The Automotive Bailouts: The Other Side of the Story

I have been sitting here, trying to keep out of this. But I have sat and looked at the Republican and NeoConservative Spin on this Story and I’m sick of it. 😡

So, I am giving you, the other side of the story, from the horses mouth; without commentary from me.

I did not ask that you agree, I simply ask that you listen and hear this man out. Now I am almost sure, that the Blogs, that I have linked to, will remove my trackback, like the Neo-Con Fascists that they are. I mean, it is all about controlling the message with those guys.  🙄

Here we go:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Media Q & A:

Media Q & A Part 2:

Media Q & A Part 3:

There you have it. The other side of the story. You decide.

(Source UAW.ORG)

Alfonzo on The "Declaration of Dependence"

An Excellent Video:

Now, towards of the end of this. He gets off into the weeds about the Unions. I’ll give him a pass on it. Because some of the stuff he says, I kind agree with. But he went overboard with the “They should gotten out from under them years ago…” I disgree with that crap. But the rest of the video is right on point.

Of course, if I was a real butt hole, I could say if it weren’t for the Democrats, his black ass would not have half the freedom that he has now. But to counter that, If it were not for Abe Lincoln, he would be still in chains. So, it evens out. 😀

Still I wish there were more black people, like Zo here who believed this way. But unfortunately most of them got sucked into that stupid socialist identity politics crap. Thanks to tools like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

Good show Zo, as always man. 😀

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

Interesting Quote….

I was looking around the news stories and I came across this quote about Obama’s Healthcare plan.

Quote:

Rising health costs push total employment costs up and wages and benefits down. The result is lost profits and lost wages, in addition to pointless risk, insecurity and a flood of personal bankruptcies.

Sustained growth thus requires successful health-care reform. Barack Obama and John McCain propose to lead us in opposite directions — and the Obama direction is far superior.

Sen. Obama’s proposal will modernize our current system of employer- and government-provided health care, keeping what works well, and making the investments now that will lead to a more efficient medical system. He does this in five ways:

– Learning. One-third of medical costs go for services at best ineffective and at worst harmful. Fifty billion dollars will jump-start the long-overdue information revolution in health care to identify the best providers, treatments and patient management strategies.

– Rewarding. Doctors and hospitals today are paid for performing procedures, not for helping patients. Insurers make money by dumping sick patients, not by keeping people healthy. Mr. Obama proposes to base Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals and doctors on patient outcomes (lower cholesterol readings, made and kept follow-up appointments) in a coordinated effort to focus the entire payment system around better health, not just more care.

– Pooling. The Obama plan would give individuals and small firms the option of joining large insurance pools. With large patient pools, a few people incurring high medical costs will not topple the entire system, so insurers would no longer need to waste time, money and resources weeding out the healthy from the sick, and businesses and individuals would no longer have to subject themselves to that costly and stressful process.

Preventing. In today’s health-care market, less than one dollar in 25 goes for prevention, even though preventive services — regular screenings and healthy lifestyle information — are among the most cost-effective medical services around. Guaranteeing access to preventive services will improve health and in many cases save money.

– Covering. Controlling long-run health-care costs requires removing the hidden expenses of the uninsured. The reforms described above will lower premiums by $2,500 for the typical family, allowing millions previously priced out of the market to afford insurance.

In addition, tax credits for those still unable to afford private coverage, and the option to buy in to the federal government’s benefits system, will ensure that all individuals have access to an affordable, portable alternative at a price they can afford.

Given the current inefficiencies in our system, the impact of the Obama plan will be profound. Besides the $2,500 savings in medical costs for the typical family, according to our research annual business-sector costs will fall by about $140 billion. Our figures suggest that decreasing employer costs by this amount will result in the expansion of employer-provided health insurance to 10 million previously uninsured people.

Where is this quote found? New York Times? No. The Nation? Nope. The New Republic? Not quite. But rather the Rupert Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal.

It’s not too kind towards McCain either.

