Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I've tired of giving it away. I'm starting my own column.
Bye!
They're just representing their constituents.
Hundreds of Thousands of unemployed UAW workers scrambling for jobs that they're skilled-at will head down to work at non-union auto plants in the South.
That glut of skilled labor will drive down wages for the workers already there.
Again, the Senators who represent the Foreign Car makers are just doing what they're paid to do.
You're talking about new UAW employees? When was the last time General Motors decided it was so overwhelmed with business that it needed to add new workers? They would be looking to drop at least a third of the current workers if the union didn't have the Jobs Bank. Most UAW workers have parlayed their guaranteed pay raises up to about $150,000/year with plenty of overtime that is mostly spent playing cards in the breakroom. A lot of these guys have second homes on the lake. I'm sorry but this vote is anything but a bailout of Main Street.
You're not actually capable of posting anything that's true, are you neocon?
Senator Beauregard Corker's amendment to the bridge loan bill requires GM to pay half of its union health funding in GM stock, rather han in cash. That might be good. GM stock is very low now, so the health plan could get huge capital gains if the stock comes back.
P.S. Poster Yeah, Walter is right. Current UAW emplyment is very low, due to buyouts, and due to the fact that all temporary emplyees are gone, and to the fact that remaining UAW employees are pretty old, close to returement.
When, if the economy, credit markets, and auto companies come back, the auto industry will be hiring a whole new workforce at $14 per hour.
Heh, not to mention that folks like McConnell and Corker both voted to bail out the financial companies. But remember, public money for the Big 3 is bad.
It's difficult to see this as anything other than a deliberate attempt to completely trash the economy before Barack comes in. Then in four years, we will get to listen to the nasal shrillness that is Sarah Palin talkin' how its all Obama's fault, and by golly, gee, we're gonna get out there, and, you know, trust the American people, and, you know, Joe the Plumber, and Sally the Waitress, and we're gonna protect marriage and teenagers havin' babies is good if the teens are Christians but bad if they're just ghetto whores, and more war also.
These Republican Dead-Enders want to bring that Eye-Rack War home. It's for our own good, apparently.
> But we don't have to wait until January 20. On January 3,
> a new Congress is in town. That's only 16 days from now.
No WAY that Dear Leader is going to let lame duck W take the credit for signing a bailout. Everyone has to stroke the ego of the Savior.
God bless them. Fuck the UAW!
Auto companies and the UAW have done much more than other industries to get lean, efficient and profitable --timbuktom
Oh, so paying thousands full salary and benefits to sit around and read magazines and not build cars is "lean, efficient and profitable?" Don't make me laugh.
The Neocon Republicans caused/allowed our spectacular instant economic collapse. Not the auto companies. --timbuktom
The leading cause of the sudden collapse in September was the credit crunch caused by the collapse of the subprime lending market championed almost 100% by Democrats like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, who assured us a mere year ago that all was peachy keen with Sallie Mae/Freddie Mac. (That is also while Dodd was getting sweatheart mortgage deals from Countrywide via Sallie Mae and while Frank's homosexual lover was a high muckety-muck in Freddie Mac.) The subprime mess was also encourage by liberal groups like ACORN, which threatened legal action against mortgage companies that wouldn't lend to "people of color" no matter how un-creditworthy they might have been.
For those who haven't drunk the Kook-Aid and have actually paid attention to what's happening in the world, timbuktom is full of crap, spouting the usual Salon nonsense because he can count on the ignorance of his fellow readers.
Nor do they have a reason to, they're out the door in a month. Even if the UAW hadn't campaigned against them they still wouldn't care. These guys probably have some cushy lobbying job or some "think tank" position lined up the moment they clean out their desk. This economy will never touch them. In six months you'll see half of them giving "special commentary" on Faux Nooz about what a lousy job Obama's doing to clean up the mess they so conviently left for him. And of course the ditto heads will nod in blind agreement while their own jobs get sent off to India or China or wherever we're letting run our economy now.
Blame the unions if you really want to, paid trolls, but I doubt the UAW forced the Big 3 to keep designing SUVs without any consideration for the future oil market or forced them to scrap the E-V 1.
Once again, the progress of our nation is held back by regressive Southern politicians. Fortunately things will be different after Obama takes office. The Democrats and their non-Southern GOP allies will be able to override the obstruction of the backwards Southern politicians. Long term, the USA will hopefully dilute the vote of the yahoo Southern white down to the point where it is but a minor irritant.
Long live the UAW, and all unions in our nation! If you rednecks don't like it, then by all means, build yourselves a time machine and get the hell back to the 19th century where you belong.
Is that you, Rush? If not, congratulations on getting the Rush Limbaugh rant down pat.
In Round One of the epic, title fight called Taxpayer v. UAW, I noted earlier that the UAW practically threw its rival out of the ring like the Hulk Hogan scene in Rocky III. In exchange for token concessions, the UAW agreed to have their above-market wage and benefit plans subsidized by fellow citizens. How nice of them to accept such an offer.
In Round Two, Darth McConnell and the non-union southern Republicans are striking back, if you can tolerate the mixed movie metaphors. I personally find some of it offensive, including Sen. Shelby's humiliation of beleagured executives. These guys are being punished for the supposed sin of not smashing the union earlier. Running a car company is not brain surgery: in simple terms, you can't sell enough product with this labor structure.
Ultimately, the scene resembles the Gothic crossing of the lower Danube in 376. At first embraced by the Romans, and drafted into their army, the Goths quickly turned on their hosts, routed the emperor, and paved the way for 100 years of decline. So it is with the Japanese incursion of automobile manufacturing in the U.S.
The clock is running down -- could be a month, could be 5 years. But it's running nonetheless. Either the UAW scales way back, or the Big Three stumbles along to its eventual liquidation. In all events, there is no need for taxpayers to subsidize the fall.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
