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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (45036)	11/18/2008 6:27:50 PM
From: koan	Respond to of 149317

Maybe do both. Downsize the major, but use them as the main structure, but also fund the start up. My daughter works as an office manager of a start up electric car company. She has a degree in science.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (45036)	11/19/2008 12:19:25 AM
From: stockman_scott	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

Here are some interesting comments on the automotive industry (from the blogging stocks website)... <<...11-18-2008 @ 10:40PM Goodgojuice said... More and more people continue to have opinions about an industry they have not worked in nor have an understanding of what it takes to succeed, nor do they do they know what is taking place in the industry other than what they get from 30 second sound bites from the news media. I just have a hard time getting my head around the fact that people stand on the outside and say "let the industry go through reorganization, force heavy losses upon the employees of the industry, cut the number of brands that are being carried" and all along they haven't seen that the current economic "event" that we are in has been brought about by "monied interests" operating in the financial markets who drove up the housing market at inflationary rates of 10 to 15% per year until it flattened and began to decline then moved their money into every commodity market and inflated the price of fuel, food and raw materials for manufacturing to the tune of 250%, and then lost there a** on that bet when the demand fell like a rock. Hey, these financial types have screwed us all, but we are all willing to give them $700 billion for doing it to us, but let the one industry that built the middle class in this country get in trouble and the first thing out of everybodies' mouth is to "let them fail." I just don't know where these people live???...>> <<...11-18-2008 @ 6:44PM Bill Cawthon said... Talk about living in a vacuum: The prevailing UAW wage is $28.00/hour. The average wage paid at Toyota's Georgetown, Kentucky, plant is $25.00/hour. According to the 2007 UAW contracts with all three U.S. automakers, new hires in non-assembly jobs can be paid half the regular rate and be given reduced benefits. For Mr. Cohan's benefit, that's $14.00/hour. For comparison, unionized auto workers in Germany make about $33.50/hour and the unionized workers in Japan make about $20.49 (Yup, Toyota's got unionized workers, too). Overhead is the real killer and that's where most of the scare statistics come from. And the biggest villain of the piece is healthcare costs which have gone through the roof for every American business. GM happens to be the third-largest healthcare provider in the U.S. If you want to deal with the big cost issue, push for serious healthcare reform. Also part of the 2007 contract, retiree healthcare costs are to be shifted to the union in return for investments from the automakers. This was a program the car companies wanted because it allows them to offload those costs at about 60 cents on the dollar. The union agreed and now the car companies are asking the government to make the payments for them. Nasty, evil, bad union! Trying to take care of those employees the automakers have been forcing into early retirement for the past 15 years. I agree the jobs bank has got to go; it's a leftover from the 1980s when it was supposed to cover short-term furloughs between production cycles and adjustments to the production levels. It's an unaffordable luxury now. And the benefit of GM merging with Chrysler is exactly what? The way Mr. Cohan describes it, Chrysler simply goes away except for some tooling. That's not a merger. Chrysler's debt is more than the $7.4 billion it owes the bankers and GM would also have to make Chrysler's VEBA contribution as well as buying the 19.9 percent of Chrysler still owned by Daimler. Why should GM shoulder an additional $20-$30 billion in debt for Jeep, a minivan and a redundant pickup? I thought one of GM's problems is that it can't get financing for any more debt. Adding more debt is the solution? I've thought this was one of the stupidest ideas I have seen in years, and it's got a lot of competition. Bankruptcy wouldn't work: Chapter 11 would quickly become Chapter 7 and literally millions of people would be out of work and hundreds of businesses would fail. The analogy with the airlines is not valid; you get an airline ticket, you're stuck for one flight if the company goes south. Buy a car and you're stuck for years. So people would avoid buying cars from the bankrupt automaker, meaning it would not have anything to reorganize. Won't matter that it's prepackaged bankruptcy; people won't pay anymore attention to that than most of the people posting "kill the union" stuff without having a clue about the real situation. The real hurter for all the automakers right now is that no one predicted the extent of the slump in sales. Everyone knew 2008 was going to be a weak year, but estimates ranged from 14.5 million to 15.5 million light vehicles. As of October, the sales rate was about 10.5 million and it's likely the year-end total will be somewhere around 13 million. That's a huge drop from the 16.1 million sold in 2007. Based on the typical transaction price, the industry will do about $70 billion less business this year. That's a bunch. And last time I looked, the automakers had nothing to do with the meltdown in the financial and credit markets...>>

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (45036)	11/19/2008 7:46:01 AM
From: ChinuSFO	1 Recommendation Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 149317

A line technician in GM costs $1260/hour due to perks and union negotiated overtime rates etc. A line technician in Toyota costs $325/hour. Which company would you want our tax dollars to go to? This is clean up time. Clean out the fatcats irrespective of whether they are Wall Street CEO or line workers.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (45036)	2/14/2009 11:45:23 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

