Posted on 12/16/2008 9:41:55 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
"GOP to Detroit: Drop Dead!"
So may have read the headline Friday, had not President Bush stepped in to save GM, Ford and Chrysler, which Senate Republicans had just voted to send to the knacker's yard.
What are Republicans thinking of, pulling the plug, at Christmas, on GM, risking swift death for the greatest manufacturing company in American history, a strategic asset and pillar of the U.S. economy.
The $14 billion loan to the Big Three that Republican senators filibustered to death is just 2 percent of the $700 billion the Senate voted to bail out Wall Street. Having gone along with bailouts of Bear Stearns, AIG, Fannie, Freddie and CitiGroup, why refuse a reprieve to an industry upon which millions of the best blue-collar jobs in America depend?
In a good year, Americans buy 17 million cars. A more populous EU probably buys as many. Three billion people in India, Southeast Asia and China, four times as many people as there are in the EU and United States, are moving toward the middle class. They, too, will be wanting cars. And millions of them love American cars.
Is the Republican Party so fanatic in its ideology that, rather than sin against a commandment of Milton Friedman, it is willing to see America written forever out of this fantastic market, let millions of jobs vanish and write off the industrial Midwest?
So it would seem. "Companies fail every day, and others take their place," said Sen. Richard Shelby on "Face the Nation."
Presumably, the companies that will "take their place," when GM, Ford and Chrysler die, are German, Japanese or Korean, like the ones lured into Shelby's state of Alabama, with the bait of subsidies free-market Republicans are supposed to abhor.
In 1993, Alabama put together a $258 million package to bring a Mercedes plant in. In 1999, Honda was offered $158 million to build a plant there. In 2002, Alabama won a Hyundai plant by offering a $252 million subsidy.
"We have a number of profitable automakers in America, and they should not be disadvantaged for making wise business decisions while failure is rewarded," says Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina.
DeMint is referring to "profitable automakers" like BMW, which sited a plant in Spartanburg, after South Carolina offered the Germans a $150 million subsidy and $80 million to expand.
Be it BMW, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Mitsubishi or Hyundai, the South has become a sanctuary for foreign assembly plants, for which Southern states have been paying subsidies.
Fine. But why this "Let-them-eat-cake!" coldness toward U.S. auto companies? General Motors employs more workers than all these foreign plants combined. And, unlike Mitsubishi, General Motors didn't bomb Pearl Harbor.
Do these Southern senators understand why the foreign automakers suddenly up and decided to build plants in the United States?
It was the economic nationalism of Ronald Reagan.
When an icon of American industry, Harley-Davidson, was being run out of business by cutthroat Japanese dumping of big bikes to kill the "Harley Hog," Reagan slapped 50 percent tariffs on their motorcycles and imposed quotas on imported Japanese cars. Message to Tokyo. If you folks want to keep selling cars here, start building them here.
Fear of Reaganism brought those foreign automakers, lickety-split, to America's shores, not any love of Southern cooking.
Do the Republicans not yet understand how they lost the New Majority coalition that gave them three landslides and five victories in six presidential races from 1968 to 1988? Do they not know why the Reagan Democrats in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan are going home?
The Republican Party gave their jobs away!
How? By telling U.S. manufacturers they could shut plants here, get rid of their U.S. workers, build factories in Mexico, Asia or China, and ship their products back, free of charge.
Republican globalists gave U.S. manufacturers every incentive to go abroad and take their jobs with them, the jobs of Middle America.
And, for 30 years, that is what U.S. manufacturers have done, have been forced to do, as their competitors closed down and moved their plants abroad in search of low-wage Third World labor.
It's Herbert Hoover time in here, Vice President Cheney is said to have told the Senate Republicans -- as they prepared to march out onto the floor and turn thumbs down on any reprieve for General Motors.
In today's world, America faces nationalistic trade rivals who manipulate currencies, employ nontariff barriers, subsidize their manufacturers, rebate value-added taxes on exports to us and impose value-added taxes on imports from us, all to capture our markets and kill our great companies. And we have a Republican Party blissfully ignorant that we live in a world of us or them. It doesn't even know who "us" is.
We need a new team on the field and a new coach who believes with Vince Lombardi that "winning isn't everything. It's the only thing."
Great post, thanks for taking the time to give me/us examples of your experiences. I replied to another poster just prior to this who was questioning my understanding of how unions operate. I suspect you’ve had experiences similar to mine.
Fair enough. Confine your comments to what you know about today. Comments about WW II B-24 production union workers is not in your memory. Rosie the Riveter would not sabotage the planes that her neighbors depended on to win WW II. I really don’t think you do.
Another poster asked the question "could I setup and build the B-24 or B-17 today?" Yes, I could easily setup a factory to do that. However, I wouldn't be sucessful at maintaining my schedule if I had to use UAW employees. I should have stated "today's UAW" employees, my appologies for the lack of clear intent in my prior post.
