It really frosts my ass when people think it is okay to punish ......

[Stinky The Clown]

.... the union autoworkers when, in reality, they're angry at the overlords.

The Chevette and the Gremlin and the Pacer and the Corsica and the Beretta were built by autoworkers. They were commissioned and foisted on us by the overlords.

Ditto the Hummer.

And the Escalade.

And the Edsel, for that matter.

The autoworkers, for their part, are simply guilty of good organization and hard bargaining for what should be their rights.

You want a head on a pike? How about a head that earns 22 million dollars a year, not one that gets by on 22 dollars an hour.








A corollary ....... who the FUCK started this eighty bux an hour bullshit. That is a bogus number and every honest person knows it.

[ColbertWatcher]

1. Excellent post! Thank you! n/t

[sarcasmo]

2. Let's not forget that the overlords making thirty times more than the worker.

[But....]

3. Dead right...

we need more unions, not lessO8)

[tavalon]

20. Absolutely!

And stronger unions, not weaker. I'm appalled at the wimpyness of my own union, but they did get us the best pay in the nation - in other words, I make an appropriate amount for a nurse to make, not the chicken scratch that I made in the south.

[fascisthunter]

4. How Much do the CEO's and Exec Make an Hour

let's put things in their proper persective... the claim made by the ant-union right is bullshit.

[madokie]

23. I read this morning that the ceo of GM makes 21 big ones a year

thats 1.75 mil a fucking month. Thats where the problem is

[KG]

5. how can 2 industries, banking and auto can implode and no execs lose thier jobs?

[Stinky The Clown]

8. Amazing, isn't it?

Some people, from an earlier time, had the right idea ......

[Diclotican]

30. Husb2Sparkly

Husb2Sparkly

Very sad then, that the french revolution never manage to get to the people what was promised in the first french Constitution of 1789, where the revolution was fresh.. And the promise for the most poor people in the country was to get a better life.. The french revolution of 1789 doesn't make it better to be a poor peasant, or a man without land.. In fact it just made the poor as poor as they ever was.. The nobles a head shorter, and the upper classes mor richer than they was before... It was what we can call the "middle classes" in France who was winning the most of the fruits of that revolution.. And that was in fact a rather unsafe "victory" because many of them, who supported the revolution was in the end the victims of their own greed, their own vanity.. And in the end they all ended at the sharp end of the guillotine.. The french execution machine, who in fact was made in the old regime, to make the execution more "humane". And one of the first to experience this new machine, was indeed the inventor of the mashine... Who's name the Guillotine was named after.. And in the revolution times madam Guillotine was indeed a busy woman, who in many cit yes in France murdered thousands... If not more

But at least, they managed to start an European revolution in the end, where the powers to be, must keep an aye on what the public wanted.. And many of the ideas who was so active for a time in France, was building blocks for what Europe was to become in the future.. They may not know it, but if the french revolution was not there, it could have diverted the whole history of Europe..

And yes, the french revolution was also a children of the american revolution but was more hard maybe.. The french peasants had more to revenge than their counterparts in the new US states I guess.. But it was for most part not the peasants who won the prize, after the nobles, and the king was dead..

it was many reason that the french revolution was so hard and bloody as it was.. One reason was hunger, clean mean hunger on the countryside.. Thousands if not hundred of thousands of dirt poor peasants was in danger of starving, if not hunger.. The last 8 year failing to make good crops. And an total economical meltdown because of bad economic policy es had destroyed much of the economical power that made France big once.. The religious intolerance was also a reason, because it destroyed more and more of the industrial power that was in parts of France. Specially where the Huguenots or the french protestant lived...

Diclotican

Sorry my bad english, not my native language

[justabob]

16. or in some cases go to jail

:shrug:

[crispini]

6. I will recommend that.

:kick:

[Believing Is Art]

7. And let's not foget the financial idiot overlords

That's where excessive executive compensation started. It's no excuse, but the auto overlords were just keeping up with the Joneses. And if the financial sector had not been so reckless, the auto execs wouldn't need to be begging for a loan from the government. There's no excuse for the auto execs, but there are bigger fish to fry.

