MTP is pretty interesting this morning. Gregory is actually having a discussion with Fiorina, Romney, Granholm, Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google,) and the CEO of Wal-Mart Lee Scott.
The myths and fairytales are flying out of the mouths of the liars.
(Yep, there is more. Note: edited to use the there's more feature.)
1. The UAW workers do not make $73 per hour.
This was a myth started by a WSJ reporter, who took all of the wages, all of the retirement health care costs, all of the pension costs, all of the current workers health care costs, all of the current workers vacation, sick leave, etc costs plus the wages of the CEOs and then divided it by the hours worked by the current employees. That is how that number was arrived at.
The same result would happen if you took all government employees and added in all pensions, etc and then divided it by the current hours worked by current employees. It is a BS number.
If Bill Gates walked into a bar with 5 people, the average net worth of the people in the bar would be many millions of dollars. Think people, think.
2. The talks in the Senate did not break down over the UAW not agreeing to cut their wages in 2009.
Gettelfinger had an agreement with Corker. Corker did not have the clout in his Caucus to bring it about (or his Caucus sent him out there as a sacrifice.) They had an agreement. It fell apart with the Republicans when Corker brought it back. The GOP had no intention of negotiating. From the beginning they had no intention. It was all political theatre.
The UAW never should have even tried to negotiate with those lying fucks. They did so in good faith, and they have learned their lesson.
3. We do not have the "second highest business tax rate in the world."
Bullshit. We have more tax loopholes than any other country in the world. The larger that you are the more loopholes that you can take advantage of. There is a building in the Cayman Islands that holds almost 20,000 corporations that should be US businesses. They have a PO Box in the Caymans to avoid paying US taxes.
4. Businesses do not "create jobs." This is the greatest myth perpetuated by the Right.
Demand creates jobs. Employees offer their services to companies. Employees create wealth for business owners. (Good luck Lee Scott, CEO of Walmart - try selling your cheap crap without your thousands of underpaid employees. I'd like to see you in that blue vest.)
Please use this thread to list other BS myths perpetuated by the Right Wing. I know that it could go on forever, so, maybe just stick to the ones being thrown out today, on the morning shows. Even those will take up a ton of bandwidth.
5. Just because Obama is from Chicago does not mean that he is responsible for every friggin' thing that happens in Illinois. This is a molehill not a mountain. The media needs to quit hyperventilating about this crap and start focusing on the actual crimes being performed by the Bush Administration.
Oh, and PS: That gawddamned commercial about "the faces of lawsuit abuse" commercial is crap. There is not really a "lawsuit abuse" problem. This is one more BS meme put forward by the Right. The same old crap that blames trial lawyers for everything.
The law is there to protect the people from the government and the corporations and the powerful - not the other way around. Unfortunately, the law is not always used as it was intended - to save us from them, but that is only because enough people do not understand the history of our founding and why our laws and Constitution were written as such.
We need civics education and we need it badly.
Read more!
Showing posts with label The Big Three. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Big Three. Show all posts
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
You’re Right – It Is Personal
This whole auto industry failure; union busting; kill the economy; families starving thing, does hit home, and I cannot separate my personal feelings from my intellectual opposition to what the GOP is doing. I feel it now the same way that I felt it as a little girl – and it frightens me.
Click "read more" to find out why.
My dad is from Tennessee. He grew up extremely poor, his family was basically “share croppers” – they never owned a thing. They lived in a shack on the land that they took care of. My dad quit school in the 6th grade so that he could go to work in the tobacco fields and help to take care of his family.
The army saved his life. He gained 40 pounds in his three months of basic. He said that it was the first time that he got good meals and good sleep. He had worked so hard for so many years that basic friggin’ training was a reprieve. The army also brought him west. The Army took him out of Tennessee and away from that life of share cropping; it also brought him to a union state with union jobs.
Dad worked for a Chevy dealership as a mechanic for 40 years, (except for a couple of years in the late 1970’s.) Dad had worked his way up to Service Manager. (I remember what a big deal that it was for my daddy to go to work wearing a tie. I recall looking in the closet at his ties...it was so extraordinary. Dad also no longer came home covered in grease.)
In the late 1970’s dad’s dealership went non-union. I will never forget what it was like, walking the picket lines with my family. The talks broke down, the union dissolved, my dad was fired.
He worked for a couple of different independent mechanic shops – but he could not make enough money, nor did he have any benefits. About this time mom, who had also worked for some auto dealerships and done miscellaneous odd jobs to help us survive over the years, started working nights as a custodian for the school district. She had to do this, the job offered benefits which my dad no longer had.
