Uh…Hugh?

Replying to this Bunch of Drivel:

As I discussed with economic guru Brian Wesbury on tonight’s show, the GOP should demand a real concession as part of a quick deal to get Detroit cash.  I think the price from the Dems should be a cut in the corporate tax rate for MI- and OH-headquartered businesses to Ireland’s 12.5%.  As Wesbury said, it would spark a huge economic revival in the Wolverine and Buckeye states –just huge.  And the teaching moment would be huge as well.

Detroit is going to get the money now or in February.  So get something worth having, House and Senate GOP.

Uh, Hugh? Has anyone bothered to inform you that you all are in the minority in Congress? I mean, you all had your chance in 2003 till 2006 to stop the economic crisis and you sat around and did nothing. You ought to hope that “The One” does not force the desolving of the G.O.P. and outlaws Conservatism in General.

Somehow, I highly doubt at Tax decrease would even help. We’re in a recession, in case you didn’t know. Of course, being the wealthy radio star and all, I would not expect you to know this.

New U.A.W. Ad

Unlike some, I happen to think that it is an excellent video.

Here it is:

How anyone can say that the U.A.W. put the big three where they are now, is beyond me. They did not design the shit cars that the big three were building. Anyone who says that the U.A.W. is to blame is; 1. Anti-Union  and 2. An ASSHOLE in my book.

All this argument is for nought , because Congress has agreed to float the big three with some money.

Glad to see that the people in congress in Washington D.C. have finally, decided that we, the people here in the Motor City are people too. It just never ceases to amaze me, that the people on capital hill will float 8.5 trillion to the various Banks and ask for nothing in return, but you let G.M., Ford and Chrysler ask for help and it turns into a fucking circus. It just does not make sense and it speaks to the attitude towards the working class in this country of those on Capital Hill.  The only Conservative that I have any remote respect for, Patrick J. Buchanan; has been the only one speaking out in thier defense, the rest are assholes. Period, Plain and simple.

Oh, yes! Let’s bail out Wall St., but to hell with Main Street! 🙄

Morons, Assholes, and self righteous pigs. All of them! 😡

Oh Brother!

If Congress does not bail out the big three…. they’re raciiiiiiiiiist!

So says The Detroit’s Council of Baptist Pastors

Minority auto suppliers are being disproportionately hurt by the auto industry implosion, and that is devastating Detroit’s African-American communities, the city’s Council of Baptist Pastors said Tuesday.

At a news conference in Hamtramck, council President the Rev. Dr. Oscar King called on Congress to approve a loan package for Detroit automakers.

“This is not a gift. We are not asking for anything that is not ours,” King said of the federal loans for the Detroit Three. “Taxes go up to the federal government. We’re asking for a reasonable redistribution.”

Oh Brother. 🙄

Yeah, they won’t be able to buy no more fried chicken on Sunday. Poor babies. 😛

I mean, they got their black President, what the hell else do they want?

….and Make the UAW President as Auto Czar? You must be kidding.

(Thanks to the Lew Rockwell Blog)

The High Price Tag of Nationalizing of America

Seeing I seem to be talking out of both sides of my mouth today. I give you some sobering news.

Want to know how much the bailouts are totally up to be? 700 Billion? That’s an old number now. Very old.

Try 8.5 Trillion. 8.5 flipping TRILLION BUCKS! …and for what? So some Wall Street Investment banks would not go out of business!

The L.A. Times has the story: (Thanks to Reason Hit & Run)

Indeed, analysts warn that the nation’s next financial crisis could come from the staggering cost of battling the current one.

Just last week, new initiatives added $600 billion to lower mortgage rates, $200 billion to stimulate consumer loans and nearly $300 billion to steady Citigroup, the banking conglomerate. That pushed the potential long-term cost of the government’s varied economic rescue initiatives, including direct loans and loan guarantees, to an estimated total of $8.5 trillion — half of the entire economic output of the U.S. this year.

Nor has the cash register stopped ringing. President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are expected to enact a stimulus package of $500 billion to $700 billion soon after he takes office in January.

