Washington bails out financial institutions to the tune of a trillion dollars, these were Paulson and Bernaki's buddies. They told us how important it was, how the economy would collapse without it. Just another whale of a lie from the Bush administration. It's all a part of GWB's masterplan. I say this because Curious George made the comment that he hopes he lives to see the day when all unions are destroyed.
Well, Wall street has pretty much collapsed anyway, and it looks like Citigroup is about to fall. All this bail out did was put cash back into the pockets of the CEO's, who aren't doing what they were supposed to do with it, which was to give relief to people that are in foreclosure.
I grew up in Detroit, and some of us kinda figured that we would work at an auto plant when we graduated. That was 1980 and the downsizing had already began, with the introduction of robotic technology there just wasn't any new hiring at any of the auto makers. So I learned to weld and got a job with a company that provided giant air handling equipment for the auto plants. I did this for about ten years, and then switched jobs to install fire sprinkler systems. This was another job that depends on the auto industry (in Detroit) heavily. When ever a plant had to change the assembly line, if our pipes were in the way we would go in and move them, or there was the systems that had been in operation for more than 50 years that would need to be replaced.
2000 the supreme court wrongly gives the presidency to George Bush. From that moment on a down hill spiral had started, George and his republican house and senate deregulated the financial industry that made a lot of millionaires and probably some billionaires to boot. He made sure that the people that he put in charge of the NLRB knew his agenda, KILL the UNIONS. Does anybody really think that they get payed holidays because your boss is a nice guy, does he give you insurance out of the kindness of his heart, vacation pay, sick leave and the list goes on and on and on.
People like to jump all over the unions, they get payed too much, they stick up for lazy people. Bull crap, they get pay raises to keep up with inflation. Because they know that if they negotiate as a group they stand a better chance of getting what they want. If the people at Walmart smartened up, they would get payed better too. You see I now live in florida and one thing I've noticed besides the lack of unions, is that these companies charge the same prices for there goods as the companies in the north do. But they pay their employees a lot less. Thats why the owner of this one company that I applied for a job at drove a brand new corvette and his wife drove a new Cadilac Escalade. I don't care what they drive, except your not going to get me to do all the work and can only afford to drive a ten year old car, while you and your ole lady take exotic vacations all over the world.
The auto makers have done this to themselves. Yes, in a way they have, but what you also have to look at is did they build smaller cars that got good gas mileage, that are as good as any import? Yes, did the American consumer buy them? No. They wanted the big SUV's the Hummers, Lincoln Navigators and Cadillac Escalades or the big cars with lots of leg room. All up until the time that gasoline shot up to 3 and 4 dollars a gallon. Detroit was giving you what you wanted, now all the sudden thats a problem. Shame on you. These free trade agreements have not been especially kind to Detroit either, while we can ship our products over seas, it's a very limited amount compared to the way that foreign auto makers have flooded our market with their cars. With no regard to workers rights in these countries, they have a lot less overhead than our companies.
Who stood up for this country in a bigger way than the auto industry during WWII, they retooled their assembly lines to churn out the best military machine the world had ever seen. If we let them fail who will be able to do it again? The tax revenue loss from all the people that collect paychecks from an auto related jobwill cripple this country. Then what do we do when China says hey I think I want you to clean up this debt that you owe us? Thats one situation we must not let happen, but will if we lets these auto companies fail.
Now, I have these two great ideas in my head that I haven't seen anybody doing. One is for the auto industry and the other is for residential. I have been trying to contact people to talk with about this but keep running into walls. I know that both ideas will change everything considerably. I just need to knock on the right doors and to this point I haven't. If anyone out there can steer me in the right direction I would appreciate it. Please leave me a comment.
Buy American Cars. Shop for American products, stop going to walmart. Sure it might cost a little bit more, but I'd rather see the money in an Americans hand than someone elses.
