Auto Workers

This is a rough week to live in one of America's automobile towns, long known to be "struggling" but now apparently "dying," for lack of even a tin cup federal bailout.

Congress is closing the door on $25 billion for an auto industry bailout out of the total $700 billion bailout package. It seems like everybody can get a bailout, some coins in the tin cup, except for us in the auto towns. This isn't true, but dang, it sure feels like we're being picked on.

In Michigan, the lack of a tin up is the most rough being from Saginaw (my dot on the map), or from Flint or Bay City along the I-75 corridor. Of the Big Three automakers, we're stuck exclusively with General Motors, the one that looks like it's going bankrupt without the bailout. At least Pontiac and Metro Detroit have Ford and also Chrysler, which at least are not going totally to hell in a handbasket, at least not yet.

It's no surprise in these quarters that the top execs from General Motors and Ford and Chrysler would be greedy enough to keep taking seven- and even eight-figure salaries through all of these hard times for the auto industry, which in truth started 30 to 40 years ago. It sparks no sense of wonderment that they would be dimwits enough to fly into Washington on private corporate jets, while at the same time holding out what the one congressman so accurately described as a tin cup. Even while they testified Tuesday in pursuit of their 25 bazzilion tin cup share of the bailout --- that's a big tin cup! --- they still didn't seem to get it.

This is just their nature. General "Generous" Motors through all of its years in Saginaw has been the worst corporate tightwad that any community could imagine. GM treated the community like it was the one with a tin up. Oh sure, GM would put a few paltry bucks into the annual drive for the Community Chest nee United Fund nee United Way, but in perspective this couldn't even measure up to three coins in a fountain, much less a tin cup.
Dow Chemical Co. also is in this mid-Michigan area and Dow Chemical hasn't always been the best neighbor, with its legacy of toxins and dioxins, but Dow's community contributions should have shamed GM by comparison, if GM had any shame. General Motors executives would always argue that their community contribution was to create jobs, as though they personally had created the jobs, rather than job creation being done by the corporation that also created their very own jobs.

Some observers have constantly groused how the United Auto Workers union has broken the back of the domestic auto industry. But now that the Big Three auto execs are playing their hands in Washington this week, maybe more people will begin to understand the UAW's behavior. When the executives ride so high on the hog, the UAW members would feel like chumps to bend over backwards at contract time. Then the auto execs have the gall to create an "analysis" in which the total compensation to a UAW member is said to be $73 an hour. This includes not just the salary and the benefits, but also the pension and probably the cost of heating the auto plants during the winter. Has any similar analysis been done on any other American worker? If the auto execs obtained WalMart, they would probably try to complain that total compensation to a WalMart worker is $50 an hour, or whatever.

The bullishness of General Motors in Saginaw would especially come on the rare occasions when they were conducting small plant expansions. GM executives would pursue maximum tax breaks the way the Godfather would pursue payoffs. Their message was that they had "an offer you can't refuse." Their whole theme was that they would move elsewhere if their tax-break tin cup were not filled. Often they blackmailed tax breaks for facilities that still closed down before the tax breaks expired.

A small part of me becomes still defensive. It's not like the Big Three carmakers are the only bad apples. For example, AIG also has corporate jets for top executives and AIG is still getting $150 billion. And on the ground level, the Japanese cars never were that much better, it's just that people who chose to be different by choosing Japanese cars would never admit they screwed up if their cars went on the fritz.

But the bottom line for me is being sad for Saginaw family and friends, present and passed, who worked in the auto industry for General Motors. They deserved better.

Bailout?

The U.S. economy is in peril and the word of the day is "Bailout." Congress has agreed to bailout banks, financial institutions and insurance companies. Now the auto industry is lobbying for their piece of the pie and looking to Washington for huge sums of money to keep them afloat.

