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.

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.

The Wal-Mart Debacle & Unions

For once, I am going to run against the grain….. 😀

Sonny Bunch over at Conventional Folly is mockingly bringing up that the Unions will try and say that if Wal-Mart was unionized, that the tragic event in New York would have never happened. (and…yes, that was mentioned in a news article….somewhere…)

As much as this is going to make me sound like a hypocrite. I got one thing to say about that:

Horse-Hockey! 🙄

Union workers might be a great number of things; But Superman is not one of them. The only thing that the man, who was killed at Wal-Mart, would have been, if we were a Union worker. Would have been a dead union worker. Because those crazy people were not checking for union cards.

I’m a supporter of unions and all. But I’m not an idiot. 😀 😉 😛

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?

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.

Jonathan Cohn at TNR Explains:

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

Ed "The Tool" Morrissey continues to live up to his name

It seems that my Favorite Madison Avenue Conservative, Ed “The Tool” Morrissey continues his one-man venomous crusade against the middle class, Detroit Auto Workers and the U.A.W.; of which my Father is a member.

He blathers on, in his rather idiotic posting, at the Neo-Con rag called “HotAir” which sums up Ed to a tee. He writes:

The UAW chief, Rich Gettelfinger, has a courageous proposal to resolve the standoff:

“In a news conference in Detroit, Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Auto Workers, said the Big Three CEOs should consider resigning if that would help win backing for a bailout.”

Why doesn’t Gettelfinger offer his resignation as well? Why wouldn’t the UAW offer to help by restructuring its contracts with the Big Three, which shoulder far greater labor costs than its competitors, making them less competitive? It takes a big, big man to offer someone else’s resignation.

Once again, I have to straighten out the four-eyed Neo-Con idiot:

His is name Ron Gettlefinger, not Rich.
He has done more work in his entire life, than you’ll ever hope to accomplish.
Why don’t you do the blogging world a favor and offer your resignation from HotAir.com and from Blogging in General? Better yet; just drop dead. God knows, the world would be a much better place without idiotic morons like you around, that’s for sure.

Sorry folks, I know that sounds a bit harsh, But when this son-of-a-bitch decided to start his crusade against the Detroit auto workers, he declared war against me personally and my Family. Because of this, I will continue to write rebuttals to this idiots writings, until he personally apologizes to me or decides to stop writing insulting Blog postings about my Father, who is a retired auto worker and U.A.W. Member.

I refer to Ed as a Madison Avenue Conservative, However, I know he is not a rich man. But he has the mentality of your typical Neo-Conservative Republican. Of course, for Ed; it is easy to have this attitude. I mean, when you’re basically living off your wife’s disability check and plus getting a nice check from that Neo-Con shill that he works for. It is easy for him to take the positions that he takes.

Meanwhile, people like me, who live in the real world; who have all of $45 in our bank accounts. We know what would happen to this area, if the big three did collapse. This entire area would become desolate, families and individuals would begin to leave in masses. Like they did back in the 1980’s when that big recession hit. Jobs would become nonexistent, like they did during the great depression of the 1930’s. Thankfully, my Dad’s pension would be protected by the Federal Government, due to laws passed many years ago. But those men and women working those production lines would not be. The unemployment claims would bankrupt our state.

But people like Ed and Mitt Romney, they don’t care. They’ve got their money. They could care less what happens to us middle class folk. Here’s where the jobless rate hits home with me. I have not had a “Day Job” since 2005. Due to high gas prices and a bum car, that either needs to be sold or fixed; I cannot afford to drive to the job offers that I see in the listings, that are up to 50 or more miles from my house. My car has a bad “A Arm” in the steering. I cannot drive the car on the highway, I would be risking smacking the wall at 60 MPH, if I did. Not my idea of good time! Besides, the car is quite old, as in 1990 kind of old. The money I would be putting into that car would far exceed the value. So, at this point, I am stuck. Unless I find something around here locally. But that market, is a part of the market that’s dried up around here. This is why I am a full time Blogger. It is all a can do, at this point.

Hopefully now, you will understand why I feel the way that I do about Ed, and his idiotic nonsense towards this area.

Update: To the commenter named Joel, who wrote a rather idiotic comment, accusing me of Ad-Hominem attacks. Well, the way see it. Ed has taken it upon himself in engaging in Ad-Hominem attacks against The U.A.W., The US Auto workers, which includes my Dad; and the middle class in general. So, the way I see it, what’s fair is fair. I am sticking up for those who have no voice, and if that upsets you. Tough Shit! I’m sure there’s plenty of Neo-Conservative Blogs out there, that you can read that just brim with Anti-Union Propaganda. This is not one of those Blogs.

Quote of the Day

Who killed the U.S. auto industry?

To hear the media tell it, arrogant corporate chiefs failed to foresee the demand for small, fuel-efficient cars and made gas-guzzling road-hog SUV’s no one wanted, while the clever, far-sighted Japanese, Germans, and Koreans prepared and built for the future.

