News

Labor expert Rush Limbaugh, who makes tens of millions a year spewing nonsense, says auto workers should take a 50-percent cut in pay.

One has to realize, though, Limbaugh is a mouthpiece or a mouth of sorts for the elite, whose intentions are becoming more and more obvious by the day.

Auto workers at one plant have awful working conditions.
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Since the country is sliding into third world status as sure as shooting, the only things that will find the country hospitable are bedbugs.

Why the proliferation of bedbugs after they were almost completely eradicated in this country, at least in the urban areas?

...Bedbugs, once nearly eradicated, have spread across New York City, in part because of the decline in the use of DDT. According to the city’s Department of Housing and Preservation, the number of bedbug violations has gone up 67 percent in the last two years. In the most recent fiscal year, which ended on June 30, the city’s 311 help line recorded 12,768 bedbug complaints, 16 percent more than the previous year and 39 percent above the year before. A New York City community health survey showed that in 2009, 1 in 15 New Yorkers had bedbugs in their homes, a number that is probably higher now.

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Next stop, the Twilight Zone, as the dipshits at Washoe County School District try yet another "reorganization" scheme passing the trash around in order to "improve" student "performance," in this highly transient school district.
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While Lance Armstrong may have done a lot of good for cancer awareness and philanthropy, it is all about to go down the drain because of allegations of cheating through doping.

If he cheated, it's over, despite all of the ink spilled in this article about his cancer activism.
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Obama Went to Detroit

to brag about what he did to--er, for--the auto industry there.

Detroit used to be a shining example of American industry, but now it has turned into a sinkhole of poverty and despair.

The Daily Outrage

Don't you get the feeling that sometimes the new boss is the same as the old boss?

Telling laid off auto workers they can go fuck off and die if they don't get retrained for jobs that don't exist doesn't help at all. It's like Obama just doesn't get it.

Forget careers like education, which are going into the ditch and blatantly discriminate against over-40 workers.

There are just NO jobs to be had. We need to bring the exported jobs BACK to this country, not keep pandering to the Wall Street crowd.

This poster from Democratic Underground says it well, I think:

Even today's MBA is soon becoming as valuable as yesterday's HS diploma. In this recent round of layoffs, the Bachelors and MBA holders were sent packing from corporations with the rest of the "unpositioned". Nowadays, so many people are getting their MBAs not simply for the purpose of bettering themselves, but merely as a requirement for remaining employable. There's going to come a time where a bachelors degree, which takes enough time and sacrifice to complete, simply isn't going to be enough. Frankly, it really isn't enough now. When does THAT stop?

What do you say to older workers in general, who still have to deal with the wet-carpet mountain known as "ageism"? To pretend it doesn't exist is patently naive at best and perilous at worst. There used to be a time that older workers and their leadership and skill set were valued. Now corporations want the candidates to be 25-34 years old, have 20 years experience and a master's degree, and be able to work for the same average $40,000 a year that they've been paying us for three decades running.

What do you say to older workers who took the GM/Ford buyouts but still don't have the money to retire? What does this administration say to people like my cousin, who in 2006 had to take a buyout from Packard Electric, which lasted him so long and to this day never recovered the wages he made and is still not gainfully employed? He has nothing other than a high school diploma. It's naive to think that at 37, he and his SO can just go to a community college and start over. What would they do? Where would they get the money for the education . . . go into more debt? Where would the experience come from?

They didn't used to have to worry about this sort of thing before. It used to be that we were able to gainfully employ people who aren't meant for college; these people were our industrial and manufacturing base and they built the quality products we used and bought.

A strong economy should be capable of employing EVERYone at a fair wage regardless of education level, and when you cannot do that, all the talking points in the world aint'a gonna mask the reality that you do NOT have any such economy on your watch.

So now we're again bringing up the "retraining" canard. While it was all too insignificant a bone thrown by the Bewsh administration, Obama seems to mean well because I believe he genuinely cares about workers and doesn't see them as economic losers as the previous admin did.

Regardless, it still remains the futile equivalent of plugging up a bursting dam with corks.

Say you get laid off of a career and have to go and re-train for a new one. Honestly, what career are you going to pick that can't be offshored/inshored?

Do you got a few years to put your life on hold while you GET this training, as in enough cash to pay the bills, put food on the table and a roof overhead?

Here's another thing they aren't seeing - how can you predict that the career you choose to retrain in won't be following it's predecessor overseas?