The spending already has had a dramatic effect on the federal budget deficit, which soared to a record $455 billion last year and began the 2009 fiscal year with an amazing $237-billion deficit for October alone. Analysts say next year’s budget deficit could easily bust the $1-trillion barrier.

[…]

But even deficit hawks such as Walker acknowledge that the immediate crisis is priority No. 1. Just as with World War II, the government can worry about paying the bills once the enemy is defeated.

“You just throw everything you have at the problem to try to fix it as quickly as you can,” said David Stowell, a finance professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. “We’re mortgaging our future to a certain extent, but we’re trying to do things that give us a future.”

Washington could wind up spending substantially less than the sum of the commitments. Though the total estimated cost of the government’s efforts adds up to $8.5 trillion, only about $3.2 trillion has been tapped, according to an analysis by Bloomberg.

And not all the money committed is direct spending. About $5.5 trillion in loan guarantees and other financial backing by the Federal Reserve is included in the total.

“The only way those commitments would become obligations would be if the economy completely collapsed, in which case it’s a whole new ballgame anyway,” said John Steele Gordon, a business and economic historian.

Here’s why this even remotely bothers me. Because I, and everyone that reads this Blog; Your and My (if I ever have any) Children, their Children and their Children’s Children will be paying for this damn tab. Because our Government decided to prop up some banks that fund our stock market. All so Clinton could float some loans to high risk customers.

Now for the problem, that’s related to this.

It is official, we’re in a Recession!

CNN Reports: (H/T Meme)

The National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday that the U.S. has been in a recession since December 2007, making official what most Americans have already believed about the state of the economy .

The NBER is a private group of leading economists charged with dating the start and end of economic downturns. It typically takes a long time after the start of a recession to declare its start because of the need to look at final readings of various economic measures.

The NBER said that the deterioration in the labor market throughout 2008 was one key reason why it decided to state that the recession began last year.

Employers have trimmed payrolls by 1.2 million jobs in the first 10 months of this year. On Friday, economists are predicting the government will report a loss of another 325,000 jobs for November.

The NBER also looks at real personal income, industrial production as well as wholesale and retail sales. All those measures reached a peak between November 2007 and June 2008, the NBER said.

In addition, the NBER also considers the gross domestic product, which is the reading most typically associated with a recession in the general public.

Many people erroneously believe that a recession is defined by two consecutive quarters of economic activity declining. That has yet to take place during this recession.

So, the Government throwing all this money and bailing out everyone under the sun, except many the industries that need it, like the Auto sector, was a good thing to do, right?

Uh. No.

The financial market and credit crisis worsened during this summer, prompting Congress, the Treasury Department and the Fed to pump trillions of dollars into the economy through a variety of programs, including a $700 billion bailout of banks and Wall Street firms and hundreds of billions of lending by the Fed to major companies and lenders.

But Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Economic Cycle Research Institute, said that at this point, the only solution for the recession is time.

“All the hand waving and real cash that policymakers are throwing at the problem won’t change the fact we’re stuck in this nasty recession,” he said. “The ultimate cure of a recession is letting it run its course.”

Achuthan’s research firm tracks weekly leading economic indicators that are supposed to signal a change in direction for the economy four or five months ahead of time. Those indicators are continuing to fall at a record pace.

Still, he said he’s not worried about the current recession turning into a depression, as many Americans fear.

“Even with indicators in a tailspin, this still is only a very severe recession,” he said. “There’s lots of gloom, but we don’t see doom.”

Of course, he did not use the word “Depression“, because he did not want to trigger a massive panic on wall street.  But the truth and the reality is, that we are on a slippery slope to a depression.  The difference between the two is this; The Depression of the late 1920’s and early 1930’s was caused by foolish investors, who basically “Bet The Farm” on a Wall Street bubble, and when that Bubble burst, those people lost it all. This time the depression or recession was caused by a Liberal President who forced an agenda, of giving loans to high risk recipients. When those recipients defaulted, because of a downturn in the economy, those loans went into default. When this happened, our Liberal Congress basically start plugging the holes in the sinking boat, or in this case, began pouring water into the bucket, but the bucket is full of holes; it works for a second, but the water does eventually run out.