I dissent. What killed Detroit was Washington, the government of the United States, politicians, journalists, and muckrakers who have long harbored a deep animus against the manufacturing class that ran the smokestack industries that won World War II.

For once in my life. I am in 100% agreement with a Republican. Click the link to see who it is.

I get e-mail from Senator Carl Levin

This just arrived in my inbox:

Dear Paleo Pat,

Immediate support is needed to shore up our automotive manufacturing sector and to preserve the more than 2.5 million jobs directly and indirectly linked to the U.S. auto industry. This morning, I testified in front of the House Financial Services Committee to emphasize the need for Congress to take swift action on behalf of our nation’s automakers. Standing idly by as the financial crisis decimates our domestic manufacturing capabilities and pulls our fragile economy further into recession is unacceptable.

Throughout the world, the dire financial crisis continues to spur governments to provide assistance to their manufacturing industries, which are not able to obtain the credit they so vitally need to continue operations. Both Germany and the European Union are studying the possibility of providing support for their automotive industries. Australia has provided more than $4 billion in funding for its vehicle manufacturers. Automotive manufacturers in China are already voicing their expectation of financial assistance from their government as well. “The Chinese government will undoubtedly support us,” says She Cairong, general manager of JAC Motors, a Chinese automobile manufacturer. This quote appeared in a New York Times article this morning, highlighting China’s consideration of a plan to provide assistance to its domestic automobile companies.

The spotlight is now focused on Congress, which is considering the possibility of rescuing the industry from an economic downturn not of its own making. President-elect Obama has called the U.S. auto industry “the backbone of American manufacturing” and said that the failure of our domestic automakers would be “a disaster” for our economy. President Bush, Speaker Pelosi, and both the Majority and Minority Leaders of the Senate agree that bridge loans for our domestic automakers are necessary at this time. I will continue to work with my colleagues in the Senate and the Congressional Leadership to come up with a plan that would provide auto manufacturers with the bridge loans they need to weather this financial storm.

You can read the transcript of my testimony before the House Financial Services Committee by clicking on the following link: http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=305099

]. During these difficult times, I am doing everything within my power to convince the Congress to provide the bridge loans for the domestic auto industry that the President, the President-elect and the leaders from both houses of Congress support.

Sincerely,
Carl Levin

The Big Three's Hidden Agenda??

I normally would not link to this guy’s Blog. But because my Dad is a Retired G.M. Worker and a UAW man. I’m linking to it.

I think everyone who is worried about thier jobs and what’s happening with the big three need to read this Blog posting.

Click here

I have never been so angry at my Government and at Washington D.C. as I am, right now. Go read the posting and you’ll see why. 😡

A Picture of our Economy

(H/T to ParaPundit)

New York Times has the story:

But the inventory glut in Long Beach is not limited to imported cars. There has also been a sharp drop in demand for the port’s single largest export: recycled cardboard and paper products.

This material typically goes to China, where it is used to make boxes for new electronics and other products that are sent back to the United States. But Chinese factories reacting to sharply falling demand are slowing production, so they need less cardboard. Tons of paper are piling up recycling businesses around the port, the detritus of economies on hold.

Long Beach is an important port, particularly for the West. It is where imported products arrive and filter through the tributary of trucks, trains and retailers into the hands of consumers. But now, products are just sitting.

“We’re supposed to move things, not store them,” Mr. Wong said.

Roughly 20 percent of the nation’s container imports last year came through Long Beach, putting it close behind the largest container port, Los Angeles. This year, shipping volume at Long Beach is down 10 percent from 2007, and nearly all major ports around the country have seen similar declines. Veteran port workers say the slowdown since mid-October is like nothing they have ever seen. And it is having a cascading impact on other businesses and workers. – Read the rest

Go read the rest of the story. But it’s not only cars, it’s everything. I think Obama might just come; too little, too late. 🙁

Mitt Romney throws himself out of the running for President in 2012

(H/T to Liberal Values)

I saw this and I could not pass it up.

I’ve already Blogged about another Madison Avenue Conservative who thinks that the Detroit auto worker is a piece of shit. (Who, by the way, removed my trackback, like the little fat coward fuck that he is…) Strike that, it’s still there. My bad. Was looking in wrong place. 😀

Now have another Madison Avenue Conservative coming out against the American Auto worker. Mitt Romney, the idiotic Mormon Freak is now opening his mouth towards the Detroit Auto Worker.

Mormon freak boy writes:

IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

I love cars, American cars. I was born in Detroit, the son of an auto chief executive. In 1954, my dad, George Romney, was tapped to run American Motors when its president suddenly died. The company itself was on life support — banks were threatening to deal it a death blow. The stock collapsed. I watched Dad work to turn the company around — and years later at business school, they were still talking about it. From the lessons of that turnaround, and from my own experiences, I have several prescriptions for Detroit’s automakers.