Quote:

In contrast, Sen. McCain, who constantly repeats his no-new-taxes promise on the campaign trail, proposes a big tax hike as the solution to our health-care crisis. His plan would raise taxes on workers who receive health benefits, with the idea of encouraging their employers to drop coverage. A study conducted by University of Michigan economist Tom Buchmueller and colleagues published in the journal Health Affairs suggests that the McCain tax hike will lead employers to drop coverage for over 20 million Americans.

What would happen to these people? Mr. McCain will give them a small tax credit, $5,000 for a family and $2,500 for an individual, and tell them to navigate the individual insurance market on their own.

For middle- and lower-income people, the credits are way too small. They are less than half the cost of policies today ($12,000 on average for a family), and are far below the 75% that most employers offering coverage contribute. Further, their value would erode over time, as the credit increases less rapidly than average premiums.

Those already sick are completely out of luck, as individual insurers are free to deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions. Mr. McCain has proposed a high-risk pool for the very sick, but has not put forward the money to make it work.

Even for those healthy enough to gain coverage in the individual insurance market, the screening, marketing and individual underwriting that insurers do to separate healthy from sick boosts premiums by 17% relative to employer-provided insurance, well beyond the help offered by the McCain tax credit.

The immediate consequences of the McCain plan are even worse. The McCain plan is a big tax increase on employers and workers. With the economy in recession, that’s the last thing America’s businesses need.

Finally, Mr. McCain does nothing to bend the curve of rising health-care costs downward. He does not fund investments in learning, rewarding and preventing. Eliminating state coverage requirements will slash preventive service availability.

The high cost-sharing plans he envisions will similarly discourage preventive care. And as he does nothing about the hidden costs of the uncovered — expensive ER visits, recurring conditions resulting from inadequate follow-up care.

To be fair, this was an opinion piece. But the very fact that this was even cleared to be published in the Murdoch’s paper, shows that there are people within the G.O.P. that are NOT happy with John McCain running for President. It also shows that there are people, powerful people within the G.O.P. that are working hard to destroy his chances of being elected.

I guess that is what happens when you stiff your base too many times. Some people may have forgotten about John McCain’s past stupidity, but some, have not. This is living proof of that fact.

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Bob Barr, The Right Choice for America…..

Bob Barr For President 2008

So far, Bob Barr has raised $836, 686, 52.

Join Bob Barr’s effort to retake America. Donate today

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A movie that every American should watch, before voting

(H/T to AP at Hotair.com)

This movie, if it caught on in the Media would ruin Obama’s chances of being elected President.

Trailer 1:

Trailer 2:

Wow…. I don’t think Barry will have to worry about snipers. He’d better worry about this movie.

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Blogs for Borders 08/18/08

Our weekly vlog — podcast on illegal immigration and border security. In this weeks edition…

We had the chance to sit down for a lengthy one on one with America’s Toughest Sheriff this week, here ya go!

This Weeks show is a 3 part series. Enjoy!

Click on image

If you’d like to sponsor a show contact us here.

This has been the Blogs For Borders Video Blogburst. The Blogs
For Borders Blogroll is dedicated to American sovereignty, border
security and a sane immigration policy. If you’d like to join find out how right here.

Get the Book:

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From the "WTF?!?!" File: Illegal Immigrants come to OUR country illegally, and get deported by Hospitals and Illegal Aliens want to BITCH?!?!

This is unbelievable.

NYTimes.com
:

High in the hills of Guatemala, shut inside the one-room house where he spends day and night on a twin bed beneath a seriously outdated calendar, Luis Alberto Jiménez has no idea of the legal battle that swirls around him in the lowlands of Florida.

Shooing away flies and beaming at the tiny, toothless elderly mother who is his sole caregiver, Mr. Jiménez, a knit cap pulled tightly on his head, remains cheerily oblivious that he has come to represent the collision of two deeply flawed American systems, immigration and health care.

Eight years ago, Mr. Jiménez, 35, an illegal immigrant working as a gardener in Stuart, Fla., suffered devastating injuries in a car crash with a drunken Floridian. A community hospital saved his life, twice, and, after failing to find a rehabilitation center willing to accept an uninsured patient, kept him as a ward for years at a cost of $1.5 million.

This story reads like a cheap dime novel. The poor immigrant. The whole dice. I got four words for this one:

Give me a Break and Cry me a river

The facts are in this story is simply this. This young man choose to come our Country in a unlawful manner and was hurt in a accident and became a HUGE burden on our Health care system here in America.

