With the looming financial situation...... sm

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu

Two days ago on C-Span they seemed to congratulate the bigwigs of the financial companies who got BILLIONS in BONUSES. They ran down the list of those that were being questioned and how much they received. It's absolutely sickening. I had to turn it off.

for quite some time for just such a thing. We haven't spent foolishly or lived above our means. New toys and technology don't impress us much. We have been fortunate and blessed.

(CNN) � The global economy may be undergoing a significant downturn, but the White House's dinner budget still appears flush with cash.

After all, world leaders who are in town to discuss the economic crisis are set to dine in style Friday night while sipping wine listed at nearly $500 a bottle.

According to the White House, tonight's dinner to kick off the G-20 summit includes such dishes as "Fruitwood-smoked Quail," "Thyme-roasted Rack of Lamb," and "Tomato, Fennel and Eggplant Fondue Chanterelle Jus."

To wash it all down, world leaders will be served Shafer Cabernet �Hillside Select� 2003, a wine that sells at $499 on Wine.com.

The exceedingly pricey wine may seem a bit peculiar given leaders are in Washington to discuss a possible world financial meltdown, but Sally McDonough, a spokeswoman for Laura Bush, said it "was the most appropriate wine that we had in the White House wine cellar for such a gathering.

McDonough also said the White House purchased the wine at a "significantly lower price" than what it is listed at.

"Of course the White House gets its wine at wholesale prices," she said. "Given the intimate size of the group, it was an appropriate time for The White House to use this stock."

The leaders of the U.K., France, Russia, China, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey and 11 developing economies have all come to Washington at the behest of President Bush in an effort to express confidence in the fundamental underpinnings of the world's economy.

And here comes the winter..Im sure Bush with all his power can find ways to help America through the winter with oil prices but..nah..he has to pay back his oil cronies..OMG, if we can influence countries to stop nuclear production we surely can influence companies to help us through the oil crisis. The profits the oil companies are making is obscene..I have a friend who lives in Bakersfield, an oil town. He and his wife divorced and she married the head of a major oil company in the Bakersfield region. Not gonna say the name of the company but it is one of the biggest in America..He told me she lives in extreme luxury..I bet, especially in Bakersfield where prices are relatively low anyway..These oil barons are living high and we are, as my aunt used to say, *robbing peter to pay paul*. Ummm.do I smell and feel a revolution arising..sure hope so..

The 9/11 commission criticizes his lack of a security plan pre-9/11(that's just barely 8 months after he enters office BTW). Then he's criticized for doing wiretaps in the name of national security which the FISA act gave the authority to do.

Okay, then which one is it--he's not tough enough on National Security or he's too tough bordering on some perceived legal violation?

But first to a story horrifying even by the coarsening standards of Iraq, the brutal murder and torture of two U.S. soldiers.

Privates first class Kristian Menchaca and Thomas L. Tucker went missing Friday after an attack on a checkpoint they were manning south of Baghdad. Their bodies were found on Monday night. They were reportedly so badly mutilated they were tentatively identified by tattoos and scars. The corpses were also booby-trapped, an apparent effort to kill recovery teams.

Al Qaeda�s new leader in Iraq has claimed responsibility for the soldier�s slaughter.

In the face of brutality like this, is Iraq worth the cost in American lives? Here to answer that question, Brad Blakeman. He�s the former deputy assistant to the president. He joins us tonight from Washington.

CARLSON: So we have spent untold billions of dollars, 2,500 American soldiers killed, all in an effort to bring democracy and prosperity to Iraq. In return, they torture and murder and mutilate our soldiers. Remind me why this is a good bargain?

BLAKEMAN: Well, Tucker, look, this is a tough thing, and our hearts go out to every soldier who has made the ultimate sacrifice so that we can live in freedom.

But Iraq is worth fighting for. The region is worth fighting for. It�s in our interest. These terrible, brutal dictatorships must be brought down when they become a threat to our national security. You know...

CARLSON: OK. But that�s not the rationale the president has offered. He has said now, because as you know, and not to rehash the whole war, but no weapons of mass destruction were found. And he�s said now this is worth doing because it�s worth bringing freedom to the Iraqi people. They yearn for freedom, and it�s our duty to give them the freedom they yearn for.

My question is how have they earned our sacrifice to bring them that freedom? What about Iraq justifies the death�brutal deaths of American soldiers? Why should we feel like it�s worth it to bring these people democracy when they behave like animals like this?

BLAKEMAN: We�re focusing on the animals and not the good and decent people of Iraq. The vast majority of Iraq is peaceful.

CARLSON: Is that right? I don�t think�I don�t think there�s any evidence of that.