The differences are night and day. There are no easy solutions, I wish that there was an easy solution, but most of it goes over my head. How this situation affects me is this; Jobs here in Michigan are scarce. This only compunds that sitution. A full scale depression only makes the prospects of getting another job even worse.  It is not a pretty picture, but it is one that is very well rooted in reality.

Little late for that!

Here I go, talking out of both sides of my ass mouth again! 😛

Looking over at NRO’s Blog row, I find this little gem.

From NRO’s Planet Gore…. “Big Three Set to Become Green-Church Converts

Oy. Why weren’t the Big Three doing this crap in the 1990’s? Could it be because the OIL companies were lobbying for them NOT to persue this sort of agenda?


Thank You for your support

The Following was made by me. It is my feelings towards those who opposed and still oppose the help that the Detroit Auto Industry needs. It might cost me readers, but it is how I feel.

I declare this photo PUBLIC DOMAIN. Feel free to copy it and post it to your Blogs.

Thank you for your support
Thank you for your support

Update: I posted this for one reason and one reason alone, Washington D.C. will hand over 4 BILLION dollars to Wall Street banks and not even flinch, but when Detroit needs help, they are like “You need a plan.” I am not saying that the companies are not at fault. But it just strikes me as pretty damned funny that Wall St. Gets that help and Detroit gets told to go fuck themselves, in essence. So, Yeah, I’m a little pissed off and a bit jaded at this point. Can’t you tell??!

Trackposted to Rosemary’s Thoughts, The Pink Flamingo – WordPress, 123beta, Right Truth, Shadowscope, DragonLady’s World, Leaning Straight Up, Cao’s Blog, Democrat=Socialist, Conservative Cat, , Allie is Wired, Faultline USA, Woman Honor Thyself, Walls of the City, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, Rosemary’s News and Ideas, The Pink Flamingo, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, CORSARI D’ITALIA, L.O.M.A., Right Voices, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Guest Voice: Dear Charlotte – You Are Bankrupt

Dear Charlotte – You Are Bankrupt

By J.J. Jackson

Dear Charlotte,

Even though you are far too young yet to understand this letter, and you are rightfully more interested in seeing how much noise you can make by throwing all of our pots and pans on the floor, I wanted to let you know that I am sorry. I am sorry at what has happened to you. For you see, you are bankrupt.

I know that this will come as a shock to you once you are old enough to read these words considering that you have never held a job, earned a wage or incurred a single debt to your name. But it is true and I am sorry that I was not able to stop this from happening. Believe me, your mother and I tried and tried hard to not have you placed in such a situation. We have worked hard, paid our bills and lived within our means.

It is not because of us, your parents, that you are bankrupt however. Ask your mother when you are older about how every week I toiled at the computer and wrote numerous articles and blog postings about the misbegotten economic ideas of our nation. These are the ideas and practices which are the real reason why, before you can even think about needing to earn a wage to support yourself, you will be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars in debt to the federal government.

I am sad for you. I am sad for you because these are not burdens that someone who is not yet even two years old should be saddled with. It is not right that the people of this once great nation have stripped you of so much at such a young age and sold you, without permission or without you having committed any crime, into slavery and bound you to serve them and their greed.

A lot of citizens have mortgaged your future for their own present comfort and security. Knowing how it feels to have my own future mortgaged by these same greedy, and dare I say unrighteous, souls I understand that it will only get worse for you as you grow up. Your mother and I already have a heavy weight on our own shoulders in which thousands of our hard earned dollars are taken by the government at the behest of the greedy who did not care enough about their own future to save for their own retirement and believe they are entitled to such at our expense. We are burdened with the heavy cost of other greedy folks who believe that we should pay for their health care because of the virtue of our success while they have not cared one bit to better their own lots in life and acquire that which they desire. And then there are the myriad of other thieves that have compiled agencies of government to demand from us to pay the other debts that they could not pay themselves.