Dad was eventually hired back, at the same dealership, on the bench. On the bench means that he was once again an auto mechanic. No more ties, no more clean fingernails.
For the next 20 years dad worked as a mechanic. He finally retired, at age 65, one of the longest working employees at the dealership. He outworked the original owner’s son, who took over and retired while dad bent over cars and dolly’d under cars and had fucking computerized vehicles overtake auto mechanics (the technology changed so dramatically that the older mechanics just could not do it anymore – btw, when dad started working at the dealership, the owner’s son was still in High School.)
Meanwhile, mom worked her way up at the school district and eventually became a crew chief of a unit that went from school to school resurfacing the hardwood floors. She also worked on the board of her union, serving various volunteer positions.
After 20 years the district killed her position, dissolved her crew, and she had to take a seniority cut and go back to work in one of the schools. She worked nights for close to 30 years and put up with crap from students that no one should ever have to put up with. She was union – that is the only reason that her job was saved at all. She was union and had to put up with the crap that she did, but at least she had a job and she had benefits.
So, this whole anti-union, anti-American auto industry, Tennessee union-busting Senator, kill-the-American-dream-and-make-families-starve Bullshit really hits home. These bastards who sit in their offices making decisions that affect millions of people need to realize that these people are not numbers, they are not statistics, they are real people who are just trying to eat and take care of their families. They are trying to save their homes and be able to turn on the heat in the winter.
I remember when money was scarce and I remember not being able to turn on the heat. Luckily, for my family, we raised our own beef, had chickens for eggs, went hunting for venison in the fall, went fishing in the spring and had an enormous garden where we grew our own vegetables and had fruit trees out back. Our cellar and freezer were full – we were spoiled in that way and grateful for the plentiful food that we had…but we were always a paycheck away from losing it all. I never understood as a kid what a difference that growing and raising our food meant; not until adulthood brought grocery bills and an understanding of what my parents did.
Ya, you’re right, it is personal - I wish that it were personal for the Senators in DC.
Read more!
Click "read more" to find out why.
My dad is from Tennessee. He grew up extremely poor, his family was basically “share croppers” – they never owned a thing. They lived in a shack on the land that they took care of. My dad quit school in the 6th grade so that he could go to work in the tobacco fields and help to take care of his family.
The army saved his life. He gained 40 pounds in his three months of basic. He said that it was the first time that he got good meals and good sleep. He had worked so hard for so many years that basic friggin’ training was a reprieve. The army also brought him west. The Army took him out of Tennessee and away from that life of share cropping; it also brought him to a union state with union jobs.
Dad worked for a Chevy dealership as a mechanic for 40 years, (except for a couple of years in the late 1970’s.) Dad had worked his way up to Service Manager. (I remember what a big deal that it was for my daddy to go to work wearing a tie. I recall looking in the closet at his ties...it was so extraordinary. Dad also no longer came home covered in grease.)
In the late 1970’s dad’s dealership went non-union. I will never forget what it was like, walking the picket lines with my family. The talks broke down, the union dissolved, my dad was fired.
He worked for a couple of different independent mechanic shops – but he could not make enough money, nor did he have any benefits. About this time mom, who had also worked for some auto dealerships and done miscellaneous odd jobs to help us survive over the years, started working nights as a custodian for the school district. She had to do this, the job offered benefits which my dad no longer had.
Dad was eventually hired back, at the same dealership, on the bench. On the bench means that he was once again an auto mechanic. No more ties, no more clean fingernails.
For the next 20 years dad worked as a mechanic. He finally retired, at age 65, one of the longest working employees at the dealership. He outworked the original owner’s son, who took over and retired while dad bent over cars and dolly’d under cars and had fucking computerized vehicles overtake auto mechanics (the technology changed so dramatically that the older mechanics just could not do it anymore – btw, when dad started working at the dealership, the owner’s son was still in High School.)
Meanwhile, mom worked her way up at the school district and eventually became a crew chief of a unit that went from school to school resurfacing the hardwood floors. She also worked on the board of her union, serving various volunteer positions.
After 20 years the district killed her position, dissolved her crew, and she had to take a seniority cut and go back to work in one of the schools. She worked nights for close to 30 years and put up with crap from students that no one should ever have to put up with. She was union – that is the only reason that her job was saved at all. She was union and had to put up with the crap that she did, but at least she had a job and she had benefits.
So, this whole anti-union, anti-American auto industry, Tennessee union-busting Senator, kill-the-American-dream-and-make-families-starve Bullshit really hits home. These bastards who sit in their offices making decisions that affect millions of people need to realize that these people are not numbers, they are not statistics, they are real people who are just trying to eat and take care of their families. They are trying to save their homes and be able to turn on the heat in the winter.