BLAKEMAN: There are 12 million people who went to�who went to the polls. They have four successful elections. They have a new government. We tend only to focus on the very bad, on the insurgencies, and the evil people. But the vast majority of Iraqis want to be free.

BLAKEMAN: Hold on, Tucker. If we took your attitude, we would have turned back at the beaches of Normandy when all those people...

CARLSON: Spare me the tired, hackney, cliched World War II analogies. Let�s get to the war in progress, and that�s Iraq. There are decent people there. I have been there. I�ve met decent people there. I know firsthand.

CARLSON: It certainly is. A poll undertaken by the ministry of defense from Great Britain, part of the coalition, said 65 percent of Iraqi citizens support attacks on U.S. citizens.

Our own polling, done by World Opinion, public opinion, 47 percent approve attacks on U.S. forces, 88 percent of Sunnis, 88 percent approve of attacks on U.S. forces.

These are�are these�these are the people our sons and daughters are dying to make rich and free? How does that work?

BLAKEMAN: It is our responsibility. We brought down this dictator, this evil dictator...

BLAKEMAN: ... who used weapons of mass destruction against his own people. Now, it�s our responsibility to bring democracy to these people. We can�t cut and run and defeat the dictator and then leave...

CARLSON: Why is it our responsibility? There are countries across the world who live in shackles.

BLAKEMAN: We are the freest nation on earth. That�s why it�s our responsibility. We�re the freest nation on earth. We brought down the dictator, and now it�s our responsibility...

CARLSON: How does that work? They have not done one thing for us. Look�look, think of the implications of what you are saying. I don�t know if you have thought this through.

CARLSON: Nation after nation after nation, starting with Mugabe in Zimbabwe, moving all the way to communist�still communist, still unfree China, people who are living in fetters who are unfree, who are oppressed, is it our, as you put it, obligation as a free a nation to free those nations? Do you really want to play this?

BLAKEMAN: Is it�do you know what our obligation is? It�s to bring freedom to those people who yearn to be free. And China has come a long way.

CARLSON: ... people I�ve never met in countries that hate us? You�ve got to be kidding. It�s my obligation to do that?

BLAKEMAN: Yes, it is our obligation. Was it our obligation to go�was it our obligation.

CARLSON: Where does the obligation come from? I didn�t sign up for that obligation.

BLAKEMAN: It�s our obligation. Was it our obligation to go�was it our obligation to go into Europe where we weren�t attacked? No, Europe let a dictator get so strong that collectively they couldn�t take him down, and we had to come down.

BLAKEMAN: We lost 400,000 Americans in that war. We lost�a million people were wounded in that war.

CARLSON: Let me just remind you, we entered that war on December 7, 1941, when our soil, the protectorate of Hawaii, was attacked by a foreign nation and thousands of Americans died. We went to war on that day, and not before. OK? So the overall principle you are stating here, that we have a moral obligation to free the unfree, think it through, man. It�s...

BLAKEMAN: I didn�t say that, Tucker. I said when we took down the dictator, when we made an obligation to risk our soldiers to free a country, we just can�t cut and run. We have to establish a government for them. We�ve got to give them the opportunity to succeed. That�s our obligation.

CARLSON: And you may be right as far as that goes. But the blanket obligation that Bush implies, and you just stated, that we have to go free the world, to send our sons and daughters to go...

CARLSON: ... die for other people�s freedom, people who hate us, it�s a scary thing.

BLAKEMAN: They�re our allies. They our allies, and they stand shoulder to shoulder with us. Should we have waited to get attacked by the Iraqis? No.

CARLSON: You know, I thought�when I supported the war initially, I thought that they were capable of attacking us, and it turns out, as you know, and I�m sad to report, that we weren�t.

Governing bodies do their budgets on what the expected income will be at that time. Any time anything goes wrong, it throws a monkey wrench into their budgets, then everybody has to fork over extra money.

and that Obama has played a big part in it, exactly what are you talking about? The economy was in the toilet before he got there, and yes, he's spending a lot of money, but that's in an attempt to try to stop (or at least slow) the progression of this economic downfall.

As far as foreign affairs go, I think we're on better terms with just about everyone now.

homes, natural disasters unattended to, collapsing bridges, earmark bridges. Address those first, save flag for later.

You came on to a political board and insulted the way everyone on here has behaved. Would you teach your daughter to do that? I'm sorry. I am a very nice person too...I just think you were kind of asking for trouble by doing that.

Where Would General Motors Be Without the United Automobile Workers Union?

This is a question that no one seems to be asking. And so I've asked it. And here, in essence, is what I think is the answer. (The answer, of course, applies to Ford and Chrysler, as well as to General Motors. I've singled out General Motors because it's still the largest of the three and its problems are the most pronounced.)