Not to mention that "retraining" only works if your competition cannot do the exact same thing. What do they think, that Indians and Chinese DON'T have access to the same universities and opportunities we have? They can get the same degrees we can get. They have THOUSANDS that already HAVE the same degrees we have to get. And they will always, always ALWAYS be cheaper. Gonna get your Ph.D in math? Guaranteed there's already 100 Indians or Chinese or whoever that have them and are vying for your position.

ALL offshoring and inshoring/visa abuse should be stopped until you have several new emerging technologies for the displaced to assimilate to. Oh wait, that TOO can't happen. Not only has nano-, bio- and whatever-o-tech already got the jumpstart over in Asia and India during the last administration (which was fervently anti-science to it's own detriment), but now were seeing reports of green jobs being shipped overseas as well . . . the jobs that were supposed to be leading US to a greater long-term economic foundation.

We cannot afford to follow the same path our predecessors have taken for the past 20 years.

If one was conspiritorial to the n-th degree, one would think this was all a foolproof plan by the wealthy, corporations and colleges to keep the middle class, poor and all of us 95%ers in "our station" for life. But I'm starting to go with a certain director who said "I don't believe in conspiracies, except the ones that are true".

A powerless, uneducated, fearful and divided work force is an OBEDIENT work force. It's simply sad beyond belief that Democratic administrations who saw the monumental damage caused by 28 years of Republican and Moderate free-trade follies are still falling for the same Republican and regressive way of conducting business.

I'm not one of those who believe they don't care. I just think this new administration cannot do anything to rein in ubiquitous corporate rule. These spoiled brat wealthmongers are going to learn soon enough just how cancerous their selfish ways will end up being the bullets through their own feet.

The people running this country are a bunch of morons who are on the take from wealthy individuals and corporations. The only way we will EVER get rid of this graft is by putting in true campaign finance reform. Given how Obama scuttled it in his run for the presidency, don't expect it to happen.

Obama needs to get serious about infrastructure, for one thing.

Why

is the UAW silent over Obama's screwing over GM?

The Media, Representing Corporate Interests,

enthusiastically supports Obama's assault on unions, specificially the American automobile industry.

Obama is Treating GM Like Shit

because he is a fucking neoliberal, that's why:

I do not understand this. I understand why Boehner, McConnell, Graham, Shelby, and Corker are trying to hurt GM. For one thing, they're basic a-holes. Second, and in a somewhat more sinister vein, they represent states with large stakes in foreign car assembly plants, and they would like to see these European and Japanese manufacturers (and thereby their own states) prosper at the American automobile industry's (and chiefly Michigan's) expense. Third and most important, they want to strike a blow against the interests of labor and destroy the UAW, after which they can go after all the rest of our unions starting with the AFL-CIO.

But what's Obama's problem here? Why is there one standard for failed financial institutions and another for industrial corporations? Why is Rick Wagoner fired when the CEOs and boards of investment banking firms, mortgage brokers and stockbrokers are still sitting pretty, still doing the same things they were doing before, the very things that caused this whole downfall?

GM had no part in causing our problems. Because their core business is so dependent on the availability of credit to their customers, our automakers are among the chief VICTIMS, not the perpetrators, of this mess. Yeah, they focused on stupid SUVs and pickup trucks and let their business in sedans and coupes languish to some extent, but this was to cater to the stupid tastes of stupid American car buyers of recent years. They were selling what we were buying. There is considerable truth to their claim that Americans were not buying regular American cars -- we weren't, even though some of them, particularly mid-size and larger sedans, were almost decent.

I think back to the death of the American compact car, with Ralph Nader wielding the sword on which they were worsted, killing one of the most innovative automobiles, the Corvair, that appeared on the world scene in the '60s just before the car world began its transition away from American dominance. We made a lot of mistakes, some of which were on the part of our automakers and some that had their genesis elsewhere. Remember 1974, when we had stringent pollution controls but the technology had not yet evolved to meet those standards? Our cars were getting 7 to 11 mpg, and when you turned them off they'd diesel for five minutes, burning cylinder heads, valves and spark plugs so their expected engine lifespans were only about 40K miles.

Government added many burdens to the manufacture of our cars, increasing the price and decreasing the stylishness of American cars. All those weird safety mandates for car interiors (really, how many people impaled themselves on radio knobs?), bumper standards, and a million other little mandated nits made our cars more expensive, heavier, less efficient, and clunkier without contributing to sales. Naderism ran, and continues to run, rampant over the industry.

Our government mandated fuel efficiency, but did so meekly, setting standards that easily within the reach of European and Japanese manufacturers because their populations were already buying cars like that. Americans weren't, so those mandates presented quite a challenge, not just technically but as a business issue. Europeans and Japanese do not share our pejorative concept of "wussiness."

