is crazy. The bail out was a very bad idea in the form that the socialist democrats tried to pass on the American tax payer.

Voter wake up get these liberal socialist out of office and get people in that are loyal to America

So people in Unions aren't loyal to America? And Democrats aren't loyal to America? And while this post doesn't make the point, others are fond of saying the east and west coasts aren't part of America.

I guess that leaves those CEO's of companies, the ones who are glad to move their manufacturing offshore to pay tiny wages, and like to move their headquarters offshore to avoid taxes, and who make enormous salaries, no matter what happens to their workers. Yeah, they're the real, loyal Americans.

You don't get to define who is an American. Your group doesn't get to define who is an American. We're all Americans. Even those CEO's (they're just Evil-Americans).

First two paragraphs of my note are quoted, rest is my comment. I put html in, but it didn't do what I intended.

but incumbents will take the blame during Obama's two-year honeymoon. Then it will be his problem. Obama may tread lightly in an attempt to gain a second term in which he could do serious damage. Yes we can.

re: Unions successfully wrecked steel, cars, airlines, education

BWAHAHAHA!

You cheap-labor conservatives are such a riot!

P.S. Why do you hate America so much?

To Republicans, any sort of bailout that might help working Americans is a bad thing because it "redistibutes wealth," but using taxpayer dollars to subsidize foriegn-owned manufacturing facilities in America is a good thing because it helps to supress wages (bear in mind that the Republicans would do away with minimum wage requirements in a heartbeat) while sending the profits overseas (redistributing wealth). Brillilant!