First, the company would be without so-called Monday-morning automobiles. That is, automobiles poorly made for no other reason than because they happened to be made on a day when too few workers showed up, or too few showed up sober, to do the jobs they were paid to do. Without the UAW, General Motors would simply have fired such workers and replaced them with ones who would do the jobs they were paid to do. And so, without the UAW, GM would have produced more reliable, higher quality cars, had a better reputation for quality, and correspondingly greater sales volume to go with it. Why didn't they do this? Because with the UAW, such action by GM would merely have provoked work stoppages and strikes, with no prospect that the UAW would be displaced or that anything would be better after the strikes. Federal Law, specifically, The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, long ago made it illegal for companies simply to get rid of unions.

Second, without the UAW, GM would have been free to produce in the most-efficient, lowest cost way and to introduce improvements in efficiency as rapidly as possible. Sometimes this would have meant simply having one or two workers on the spot do a variety of simple jobs that needed doing, without having to call in half a dozen different workers each belonging to a different union job classification and having to pay that much more to get the job done. At other times, it would have meant just going ahead and introducing an advance, such as the use of robots, without protracted negotiations with the UAW resulting in the need to create phony jobs for workers to do (and to be paid for doing) that were simply not necessary.

(Unbelievably, at its assembly plant in Oklahoma City, GM is actually obliged by its UAW contract to pay 2,300 workers full salary and benefits for doing absolutely nothing. As The New York Times describes it, "Each day, workers report for duty at the plant and pass their time reading, watching television, playing dominoes or chatting. Since G.M. shut down production there last month, these workers have entered the Jobs Bank, industry's best form of job insurance. It pays idled workers a full salary and benefits even when there is no work for them to do.")

Third, without the UAW, GM would have an average unit cost per automobile close to that of non-union Toyota. Toyota makes a profit of about $2,000 per vehicle, while GM suffers a loss of about $1,200 per vehicle, a difference of $3,200 per unit. And the far greater part of that difference is the result of nothing but GM's being forced to deal with the UAW. (Over a year ago, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that "the United Auto Workers contract costs GM $2,500 for each car sold.")

Fourth, without the UAW, the cost of employing a GM factory worker, including wages and fringes, would not be in excess of $72 per hour, which is where it is today, according to The Post-Crescent newspaper of Appleton, Wisconsin.

Fifth, as a result of UAW coercion and extortion, GM has lost billions upon billions of dollars. For 2005 alone, it reported a loss in excess of $10 billion. Its bonds are now rated as "junk," that is, below, investment grade. Without the UAW, GM would not have lost these billions.

Sixth, without the UAW, GM would not now be in process of attempting to pay a ransom to its UAW workers of up to $140,000 per man, just to get them to quit and take their hands out of its pockets. (It believes that $140,000 is less than what they will steal if they remain.)

Seventh, without the UAW, GM would not now have healthcare obligations that account for more than $1,600 of the cost of every vehicle it produces.

Eighth, without the UAW, GM would not now have pension obligations which, if entered on its balance sheet in accordance with the rule now being proposed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, will leave it with a net worth of minus $16 billion.

What the UAW has done, on the foundation of coercive, interventionist labor legislation, is bring a once-great company to its knees. It has done this by a process of forcing one obligation after another upon the company, while at the same time, through its work rules, featherbedding practices, hostility to labor-saving advances, and outlandish pay scales, doing practically everything in its power to make it impossible for the company to meet those obligations.

Ninth, without the UAW tens of thousands of workers � its own members � would not now be faced with the loss of pension and healthcare benefits that it is impossible for GM or any of the other auto companies to provide, and never was possible for them to provide. The UAW, the whole labor-union movement, and the left-"liberal" intellectual establishment, which is their father and mother, are responsible for foisting on the public and on the average working man and woman a fantasy land of imaginary Demons (big business and the rich) and of saintly Good Fairies (politicians, government officials, and union leaders). In this fantasy-land, the Good Fairies supposedly have the power to wring unlimited free benefits from the Demons.

Tenth, Without the UAW and its fantasy-land mentality, autoworkers would have been motivated to save out of wages actually paid to them, and to provide for their future by means of by and large reasonable investments of those savings � investments with some measure of diversification. Instead, like small children, lured by the prospect of free candy from a stranger, they have been led to a very bad end. They thought they would receive endless free golden eggs from a goose they were doing everything possible to maim and finally kill, and now they're about to learn that the eggs just aren't there.

Here is the link for the rest of the article: http://mises.org/story/2124

With the looming financial situation...... sm

Iranian opposition leader calls for rally Thursday

Where Would General Motors Be Without the United Automobile Workers Union?