[wryter2000]

9. I think KO identified the source of the $80/hr bs

Someone at the New York Times. It's in the videos somewhere. He was Worst Person in the World one night recently.

[Stinky The Clown]

12. What they did is to add up all the current payroll and all the cost of the retirees ......

.... add it all up and divide by the annual labor hours.

130,000 +/- current employees

700,000 +/- retirees.

Total

Bogus

Bullshit

[wryter2000]

35. I heard it repeated again on CBS last night

Only, it had inched up to $73/hour.

[populistdriven]

33. Yep its true! I saw that myself.

[MadMaddie]

10. Wasn't it Faux news that started this bullshit?

[dana_b]

15. they blame the unions n/t

[stray cat]

11. What if you don't want to punish anyone but you just don't want to open your pocketbook?

[Stinky The Clown]

17. I kinda look on that as being selfish, to tell the truth.

We're in this together.

NO ONE ..... I repeat ... **NO** **ONE** ..... didn't take advantage of the go-go years and try to make a few extra bux or at least celebrate their good fortune.

A few of us asked why we didn't get asked to sacrifice after 9/11 ..... but no one gave money and everyone eventually said .... "oh well" and got on with life. I don't recall anyone being worked up into a loud, effective froth at Idiot Son for putting his war on the company credit card.

Now is the time to spend. If it needs to funny money, so be it.

We're kinda at the intersection of Gotta Do Lane and No Alternative Drive.

[walldude]

13. Yeah I'm not really "for" the bailout

But I'm not for putting millions out of work in the middle of a damn recession either. I say we find a way to fire all the "overlords" and give the companies to the employees. In every job I ever had the employees had better ways to run the company than the management. But good ideas cut into profits and we can't have that now can we. God forbid some CEO has to learn what it's like to choose between paying the water bill and buying food.

[dana_b]

14. well said

replace the big shots and upper management, keep the "little guys" (the guys making the product). Too bad it won't happen.

[rove karl rove]

18. $80/hr makes for a good soundbite

that's why. I suppose they're figuring in the CEOs' salary and benefits package. It's just an excuse not to support the bailout.

[SoCalDem]

43. It's the new version of the "welfare queen with the cadillac"

coined to pit one group of people against another:(

[Control-Z]

19. 'A corollary.......

who the FUCK started this eighty bux an hour bullshit. That is a bogus number and every honest person knows it.'

Even if true, what would there be to argue? In America 2008, it takes a hell of a lot more than minimum wage to support a family. My question is, what man or woman is actually worth 22 million dollars a year? I mean, please, do they have gold plated skin or something?

[leftofthedial]

21. what the hell was wrong with the Gremlin?

the pinnacle, *the cutting edge* of American technology of the 70's.

It was truly the Yugo killer.

[Lerkfish]

39. my first car was a gremlin.

not really a chick magnet, but it got me from point a to point b just fine.

[onethatcares]

41. try to find one in this day and age.

hell, they're harder to find than a Rambler Scrambler. :wow:

[madokie]

22. The workers and the unions are not to blame for any of this bullshit

so I agree with you. The big dog ceo's and the top management are to blame for all things bad as far as the predicament they are in. I'm not so sure that if there were some investigations done it wouldn't be found that the books are being cooked to show what they are showing us. I see an attempt to kill the unions as the motive in all this. Wagoneer with GM sucks big time and has for years. He need to be shown the door, no they need to throw him out the fucking window.

Yes that is a bogus number but I've heard a couple people here, not DU, lately spouting off about how the workers are way overpaid, so some are listening. The sonsabiotch that started the rumor needs his bag slit and his leg stuck through it if you want to know what I think.

[Stinky The Clown]

25. "The sonsabiotch that started the rumor needs ...... "

" ...... his bag slit and his leg stuck through it if you want to know what I think."


:spray:

[Fire1]

24. The 'people' you referenced want to break the unions, plain and

simple. I think it's disgraceful to have union workers in the north and NON-union in the south. And that's the case with every job in the south. NO UNIONS. Which is also why workers in the south don't make enough to keep up with the cost of living. They don't have to blame the lack of jobs on illegals because everybody down there is CHEAP LABOR.