Here, a four-cylinder engine meant the Iron Duke and the inability to run with normal cars. Overseas, however, cars like the BMW 2002 and Datsun Fairlady (a.k.a. 2000) ran circles around our Pintos and Vegas and kept up with our Mustangs and Camaros. Here in America, a normal car had a V-8 and that's what we wanted. Sixes were for people who otherwise would be forced to buy used cars. Fours were jokes (and VERY rare on new car lots). This was not easy to modify.

But our automakers remained profitable and dominant on the world stage nevertheless. Indeed, our automakers remained profitable until last summer, when gasoline prices pushed through the roof, and then this fall when people could no longer get car loans due to problems completely outside anything automotive. I can't help but think that when credit once more becomes available to customers then these companies will return to a positive cash flow, like they have known for maybe 98 of the previous 100 years.

I have some trouble understanding the view that holds that these companies will remain unprofitable after the credit crisis is solved. The whole concept of bailing them out is to keep them solvent, and meeting their obligations to their workers, retirees, and creditors until individuals can once more arrange to purchase their products. It is not that their products are undesirable -- GM in particular is now selling highly desirable automobiles throughout its entire range. A very strange aspect of the conditions of this bailout is the possible elimination of Pontiac, whose G8 (an Aussie-GM Holden design) is as desirable a sedan as is built by anyone including MB and BMW, and Saturn through whose dealers the excellent GM-Germany's Opel cars are rebadged and sold. These seem to be the kind of cars we're trying to get.

I don't have an American car but we are seriously considering getting a Chevy Volt -- we saw it at the auto show and my wife loved it -- when the time comes to put our Prius out to pasture. I just hope that there IS a Chevy when the Volt is due to hit the market, and the chances for its survival might be enhanced if we stopped so publicly talking our automakers down and treating them, their employees, their retirees, their suppliers, and their stakeholders so roughly even as we coddle the robber barons of finance whose unbridled greed created their distress.

It's all because Obama and his advisors are in bed with Wall Street. It's the same old shit, different characters.

The Way the WSWS Sees It,

Obama has, with his speech yesterday on the auto industry, declared war on American workers.

He is demanding all kinds of cuts in pay and benefits.

One need not subscribe to the WSWS's Trotskyite nonsense to believe Obama is more in tune with the financial elites than he is with workers.

If the American Automobile Industry Dies,

Obama will be blamed for it, and he can forget ever running for re-election. He is trying to play hardball, but he sure didn't with the banks, etc.

Here are his remarks, where he claims he wants a viable U.S. auto industry.

Right now he's making GM and Chrysler go back to the "drawing board" and forced the GM head out. He better not fuck this up.

In the meantime, Wall Street still gets handouts, which further supports my contention he is a Wall Street tool.

Provided You Even Have a Job,

home prices are more affordable than ever.

But having an longterm income is key.
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Housing assistance is on the way, with a $75-billion housing plan being unveiled by the Obama administration.

No help for renters, of course.
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Meanwhile, the economy continues to slide. Auto sales have plunged 42 percent.
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Nearly 700,000 jobs were cut last month. The total was 697,000.
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The Booming Economy

American automakers outlining a massive attack against their workers.

This is a video of Chrysler workers critical of the company's demands.

The march to third worldom continues...

Auto Industry "Bailout"

The GOP, as expected, are trying to kill the bill, although there are some of them with a tiny bit of sense and realize their own jobs are on the line.

If that asshole Shelby gets his way and kills the auto industry, he and his other colleagues who started this should be thrown out of office. These assholes are willing to help Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion, but they refuse to help out a major industry and millions of workers for a fraction of that.

Assholes, total assholes.

The Booming Economy

The UAW, according to the WSWS, appears to want to give its rank-and-file the shaft.

THIS is What We are Up Against

This worthless sack of shit, Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, is so utterly insane that he wants to kill the auto industry in this country, which involves hundreds of thousands of workers, not only in the manufacture of cars, but also of auto parts, and of ALL businesses in these towns were the plants exist, plus all of the businesses depending on those busineses, just because this worthless piece of shit despises unions. That's what this not wanting the bailout is all about.
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Labor is hoping the new administration will put in the Employee Free Choice Act.
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The Democrats hope to reverse course on the economy, and the economy generally does better under Democratic administrations rather than Republican, but what is needed is a complete repeal of the last 30 years of "trickle on" economics or the transfer of wealth upward to fewer people.
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The Booming Economy Casualty List for 10/17-10/25.

Bank of America--3,000 jobs lost

According to this, the UAW doesn't sound like the auto workers' best friend.

In a somewhat related piece, the auto industry faces turmoil.