…and you know what? The Hospital took care of business:

What happened next set the stage for a continuing legal battle with nationwide repercussions: Mr. Jiménez was deported — not by the federal government but by the hospital, Martin Memorial. After winning a state court order that would later be declared invalid, Martin Memorial leased an air ambulance for $30,000 and “forcibly returned him to his home country,” as one hospital administrator described it.

As they should have, the story goes on to say that, as this little criminal began to heal up, he began to act like a total ass in the hospital too. All because he was supposedly “Depressed”.

You know, I am just going to tell it like it is here. These filthy illegal immigrants come into our country unlawfully, and then when they’re hurt. They EXPECT us to care for them, and let the AMERICAN PEOPLE foot the bill! That, my dear readers is totally unconscionable.

As a Christian man, I do feel a bit of sympathy for his situation, but I do not have one ounce of sympathy for the fact that he was deported. Because HE DID NOT BELONG IN THIS COUNTRY IN THE FIRST DAMN PLACE!

Nice try by the Communist Liberal New York Times to try a paint a sob story, but this Conservative is not buying it, not one damn bit.

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Excellent Reading: Chuck Baldwin Says.. "Save The Planet? How About Saving The Republic?"

I post these here, because I believe Chuck Baldwin is a honest voice within the Conservative Community.

Save The Planet? How About Saving The Republic?
By Chuck Baldwin
July 30, 2008

This column is archived at
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2008/cbarchive_20080730.html

Yesterday, the Politico quoted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as saying, "I’m
trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet." She was
responding, of course, to pressure that she and her fellow Democrats are
experiencing to suspend a congressional ban on offshore oil drilling in the
face of skyrocketing energy prices. It would be really wonderful, however,
if the liberal congresswoman could get as energized about saving our once
great republic.

Herein lies another problem: the vast majority of our politicos (from both
major parties) do not even seem to know what kind of country the United
States was designed to be. Virtually every reference made to the United
States by our civil magistrates is that we are a "democracy." That’s odd;
someone should have told our Founding Fathers, because they emphatically
rejected the concept of creating a "democracy" in favor of creating a
constitutional republic.

Has anyone quoted the Pledge of Allegiance lately? Does it say, "And to the
democracy for which it stands"? Or does it say, "And to the republic for
which it stands"? Of course it says "republic."

At the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, a passerby asked
Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got–a republic or monarchy?"
Franklin replied, "A republic–if you can keep it."

Ladies and Gentlemen, that is the sixty-four million dollar question: Can we
keep our republic? Can we keep our constitutional form of government? Can we
keep our constitutionally protected liberties?

In Federalist No. 10, James Madison ("The Father of the U.S. Constitution")
said, "[D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention;
have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of
property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been
violent in their deaths."

The fear of what happens to freedom and liberty under democratic rule is
what prompted Madison and the rest of America’s founders to labor so hard to
create what they did: a constitutional republic.

Under God, it is allegiance to the Constitution that has preserved our
liberties, our peace and happiness, our security, and our very way of life.
Furthermore, it is the repudiation and rejection of constitutional
government that is responsible for the manner in which these very same
blessings are currently being lost.

Someone needs to remind Rep. Pelosi that it is not her duty (nor does she
have the power) to "save the planet." And by the same token, someone needs
to remind Senators Barack Obama and John McCain that they are not
campaigning to be President of the World, but President of the United
States.

What every elected officeholder is expected and required to do is very
simple: they are required to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution
of the United States of America. Period. End of story.

Our public servants are not charged with saving the snail darter or the
Spotted Owl, or saving the profits of the international bankers, or saving
Wall Street in general, or saving the perks of corporate lobbyists, or
saving Freddie and Fannie, or saving the peoples of the world from all the
bogeymen, or even saving humankind or the planet itself. What our public
servants are charged with, however, is preserving (saving) our
constitutional republic.