As a side note, the people who participted in WWII, nearly always have a wonderful attitude, a great work ethic, a strong desire to HELP THEMSELVES and a polite/thankful nature when services are provided to them. On the other hand, their children usually, or more often than not, act and behave completely opposite to this. The contrast between 85 year old patient and a 55 year old patient is astonishing and discouraging. The sense of entitlement my generation often feels is disgraceful and indicative of a huge problem within America.
Because of this contrast, that is based on my personal experiences and more importantly, my wife's input, I refuse to call them the "Greatest Generation." As far as I am concerned you're not the greatest generation if you raised so many of your children to be selfish and dependant on others for their survival.
Pat is the worlds greatest living authority.
Unless you can come up with something better then what I presented, the burden is on you.
Cars do get better gas mileage then 30 years ago, and it’s absurd to think otherwise. A typical late-70’s GM V8 car was getting about 10-12 mpg. Additionally cars pollute much less today, and have hugely better performance, so perhaps your “mileage is about the same” isn’t quite apples-to-apples.
Engine performance improvements have largely gone towards HP and torque, and not MPG, because that sells cars. If you don’t believe me, go look at 0-60 times for the average car then, versus now.
And you still fail Logic 101. There is never a burden to prove a negative, which you are still demanding.
Pat’s a NNINO, oops, I mean a RINO, has been for years. He’s an FDR Republican, or a Hoover Democrat. Thanks 2ndDivisionVet.
SEIU Again Accused of Fixing Vote
Publius’ Forum | 12/17/08 | Warner Todd Huston
Posted on 12/17/2008 7:39:26 AM PST by Mobile Vulgus
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2150209/posts
We can knock a missile out of the sky with another missile now. They laughed at Reagan and said it can't be done. I say there aint no reason why we can't have better gas mileage then we have.
I am not going to insult your intelligence by pointing out that Logic 101 says, if you really try you get better results.
Thermodynamics hasn’t changed in 30 years.
People think because of all the advances in computers abd technology, other fields can advance at similar rates. It isn’t so.
Pat is to be forgiven for any self-delusional tendencies. After all, his presidential campaign of some years back was so well managed by his sister, Bay, that they had some $11 or $12 extra-large left over in unspent campaign funds. After this coup, even though it is peanuts compared to the Obama haul, Pat figured he had to be the smartest man in the country. And it's legal!
Wonder if he shared any with Lola Fulana (Surely you remember... his running mate?)
Why else would Congressman Dennis Kucinich and his lovely bride travel the length and breadth of America every four years?
If half of our passenger car fleet were diesel powered today, we could slash oil imports by about 30%. We begged George Bush to executive-order boutique diesel fuels out of existence, and it wouldn't hurt to stop the insane gasoline blending mandates that differ wildly from metro area to metro area, either.
At least Pat had the courtesy to take the swag and stop running for office. BTW, Ralph Nader is still out there every 4 years raising money like crazy ... or from crazies.
What about shoving more air into the intake? Find away to moderate fuel with air intake for max performance. They have this already, but I think it could be made to perform more efficient. Also, like Kenny Bunk says, get rid of the different blends. We should make one outstanding blend that gives you the power you need. The higher octane I ran in my Formula the better the car ran. I ran racing fuel in it a few times and it ran good. I can't tell you the gas mileage, but I can tell you that it ran good.
Hey, I may be wrong. Maybe this is as good as it gets, but I honestly think we could do better.
Thermodynamically, turbo-diesels are pretty sexy. I wish more of the Euro mfrs brought theirs over to this side of the pond.
Tax policy intrudes, creating an ugly practical reality. Many states tax diesel at much higher $/gal rates, to sock the truckers / businesses vs. the masses of voters. So if you’re wanting a diesel as an individual, you get hit with an inequitable taxation burden.
“Oh, and if you’re going to quote me, at least use my entire sentence.
Here, I’ll help you out.
Were on the verge of a depression, our government is so corrupted they now control banking and all of our major industries...”
I don’t feel I need to quote an entire sentence to make a point. I mean, I could have made the argument that the federal government has also exerted “control” over industry for a long time. But I didn’t want to, and that’s my right. I centered my control on the banking industry because the government effectively nationalized it with its empowerment of the Fed. The rest of industry hasn’t exactly been nationalized yet, so I didn’t feel the need to comment on it.
Zil if you are unaware is a automobile of the workers paradise with those fun guys Brezhnev (spelling) and Andropov, and other workers friend under the peace loving USSR.
Hey, Pat your insignificant, you failed a couple of time to get the big seat, get over yourself and join the real world. Or just not say a word.
"I centered my control on the banking industry"
Well you've done a terrible job, and you should be jailed for fraud.
Yeah, doing that could damage your credibility even more.
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