The auto industry is one of the major manufacturing industries in the United States. It is reported one out of ten jobs depends on this industry. If the "Big Three" (Ford, GM, and Chrysler) go out of business our whole economy could crash. Ford and General Motors are losing over one billion dollars per month and could run out of cash by the end of the year. This is very sobering news and has gotten the attention of Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid. Both leaders have called for immediate action on new legislation to help the auto industry in addition to the $25 billion in low interest loans already approved in September of 2008. They want to pump more money into an already losing industry.

Now may be the time to make the hard choices that will force the Big Three to change the way they do business and get back into sound business practices. The government could bail them out, which will not guarantee any sea change in the way they do business. Poor management decisions in the past have led to poor results in the present and no hope for a future. A better choice, instead of a bailout, might be bankruptcy. It sounds harsh but it could be the bitter medicine needed to save this ailing sector of our economy.

If the auto makers were to go into bankruptcy they would be protected from their creditors and would be able to restructure their debt while they still remain in business. Bankruptcy would enable them to shut down plants that are not profitable, renegotiate union contracts, and bring on line new products that are cost effective and fuel efficient. An interesting side note is that the Big Three are doing very well overseas. It is in the domestic market and production facilities where the trouble is. Now is the time to face the ire of the unions and tell them to face reality. They can either save jobs and renegotiate contracts that are more in line with good business sense and the rest of the working class, or they can be shut down and unemployed.

The Democrats have just won control of both houses of congress and the White House. The question is, do they have the political will to stand up to one of their largest voting blocs; union workers. It will be interesting to see how this economic dilemma plays out. The future of millions around the country and the around the world are at stake. Which will it be? Bailout or Bankruptcy?

You are being attack! and you don't know it!

It's hunting season in America, and you know what that means! Your
sons and daughters will be asking why all the men in your family are
killing Santa's reindeer. (Have fun explaining that one!) But that's
not the worst of it; it's also that time of the year when more idiots
with guns injure and kill themselves and other people.

But this season really started out with a bang, as far as crazy gun
stories go. There were two big stories that didn't involve hunters
(well, the guys that owned the guns might have enjoyed hunting; we
just don't know). First there was the child who was killed while trick
or treating. He, his brother, and his father were all shot on the
doorstep of some psycho who "thought they might be robbers". His
father and brother survived, but he did not.

Then we have the story of the 8-year-old boy that shot and killed his
father and another man, likely out of anger. The boy obviously had
been taught how to use a gun, but didn't quite understand the
repercussions of doing so on another human being. The boy's fate is
still undecided.

And now for the hunting tales of woe. Last year there was a story of a
hunter whose dog shot him in the rear (the dog stepped on the trigger
of the gun). At least someone got what he deserved! Recently a hunter
killed a toddler. She was sitting in her grandparent's house when a
bullet ripped through the wall of the trailer and killed her. Another
man killed his 6-year-old daughter while cleaning his gun, and back in
July, a man killed his pregnant wife doing the same thing. In Idaho a
man was shot and killed by a member of his own hunting party who
mistook him for an elk, and another hunter in Michigan was killed in a
deer blind by a woman who was aiming at a deer. I could really go on
and on with these terrible stories, but the liberal media churns
plenty of them out for you to enjoy every day. (Charlton Heston is
rolling over in his grave.)

I know Americans enjoy their guns, but growing up with a father who
took sadistic pleasure in hunting down and killing the best of the
best bull elk around the country made me realize that many people
don't hunt because they enjoy the meat; they do it because they like
killing things- really big things, and I definitely cannot condone the
practice of trying to kill the biggest, strongest bull or buck with
the best genes, because these are the males that ensure that their
species will continue to be healthy and thrive. By killing them off,
we're weakening the gene pool and the entire population of wild game.
But that's just the half of it.

If people are going to continue to use guns in the irresponsible way
that they are, they shouldn't be allowed to have them. The whole
purpose of guns is to kill, after all, and people seem to be doing a
good job of using them for this purpose, often on the innocent and
their own family members. But I know Americans won't stop clinging to
their guns anytime soon.

As long as we live in a society where people enjoy killing, love
playing violent video games and watching violent movies, and treat
their guns as toys, the liberal media will continue to report stories
like these, and your second amendment right will continue to be under
attack.