I remember when money was scarce and I remember not being able to turn on the heat. Luckily, for my family, we raised our own beef, had chickens for eggs, went hunting for venison in the fall, went fishing in the spring and had an enormous garden where we grew our own vegetables and had fruit trees out back. Our cellar and freezer were full – we were spoiled in that way and grateful for the plentiful food that we had…but we were always a paycheck away from losing it all. I never understood as a kid what a difference that growing and raising our food meant; not until adulthood brought grocery bills and an understanding of what my parents did.
Ya, you’re right, it is personal - I wish that it were personal for the Senators in DC.
Read more!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Sons-a-Bitches
Those Southern fucks killed the bill.
Those gawddammed Southern Senators - who hate the unions and love their foreign automaker's plants - killed the auto bailout bill.
How these bastards think that they can get away with this is beyond me. Do they think that we will not remember? Do they think that we will allow them to kill manufacturing, American Manufacturing, and not come after them when they are up for re-election? Do they really think that President Obama, with his army of friggin' email organizers, will allow them to run for re-election without us going door to door and reminding everyone that they killed the unions, manufacturing and brought on the next Republican Great Depression!?
Dammit, Dammit, Dammit!
Please, call the Congress tomorrow. Make three calls. Call both your Senators and your Representative and tell them what you want.
The Bastards.
UPDATE: Support the auto industry here, and at the UAW
UPDATE 2: (by id) The Senate vote, by yea or nay. Courtesy of dday, who says:
Read more!
Those gawddammed Southern Senators - who hate the unions and love their foreign automaker's plants - killed the auto bailout bill.
How these bastards think that they can get away with this is beyond me. Do they think that we will not remember? Do they think that we will allow them to kill manufacturing, American Manufacturing, and not come after them when they are up for re-election? Do they really think that President Obama, with his army of friggin' email organizers, will allow them to run for re-election without us going door to door and reminding everyone that they killed the unions, manufacturing and brought on the next Republican Great Depression!?
Dammit, Dammit, Dammit!
Please, call the Congress tomorrow. Make three calls. Call both your Senators and your Representative and tell them what you want.
The Bastards.
UPDATE: Support the auto industry here, and at the UAW
UPDATE 2: (by id) The Senate vote, by yea or nay. Courtesy of dday, who says:
The 52 votes don't include Biden, Kerry (in Europe, I believe), Kennedy and Wyden (?). Add in those 4 plus Reid (who voted no for procedural reasons) and you're 3 votes away. Lame ducks Gordon Smith, John Sununu and Series of Toobz Stevens sat this out by not voting. Merkley, Shaheen and Begich would be likely to vote yes, and add in Biden and Obama's successors (whenever that is) and you have more than the votes needed to pass this come Jan. 6 when the new Congress is sworn inSo the automakers have to hold on for 25 more days as the new Congress will convene on January 6th.
Read more!
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The U in UAW - As In, "It's You They Want Dead"
Big Three
Addendum
PPS
Here's the latest from Digby:
I don't have a dog in this fight nor any real ideological position on the bailout, but I think it's wholly honest to believe that this is not just about killing the Three, but killing the UAW as well as strategically advancing the auto companies invested in Right to Work states. But Digby's probably off on her assessment of racism though - I'd want to see what the racial hiring composition comparison between non-union and Southern plants & unionized Northern plants is first.
This is a very dangerous game for the GOP. They have to play now before the inaugeration, they have to win in some fashion that props up their supporters and their sugar daddies, and they have to win in someway that doesn't cause everyone else whom doesn't instantly hate a Republican to keep their 'independence' intact.
Read more!
Addendum
PPS
Here's the latest from Digby:
So the Republicans have thrown a roadblock in front of the auto bridge loan. There is no longer any doubt that they want the Big Three to fold by the end of the year. . .Here's the post from Stoller she quotes a great deal from. Both are highly recommended reading.
This is really beyond destructive. These people are willing to take down the entire economy so they can bust the unions and prop up a completely discredited ideology with the bodies of middle class Americans who are losing everything.
I don't have a dog in this fight nor any real ideological position on the bailout, but I think it's wholly honest to believe that this is not just about killing the Three, but killing the UAW as well as strategically advancing the auto companies invested in Right to Work states. But Digby's probably off on her assessment of racism though - I'd want to see what the racial hiring composition comparison between non-union and Southern plants & unionized Northern plants is first.
This is a very dangerous game for the GOP. They have to play now before the inaugeration, they have to win in some fashion that props up their supporters and their sugar daddies, and they have to win in someway that doesn't cause everyone else whom doesn't instantly hate a Republican to keep their 'independence' intact.
Read more!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
