Privatize the profits,
socialize the losses.

culebra: McCain is so dishonest that he is honest again. You libs and your linear thought will be the death of us all.

Son_Dee: Can't find a better video, but WTF was up with the audio during his speech???

If you don't watch the video and it sounds like an old radio broadcast from back 30s.

Consider the source.

Yeah Obama's going to outsource those auto workers' jobs to Indonesia.

MsMrs: ThunderPelvis: I'm really tired of politicians using the word "fight." Know what? You don't fight sh*t. You sit in your $1000 dollar suit and your fine black socks in your outrageously appointed office, and you make a few farking phone calls. You can call it fighting when you spill your own blood trying to get somebody a job, you rich, overprivileged sack of crap. Until then, you're just doing your damn job.

Well, according to McCain, he's done enough ACTUAL fighting for all of us. Y'know what? The biggest characteristic of a POW is that they were stupid enough to get caught by the enemy (I'm prior service, so I'm exempt from retribution here - lol). What of that?

Yeah, that would clearly be the McCain line. I'm not too sure that laying around in a jail cell and getting your ass regularly tortured really qualifies as "fighting," either, though. I would apply the term "sucking" to that particular situation, myself...

Rethorn: FloydA: Rethorn: sullyman: To his defense, McCain could promise them gold bars and endless loving but their vote was bought and paid for a long time ago. Nothing will change that. Can't believe McCain was stupid enough to even try to sway a unionized autoworker. Dummy.

It doesn't help that McCain lies to them and tells them that Obama will raise their taxes.


You do realize that the average auto worker probably doesn't make over $230k a year, right?

Yep. I want as many people as possible to see that breakdown, look up their own annual salary and make an informed decision about which candidate will make tax day easier for them.

Taxes are not the only issue of course (for me, personally, they are a minor one), but I am incensed by the "OhNoez Takses!!" rhetoric that I've been subjected to every few years for the past several decades.

I don't catch them all, but I try to post that table in every POTUS campaign thread where taxes are mentioned.

I hope all Americans who are concerned about taxes ask themselves "how much am I making? Who is offering me a better deal?"

/Reality is biased in favor of the left.

MilesTeg: The unions have destroyed the auto industry, much of American manufaturing, and thus, their own jobs. Of course they are going to be for the welfare candidate.

Certainly the management decisions have had nothing to do with the auto industry's woes, has it? Nope, it's only those pesky unions that have held them back. Stoopid unions, throttling the rising pay scale for executives in the industry, asking for shares in the companies that they work for so that they have a vested interest in its continued health. Don't they know that stock is only for management to trade? How dare they ask for benefits? How dare they infringe on the rights of executives to give themselves massive pay outs while the companies flounder? How dare they?

HOW DARE THEY?

Unions have their own woes--and to be honest, the rank and file have a right to be pissed about the corruption in several offices. The funny thing is, that a lot of the corruption in unions runs into the leadership being firmly in bed with management--and backing some very bone headed moves by management.

But unions aren't responsible for bad investment decisions, bad manufacturing decisions, and incredibly bone headed decisions on production.

Unions, despite the bad press and the finger pointing, are what helped drive this economy to the top--by giving this country a solid middle class, with benefits that helped expand other industries, which also increased productivity, and expanded the housing and construction markets across the country.

All those lovely companies that you point to as pillars of virtue cannot operate without a customer base. Which is why the economy is faltering right now.

Because while there are some folks who are making a great deal of money still, they are losing their customer base. Who invests when they don't have extra cash? Who buys luxury items when they don't have income? All those fine tech companies, they may be able to sell to other companies, but what happens to the folks who manufacture consumer goods, when the consumers are struggling? Do they make purchasing outlays?

It seems in the drive to make record profits, folks have sort of forgotten that they actually do need customers. Without a strong middle class, the economy is either going to have to "adjust" to no-money-having-motherfarkers who are ekking by, or we're going to have to re-think policies that raking the folks who drive the economy--because while you might like to think that simply because the wealthiest of Americans trickle their wealth down--the reality is, without a class of consumers to actually purchase the goods produced, we cannot sustain ourselves. We may become instead a grand producer for other folks, relegating American workers to roles that we used to ship to the Chinese, Mexicans, and Koreans--but unable to purchase ourselves.

Which is great, if those folks weren't so tied to producing things for us to consume. Oops.

Like it or not, a strong middle class is what those fine pillars of industry have based their earnings on, and without those folks who can they profit from? Who will buy their goods and services?

Great. The top earners still have their savings and wealth squirreled away, but watching the markets collapse, and diminished profits and services they're going to essentially watch their own earnings starve off. Oops. So, what then? No goods to sell, or limited purchasing power by the bulk of the American market and you've got how rosy a future for those captains of industry?

The auto manufacturers' woes are a symptom of a larger problem, in that a great deal of folks have sort of forgotten about how the markets actually work. And they've done some really bone headed things to bork themselves over--oil, auto, and others--and now things are starting to come back on them, and it's a damn sight easier to blame the workers and the consumers for their own damn stupidity. And greed.

We want this country to work--at least in the way it used to--then we need to get the middle class built back up. Not just the top 1%. Because, unless the top 1% is going to buy the bulk of the food and consumer goods, we are looking at more than just "adjustments" but a free fall that is going to cost a lot of folks more than just their vacations in Antigua and that lovely beach house on the Cape.

culebra: Thanks. I didn't know we were giving those out for sarcasm, but I'll take it!

I give out Maverick Points for anything.

IlGreven: So, where are the Mark Cuban and Dirk Nowitzki versions?

014789: Probably not a good idea right now as we are free falling deeper into a deficit thanks to wall street bail outs Mr. Bush's War.

FTFY

All this anti-union rhetoric is ridiculous. If a company can't afford to both pay a decent wage and stay in business, maybe there's a problem with their business model. God knows, other auto companies pay competitively and offer competitive benefits to UAW shops because they have to to attract workers. And, yet, Toyota is posting a profit. Place the blame for GM's problems squarely where it belongs: The management.

Of course the unions support the Democrats, not because they're the "welfare party" (a ridiculous accusation), but because between the two parties they're the ones that actually support labor rights. Why should I vote for or support someone who directly promotes policy and legislation that is blatantly against my interests?