Of course, the problem is, the people who are charged with the preservation
of our republic are the ones who are the most responsible for its
destruction. The American people have far more to fear from Nancy Pelosi,
Barack Obama, and John McCain than they do from any foreign adversary,
because our leaders have proven that they have absolutely no fidelity to the
principles of constitutional government. They have no compunction about
eviscerating the protection of our freedoms, or about abolishing the
vanguard of our liberties. They are Machiavellian, making King George of old
look like a mere amateur.

No, I take that back. It is not our civil magistrates who are most
responsible for the destruction of our republican form of government: it is
"We the people."

At the end of the day, it is the responsibility of the people to govern
themselves. We must be willing to hold our civil magistrates accountable to
the contract they made with us, which is to uphold constitutional
government. It is our duty to "throw off" any system of government that does
not secure our liberties and protect our constitution. And this we have not
done.

Christian pastors and ministers have failed us. The "Religious Right" has
failed us. College professors have failed us. High School teachers have
failed us. Newspaper editors and publishers have failed us. TV news anchors
and reporters have failed us. Parents have failed. Friends have failed. The
two major political parties have failed. As a whole, no one is talking
about, or even thinking about, the loss of constitutional government,
national independence, and sovereignty. Few seem even conscious that this is
taking place.

Worrying about which major party wins a general election is like worrying
about whether Coke or Pepsi sold more soft drinks last month. Pick your
poison. One is just as bad as the other. Neither has any fidelity to the
Constitution or to the principles of liberty, which it represents. Both John
McCain and Barack Obama are enemies to constitutional government. Both are
in the process of sacrificing our national sovereignty to global entities.
Both men lied when they took an oath to preserve and protect the
Constitution. So, why should we care which impostor wins the election?

It is up to the American people to enforce constitutional government. From a
Christian perspective, it is "We the people" who are the "powers that be" in
Romans chapter 13. Under our form of government, the source of authority and
the source of legitimacy reside with "We the people." We are not the slaves
of any king or despot. Our elected leaders are public servants, not private
masters. In a nutshell, they work for us. They are contracted to preserve
our liberties and our way of life. When they fail, they must answer to us.

So, when will the American people pick themselves up by the bootstraps and
start acting like free citizens and stop groveling before these imbecilic
political parties? When will we set this political house in order?

Of course, all of this demands that each of us understands constitutional
government and the principles upon which liberty rests. It also demands that
each of us be prepared to do whatever is our personal duty to preserve this
republic.

Patriotism is more than waving a flag on July 4th, or singing The National

Anthem at a ball game, or wearing a flag lapel pin on Flag Day. For an
American, real patriotism means that we are willing to preserve and protect
our constitutional republic. Remember, Franklin’s answer: "A republic–if
you can keep it."

Nancy Pelosi can talk about saving the planet all she wants to: her duty,
however, is to preserve, protect, and defend the U.S. Constitution. And that
is also the job of every single American citizen. Unfortunately, most of us
are no better at doing our job than Pelosi is at doing hers.

Chuck Baldwin’s Website
Chuck Baldwin For President 2008

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A article that I think everyone needs to read.

I think all Americans should read this.

“Obama ain’t black.”

I turned to look over my shoulder to see who had uttered that ridiculous statement.

“Pardon Me?” I squinted at the dark-skinned man who had just interjected himself into my over-coffee conversation with my buddy, Kevin.

“Obama ain’t black.” He said again more matter-of-factly as he walked around the porcelain dividing wall and stood at our table where he could be more active in our conversation.

“My name’s Andree,” he said as he extended his hand. “I couldn’t help but hear what you boys had been discussin’ and I don’t mean to stick my nose in where it don’t belong, but I couldn’t leave without settin’ you straight. Obama ain’t black.”

I looked at Kevin as he shifted nervously in his seat, not sure how to take this visitor to our table.

“Well, have a seat Andree,” somewhat trying to judge the book by its cover. “I’m Dave, but most folks call me Coach, and this is Kevin.” Kevin extended his hand politely.——- Click the link to read the rest of Conveniently Black by Dave Daubenmire (via NewsWithViews.com

I will simply say the following, that it is pretty telling when Obama is doing better in White America, out in places where blacks are in rare supply, than he is in the more urban communities.

I don’t have much to add to this article… Because Dave says it all in this article. Enjoy.

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