To save or to spend? Americans ponder their duty CINCINNATI -- After the September 11 attacks, US former President George W. Bush urged Americans to go shopping. As he hands out $789 billion in economic stimulus, US President Barack Obama has been less clear -- and Americans simply don't know whether they should save or spend. "It's a tough question," said Cincinnati electrician and small businessman Mike Cavanaugh. "I think that in general the government wants us to spend. While saving may be better in the long run, spending I think can be contagious because we see each other doing it." In Scottsdale, Arizona, business owner Bill Austin said the government's message has been mixed. "The government doesn't know what's going to fix this, but I think they believe that people should start spending again," Austin said. But he's skeptical: "Just me going out and spending money isn't going to fix this." After a year of being castigated for the consumerism that drove the nation's boom-and-bust housing market, Americans can be forgiven for not quite knowing whether they are doing the smart thing by spending or saving. Obama, at his first news conference as president on Monday, dodged the question, arguing that consumers, like the government itself, need to do both. "Our immediate job is to stop the downward spiral," Obama said, suggesting that spending was the answer. But he warned that thrift would be needed soon after. "Once the economy stabilizes and people are less fearful, then I do think that we're going to have to start thinking about, how do we operate more prudently?" Obama said. At the Consumer Federation of America, where economists expend great effort trying to teach Americans to spend wisely and save well, executive director Stephen Brobeck laments the suggestion that Americans have a duty to spend the nation out of recession, and only later tighten their belts. A NUANCED MESSAGE "We would prefer that our government leaders communicate a more nuanced message which distinguishes between economically insecure and economically secure families," Brobeck said. People with lots of debt and no emergency savings should be working harder than ever to pay off their liabilities and save for an emergency fund, he said. But luckier Americans can do their part to throw a little fuel on the fire. "It is in the country's interest for those households with discretionary income and job security to keep spending at past levels," Brobeck said. For many Americans, the stimulus will come in the form of a fatter paycheck, as withholding taxes are cut. Others will be hired for infrastructure projects approved under the plan. But while Washington may be hoping the stimulus will send shoppers back to the stores, convincing Americans it is wise to spend again may be an uphill battle. Magazines are full of tips for saving money, companies have cut back on advertising, and no one hesitates to boast about their frugal ways. "I watch my money closer now, as does my wife. I cut out the morning iced coffee at McDonald's, even though it was not that expensive," said Cincinnati's Cavanaugh, adding that he was being just as cautious with his business. "I am doing the responsible thing and cutting back." Kevin Hassett, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said it may not matter what message the government is trying to send -- since people react predictably when the government gives them extra money. "You can break the response down into two types. A little less than 40 percent take the money and consume it right away," Hassett said. "The rest of the people, a little more than half of Americans, don't really change their behavior much at all." And while negotiations about the economic stimulus have been front-page news for weeks, polls show a dramatic cutback in US consumer spending and lack of confidence about future finances, even if money is poised to pour into the system. A poll released on Thursday showed 86 percent of Americans have cut spending or changed their saving or investment pattern, though just 30 percent say the thrift was driven by actual financial hardship. The rest, 56 percent, cut back because they worry their financial situation may get worse in the future, according to the national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Hassett said people are wise to be cautious, since individual tax bills will inevitably rise once the economy has recovered and Obama and Congress have to claw back money to tackle the gaping federal deficit. "So the right answer is to save, but that's bad for the economy," Hassett said. "Clearly what's good for the individual isn't necessarily the thing that is going to give us the best GDP number this year." Copyright By chinadaily.com.cn. All rights reserved

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (45036)	3/5/2009 8:40:19 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

Commentary: Rush Limbaugh GOP debate is idiotic By Ed Rollins CNN Contributor (CNN) -- The cold winds of March have obviously affected the intelligence and thought processes of people who need to get their thinking straight. The idiotic debate raging in Washington this week around Michael Steele, the newly elected chairman of the nearly defunct Republican Party, and Rush Limbaugh, a conservative icon for the past 35 years, is beyond foolish. The battle to be the "de facto leader" of this party is akin to the question of who wants to steer the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. Who represents the party or its values is not relevant when only 26 percent of voters have a positive impression of the party at all and only 7 percent very positive, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey. The Democratic Party is the reverse, with 49 percent positive. When 60 percent of the country approves of the job President Obama is doing, every Republican leader is going backward. Republicans are not relevant. We just lost two back-to-back elections (2006 and 2008), and obviously, what we are selling, the voters aren't buying. In the midst of the most severe economic crisis in my lifetime, we have a president who is taking the country on a dramatic sea change. This is what he said he would do and he is doing it. And where are Republicans? Right now we don't have the alternative ideas, a message or, more important, the messenger. Rush Limbaugh is not the Republican Party. If he wanted to get elected to office, he probably could have won or maybe even have gotten the party chairman job. But why would he want that job when he makes hundreds of millions of dollars entertaining his daily listeners? Rush is one of the most important conservative voices in the country. He has the largest talk radio audience in the country (15 million weekly listeners) and has been influential in national debate for years. He will continue to be a voice a lot of people will listen to. The great thing about talk radio and cable television is you can listen or watch or turn it off if you don't like it. Steele is a decent man who was an extremely effective advocate on Fox News. He was elected Republican national chairman by a majority of the 167 members representing the various state parties. He was elected to run the national party, raise money, rebuild the political operation and travel across the country making speeches to state parties. iReport.com: If Obama "can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen" He has stumbled out of the starting gate and obviously has not made the most favorable first impression. But he has two years in his term. He will be measured ultimately on how his party does in the 2010 elections, even though his organization does not run congressional races, U.S. Senate races or state governor races. He is not a member of Congress, a senator or a governor. People who govern are the ones who will make the party relevant again, or not. All have to be long-term thinkers in addition to doing their daily tasks. For the foreseeable future, the Republican Party is in the position of being the minority party. Until it nominates a candidate who can attract new voters and expand the base vote of the party, it will stay there. iReport.com: Limbaugh's challenge to Obama "no contest" We are a party that needs ideas, new leaders and an inroad into young people and their thinking. That doesn't mean we have to abandon our old ideas or quit fighting the president's policies when we don't believe in them. But we have a lot of work to do. Politics is a game of addition. We need to get serious and quit the silly debate about who's the more important voice. The country only has two real political parties. We have tons of problems and obviously more than one way to solve them. It's up to Republicans to become a vital party again. That means everybody's got a job to do. cnn.com