My dear Charlotte, I know it will only get worse for you because it has only gotten worse for us. Already in the past year the government has issued hundreds of billions of dollars in debt certificates, paper money with no substantive backing simply printed on a whim, to line the pockets of people that have made more bad choices in ten minutes than you will make in your lifetime and who believe that they are “too big to fail.” The government calls these debt certificates “money,” but they are nothing more than I.O.U.s which are being financed by foreign governments that will demand the interest we are promising them in return for taking on this debt. Yes, you, my dear, will be tasked to repay these “loans” and all the other spiraling costs of a government run amok beyond sound limits.

For now you will not have to worry much about this looming crisis. There is so much that is of greater importance to you at this moment and for the next few years. You will thrill in chasing the dogs around the living room as they try to escape your all encompassing love and simple desire for just a hug and a sloppy doggie kiss from them. You will be learning your ABC’s and your 123’s and discovering new words. You will be busy trying to mimic new actions you see your mother and I doing and continue trying to sweep the floor, dust the table and clumsily sop up spills with paper towels. You will soon be learning how to ride a bike and to roller-skate. You will undoubtedly revel in enjoying the thrills of the first snow each year and then the first blossoms of spring that will follow. You will eagerly anticipate Christmas morning for many years and what Saint Nicolas has brought for you as a reward for being a good little girl.

I do not write this letter to you in order to strip you of the childish joy you will be filled with over the coming years. I do not expect you to even understand the severity of the situation in which you have been placed even when you are able to read these words, probably asking how to pronounce certain new and unfamiliar ones that you will come across in doing so. I do however write this letter to you hoping that someday, when you are older and wiser and buried by the avalanche of public debt that is bearing down on you, you will find it in your heart to forgive me for not being able to stop the pending disaster which will doom you to a life of servitude to the slothful and the greedy. I hope that you will forgive me for not being able to stop the bad policies of our government that will invariably force you to have to work even harder to support not only yourself but also support all those that the bureaucracy has decided that you must, in addition to yourself, while pursuing the American Dream.

I know that you will be able to succeed in bettering yourself and taking care of yourself but I am sad and disappointed in myself that I have not been able to make it easier on you to live free and experience a greater sense of liberty than the generation before you. I hope and pray that you will not hold it against us, your parents. And I want you to know that I will continue to do everything in my power so that I will, hopefully, one day be able to tear up this letter and never have you read it.

Love eternally,

Your Father

Republican Strategist Todd Harris is a liar.

I was just watching MSNBC’s Hardball. I just watched Todd Harris lie through his teeth.

He sat right there on that show and said that the U.A.W’s President was NOT at the “Bail out Hearings”

Uhmmmm.. Todd?

450_ap_congress_081119

Auto industry executives, from left, General Motors CEO Richard Wagoner; Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli; Ford CEO Alan Mulally; and Ron Gettelfinger, president of the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, testify on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2008

Somebody needs to tell Todd Harris to brush up on his talking points. Because here. He is just flat wrong.

Countering the False Rumor that Auto Workers make $70 an Hour

I am sure that you’ve heard about the Rumor or the Conservative talking point that the Detroit Auto Workers make $70 an hour. The Conservatives will try and tell you that if you figure in all thier benefits, it totals that amount.

There’s only one little problem with that, the math, is quite frankly, wrong.

Well, here’s one reason: The figure is wildly misleading.

Let’s start with the fact that it’s not $70 per hour in wages. According to Kristin Dziczek of the Center for Automative Research–who was my primary source for the figures you are about to read–average wages for workers at Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors were just $28 per hour as of 2007. That works out to a little less than $60,000 a year in gross income–hardly outrageous, particularly when you consider the physical demands of automobile assembly work and the skills most workers must acquire over the course of their careers.