First, their huge disadvantage in costs relative to foreign brands must be eliminated. That means new labor agreements to align pay and benefits to match those of workers at competitors like BMW, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. Furthermore, retiree benefits must be reduced so that the total burden per auto for domestic makers is not higher than that of foreign producers.

That extra burden is estimated to be more than $2,000 per car. Think what that means: Ford, for example, needs to cut $2,000 worth of features and quality out of its Taurus to compete with Toyota’s Avalon. Of course the Avalon feels like a better product — it has $2,000 more put into it. Considering this disadvantage, Detroit has done a remarkable job of designing and engineering its cars. But if this cost penalty persists, any bailout will only delay the inevitable.

Second, management as is must go. New faces should be recruited from unrelated industries — from companies widely respected for excellence in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations.

The new management must work with labor leaders to see that the enmity between labor and management comes to an end. This division is a holdover from the early years of the last century, when unions brought workers job security and better wages and benefits. But as Walter Reuther, the former head of the United Automobile Workers, said to my father, “Getting more and more pay for less and less work is a dead-end street.”

You don’t have to look far for industries with unions that went down that road. Companies in the 21st century cannot perpetuate the destructive labor relations of the 20th. This will mean a new direction for the U.A.W., profit sharing or stock grants to all employees and a change in Big Three management culture.

The need for collaboration will mean accepting sanity in salaries and perks. At American Motors, my dad cut his pay and that of his executive team, he bought stock in the company, and he went out to factories to talk to workers directly. Get rid of the planes, the executive dining rooms — all the symbols that breed resentment among the hundreds of thousands who will also be sacrificing to keep the companies afloat.

Investments must be made for the future. No more focus on quarterly earnings or the kind of short-term stock appreciation that means quick riches for executives with options. Manage with an eye on cash flow, balance sheets and long-term appreciation. Invest in truly competitive products and innovative technologies — especially fuel-saving designs — that may not arrive for years. Starving research and development is like eating the seed corn.

Just as important to the future of American carmakers is the sales force. When sales are down, you don’t want to lose the only people who can get them to grow. So don’t fire the best dealers, and don’t crush them with new financial or performance demands they can’t meet.

It is not wrong to ask for government help, but the automakers should come up with a win-win proposition. I believe the federal government should invest substantially more in basic research — on new energy sources, fuel-economy technology, materials science and the like — that will ultimately benefit the automotive industry, along with many others. I believe Washington should raise energy research spending to $20 billion a year, from the $4 billion that is spent today. The research could be done at universities, at research labs and even through public-private collaboration. The federal government should also rectify the imbedded tax penalties that favor foreign carmakers.

But don’t ask Washington to give shareholders and bondholders a free pass — they bet on management and they lost.

The American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing. A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs. The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk.

In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check.

Hey, Mormon freak boy! Care to share how many workers your asshole father laid off, while he was the President of American Motors? Do you also care to share with the rest of the country of how much of a disaster your daddy’s term as Governor of the State of Michigan was? Especially with his aborted run for President of the United States?

I did agree with some of what he wrote like this:

Second, management as is must go. New faces should be recruited from unrelated industries.

[….]

The need for collaboration will mean accepting sanity in salaries and perks. At American Motors, my dad cut his pay and that of his executive team, he bought stock in the company, and he went out to factories to talk to workers directly. Get rid of the planes, the executive dining rooms — all the symbols that breed resentment among the hundreds of thousands who will also be sacrificing to keep the companies afloat.

However, when freak boy writes stuff like this here:

The American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing. A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs. The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk.

Yeah, let’s kick all the fucking retirees to the damned curb, let’s get rid of all the fucking unions and let the god damn workers work for minimum wages and not give the middle class to have a chance to have a piece of the American dream. All the while the big three make all the damn money and we the middle class American worker gets screwed. Two Words Romney; fuck you! 😡

Classic Madison Avenue, snobby nosed, fiscal Conservatism, the classic Republican attitude of, “I’ve got mine and screw you.”

That mother fucker Romney had better not run in fucking 2012, he wouldn’t get fucking vote one, at least not from this Moderate Libertarian Conservative, not at all. It just so happens that if the big three here in Detroit crash, the whole fucking area will collapse. But that mother fucking Madison Avenue asshole doesn’t care, he’s got his fucking millions. So, it will not affect him.

The State of Michigan has been in recession since around 2001 or so. unemployment is though damned roof, if we let these companies fail, which they will do, if we do not bail them out. If that happens, the economy will go into a full blown nose-dive and this area will become another damned Russia, people will leave in mass and there will be massive bread-lines, it will make for an horrific event.

But the fucking asshole Madison Avenue Conservatives could give a fuck less, they’ve got theirs. Which is why I could never, ever call myself a fucking Republican, Ever!

I am not a fan of Nationalizing of anything, but we’ll prop banks up, and keep the wealthy rich, but to hell with the middle class auto worker. What idiotic bullshit! 😡

Some people, like Mormon freak boy Mitt Romney ought to be seen and not heard. Period!