[Stinky The Clown]

26. I find the term "right to work state" vomit inducing

[muntrv]

28. I call it "right-to-pay-crap-wages" state.

[Kalyke]

37. Right-to-be-fired states.

I live in one, sadly.

[muntrv]

27. Ford management also created the Pinto. NICE!!

[Kalyke]

36. 30 years ago.

Since that time, however, they've created the Escape Hybrid, the Focus, the Fusion and continued the fine traditions of the Mustang and the Thunderbird.

One car does not a company make.

[depakid]

29. Interesting bit about the Edsel (from the management never learns from history department)

The wrong car at the wrong time

One of the external forces working against the Edsel that Ford had no control over was the onset of the recession in late 1957.

When the Edsel was in its planning stages in the early and mid-1950s, the American economy was robust and growing. However, in the years that spanned the planning to its introduction, an economic recession hit, and American consumers not only shifted their idea of what an ideal car should be; in prior economic downturns, buyers flocked to the lower price marques like Plymouth, Chevrolet, and Ford. But in 1958, even these cars were perceived by some as unnecessarily large, and while the compact Rambler saw itself shoot to the third best selling make, none of the Big Three had anything compact to sell except their European cars built for Vauxhall, Simca, and Opel. The compacts introduced by the Big

Three in 1960 were the direct result of the recession of 1958.

Even if the 1958 recession hadn't hit when it did, the Edsel was entering into a shrinking marketplace. While Ernest Breech convinced Ford management that this market segment offered great untapped opportunity in the early 1950s, when the "E" car was in its earliest stages, by 1957, independent manufacturers in the mid-price field were drifting towards insolvency. Hoping to turn around their losses, Packard acquired Studebaker, yet the venerable Packard was no longer produced after 1958.

On the other hand, American Motors changed its focus to the compact Rambler models, while their pre-merger brands (Nash and Hudson) were discontinued after the 1957 model year. Even Chrysler saw sales of its DeSoto marque drop dramatically from its 1957 high by over 50% in 1958. Following a disastrous 1959 model year, plans were made in Highland Park to discontinue DeSoto during its 1961 model year run.

Thus, the large, expensive Edsel that was planned to be all things to all people suddenly stood for excess, not progress.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsel

[otherlander]

31. I'm very much pro-union, and I get what you're saying...

but at the same time, I find it sadly ironic that trade unionism, which was seen at its beginning as a force that could prevent wars by uniting people across national borders in solidarity based on economic class (No savior from on high delivers, remember?) is now spoken of in such a nationalistic tone.

"We deserve those jobs because WE'RE AMERICANS!" instead of, "You should buy American made goods instead of Chinese ones because American workers are paid better."

"We need more border security and ICE raids to stop those Mexicans from taking our jobs!" instead of, "If Mexican immigrants were given amnesty they could unionize with us without fear of deportation," or better yet, "If we had fairer trade policies, our comrades south of the border could live dignified lives in their own nation, and wouldn't have to come here as economic refugees."

And of course, the fact that the unionized auto workers of America are dependent on an industry which creates a demand for gasoline which is obtained by Exxon and other oil companies which are the biggest adversaries of the oil workers' unions in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries.

The ruling class has a vested interest in playing us against each other. But what's really tragic is how little they've actually had to do. Sometimes it seems that we're the monsters on maple street, and they can just sit back and relax as we succumb to our natural tendencies to hate each other.

[rateyes]

32. Kicked and

fucking recommended. Damned straight.

[BrklynLiberal]

34. K&R

[alfredo]

38. How about the cost of too many dealers?

We have eight Chevy dealers withing 25 miles, five Pontiac Dealers, and five Buick Dealers. How many do we need?

Ford has eight dealers with 25 miles, Chrysler six.

[Laelth]

40. k&r for righteous indignation. n/t

The United States is a LIBERAL Country.

:dem:

-Laelth

[QueenOfCalifornia]

42. Could you

please post pictures of your ass being frosted?

:D

:rofl:

[Stinky The Clown]

44. Of course I can. Happy to, actually. Here ya go .........

[QueenOfCalifornia]

45. Mmmmmm

how delightfully Democratic. :)