More important, and contrary to what you may have heard, the wages aren’t that much bigger than what Honda, Toyota, and other foreign manufacturers pay employees in their U.S. factories. While we can’t be sure precisely how much those workers make, because the companies don’t make the information public, the best estimates suggests the corresponding 2007 figure for these “transplants”–as the foreign-owned factories are known–was somewhere between $20 and $26 per hour, and most likely around $24 or $25. That would put average worker’s annual salary at $52,000 a year.

So the “wage gap,” per se, has been a lot smaller than you’ve heard. And this is no accident. If the transplants paid their employees far less than what the Big Three pay their unionized workers, the United Auto Workers would have a much better shot of organizing the transplants’ factories. Those factories remain non-unionized and management very much wants to keep it that way.

So, where did this wild figure come from? Jonathan continues:

But then what’s the source of that $70 hourly figure? It didn’t come out of thin air. Analysts came up with it by including the cost of all employer-provided benefits–namely, health insurance and pensions–and then dividing by the number of workers. The result, they found, was that benefits for Big Three cost about $42 per hour, per employee. Add that to the wages–again, $28 per hour–and you get the $70 figure. Voila.

Except … notice something weird about this calculation? It’s not as if each active worker is getting health benefits and pensions worth $42 per hour. That would come to nearly twice his or her wages. (Talk about gold-plated coverage!) Instead, each active worker is getting benefits equal only to a fraction of that–probably around $10 per hour, according to estimates from the International Motor Vehicle Program. The number only gets to $70 an hour if you include the cost of benefits for retirees–in other words, the cost of benefits for other people. One of the few people to grasp this was Portfolio.com’s Felix Salmon. As he noted yesterday, the claim that workers are getting $70 an hour in compensation is just “not true.”

I highly recommend that everyone that comes here, go read the rest of this great article. Because it really puts to bed some of the more idiotic rumors and false information. I mean, I have been raising hell about this whole bailout, but it is mainly because of the utter stupidity that is being parroted by the Far Right and by some of the not so far right. I will say this, that if this is the best that right can do, towards the middle class. They can forget about getting elected in 2010 or 2012. Of course, based upon what I’ve noticed as of late, there is not much hope of that happening anyhow.

I would suppose that there are those who might think, that I do not think that there is any problems with the Big Three. Trust me, I do. I also realize that the unions did get a bit greedy in the last 20 or so years. But, I also know this, that the errors that the present management and management in the past made at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are NOT the fault of the Employees. Nor do I believe that the employees of these fine companies should be punished for the incompetency of these companies. Nor do I blame the employees for the missteps of the Union officials, who were out for their own agendas.

It is just a plain and simple, the Republicans and some Libertarians think that punishing the middle class and allowing those who simply go to work and do their jobs to lose their jobs is perfectly acceptable. I am not one of those people.

In a personal level, my Dad never, ever made more than $21 an hour at his job. He worked for general motors for 31 years. He drove a Hi-lo, otherwise known as a Forklift. He worked for those people faithfully, rarely took off sick, he would work as many hours as they asked him to. Sometimes double shifts, he even worked triple shifts, before they outlawed it. My Father earned his retirement, and now, I have to contend with idiot Republicans, Conservatives and some Libertarians; who want to punish my dad for G.M.’s stupidity. It just is not right.  As far as his benefits go, he’s got some good benefits, but they’re not as nearly as good as they used to be. He used to pay zero for Doctor’s visits and Prescriptions, he now pays a large co-pay for doctor’s visits and prescriptions. I think my Dad has earned every last bit of those benefits, and those Conservative who would want to punish my Dad, I will say to you, what Keith Olbermann said about those in the Bush Administration who knowingly send your Nation’s troops into battle for their second and third terms, despite the fact that some, if not all, are suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome; they can go to hell.

It just seems very hypocritical of this Nation to give Wall Street 700 hundred BILLION dollars, for a damned bailout that did not even really work; but you let the big three ask for a bridge loan and the whole world is like “Detroit can go to hell!” It just does not make any sense to me at all.

Matthew Yglesias and Washington Monthly