THE REAL REASON FOR THE DETROIT BAIL OUT!

THE EXECUTIVES WHO TRAVELED TO WASHINGTON TO PLEAD FOR BILLIONS OF TAX PAYERS DOLLARS TO AVOID BANKRUPTCY , FLEW IN PRIVATE MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR JETS!

The executives of the Big Three auto makers had the guts to tell the Congressional committee that they testified before. That they could not declare bankruptcy because no one would buy a car from a company that went bankrupt.

The real reason these fat cats will not declare bankruptcy is that to do so they would have to reorganize and make drastic cuts in Union pay and benefits, as well as restructuring executive pay and perks! Easier to go with hat in hand to Washington and try to sell the American public that if they go bankrupt the z"sky will fall" on the already fragile economy!

It appears these high paid "stuffed shirts" think the public is stupid enough to have forgotten what the Airline industry went through during the 70's, 80's and 1990's.
In 2003 American Airlines went through bankruptcy during which the flight attendants had to work 47% more hour at a pay reduction of 33%. The airline pilots also agreed to pay cuts. In 2006 Northwest Airlines went bankrupt and re-organized. Then there was United Airlines and Continental, and in 2007 delta airlines bankruptcy was approved.

All of these companies had to restructure their union pay scale and benefits, and their salaried employees all took cuts to satisfy bankruptcy judges. They had to present a plan for the re-organization, but the Auto giants came to Washington without a plan"B" if the Congress failed to cave in to their demands!

When people get paid $73 an hour to supervise computers that make the cars, and can retire at age 50 with full benefits and a generous medical and dental plan. There has to be some room for re-negotiation.

Question of the day -

"So why can't GM be allowed to go into bankruptcy?"

Seems to me that United Airlines and half a dozen other companies I can name have gone into bankruptcy without also going out of business. GM goes into bankruptcy it gets relief on some of its debt but gets "reorganized" which can't be a bad thing if you ask me.

Might it have a little something to do with the juicy union contracts that would become toast in bankruptcy court and thus the political drive to "do something"?

Having GM shed a dozen asinine contracts and unjustifiably expensive health and benefit plans would seem to me to be a good thing for everyone. I dont have a problem giving GM money, but like any investor I want to see the business plan that goes with it before the dollars cross my desk. So far the business plan seems to be to keep doing the same moronic things they have been doing only on a whole new class of investors dollars. Since when did working at GM become an entitlement?

Just say no to the Auto bail out! The airlines are still flying and passengers are buying tickets to fly them! source: The Pajamas Media

AMERICAN JEWS REWARDED WITH TREACHERY

Obama has not even been sworn in as President , but he is already making promises that should give American Jewish voters pause. In a report printed in today's Jerusalem Post it is revealed that President -elect has promised the head of the Palestinians that he will work toward getting them their own Palestinian State. The only way he can do this is to convince Israel , or should I say coerce the Israelis to give up lands they have paid for with the blood of heir sons and daughters!

US president-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday spoke on the phone with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and pledged that his administration would back the peace process with Israel, a senior Palestinian negotiator said.

In a statement sent to reporters,spokesperson Saeb Erekat said that during the conversation Obama expressed support for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

"Obama promised that he'll continue efforts to push the peace process forward in order to arrive at a two state solution," Erekat said. "He said he will work with both the Palestinians and the Israelis to achieve peace, which is in the interest of both parties."

Erekat said that Obama's remarks showed his determination to help reach a permanent status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

It is important to understand that a sovereign state of Palestine did not exist before 1967 or 1948. Nor was a state of Palestine ever promised by UN Security Council Resolution 242. Contrary to popular understanding, a state of Palestine has never existed. Never!

Even as a nonstate legal entity, "Palestine" ceased to exist in 1948, when Great Britain relinquished its League of Nations mandate. During the 1948-49 Israeli War of Independence (a war of survival fought because the entire Arab world had rejected the authoritative United Nations resolution creating a Jewish state), the West Bank and Gaza came under the illegal control of Jordan and Egypt respectively. These Arab conquests did not put an end to an already-existing state or to an ongoing trust territory. What these aggressions did accomplish was the effective prevention, sui generis, of a state of Palestine. The original hopes for Palestine were dashed, therefore, not by the new Jewish state or by its supporters, but by the Arab states, especially Jordan and Egypt!

Both Israel and the United States will soon have new leadership. Neither Jerusalem nor Washington should be deceived by the so-called "Road Map To Peace in the Middle East," a twisted bit of highway that makes entirely inaccurate claims about "Palestinian Territories" and "Israeli Occupation." For substantially documented reasons of history and national security, it is imperative that a twenty-third Arab state never be carved out of the still-living body of Israel.

If anyone should still have doubts about Palestinian intentions, they need look only to former Prime Minister Sharon's "disengagement" from Gaza, an area that is now used by Hamas to stage rocket attacks upon Israeli noncombatants. Source: LOUIS RENE BERES

Now, are you still happy you voted for Obama?

WHO WILL DEFEND THE ONCE MIGHTY FREE WORLD?

With he election of Obama there comes many unanswered questions about just will the CHANGE he promises will bring to US Americans.
We know he has promised a form of National health care, national Service Corps with a stipend of $1800 a month for a force equal to the military we now have, and the "free-bees" list goes on.

But the big question is how will he , or I should say how will we pay, for all this largess? Will he cut the military budget to substitute welfare for defense? Or will he tax the middle class out of existence?

The reason the answer to this question is so important is that a report from JANE'S Military Report details that our once strong ally Great Britain is about to become an effete military power. The report which is excerpted in the following paragraphs illustrates that the once proud an powerful "Lion" of Great Britain has been reduced to a toothless cat.

Since 1953 when the Korean war was being fought the British Prime Ministers have drastically reduced the percentage of the Gross Domestic Product spent on defenese from 10% of GDP to a present 2.3% in 2007!
The last Prime Minister to raise the pounds Sterling that was spent on the defense of the "Realm" was Margaret Thatcher in 1982. She raised the amount from 4.1% of GDP to 5.4%, but even the strident talking friend of President Bush, Tony Blair, reduced military spending while at the same time committing forces to fight in Desert Storm that were poorly equipped to fight. Now the present administration has reduced the amount of money spent for their defense budget to 2.3% of GDP!

All this puts the strain to defend freedom of the rest of the FREE World on the U.S. of America. Will Obama and his Obama-maniacs take up the slack?

"As of August 1, 2008, the authorized strength of the British regular armed forces was slightly under 185,000, including untrained personnel. This is down 12.3 percent from 211,000 in April 1997, before Blair was elected. In 2007, only 0.9 percent of the labor force was employed by or serving in the military, compared to 1.4 percent in the U.S.

The Royal Air Force (RAF) has suffered the sharpest decline, reduced by 14,000 to slightly over 43,000 authorized. The Royal Navy has been drawn down by 7,000 to its current strength of 38,000. The Army has done the best, declining by only 5,000 to 103,000 authorized, including untrained personnel. Yet the Army has borne the brunt of the wars in the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The authorized size of the Army's Volunteer Reserves, the Territorial Army, has fallen by 42 percent from under 52,000 in 1997 to slightly over 30,000 in 2008.

The 2004 white paper Delivering Security in a Changing World: Future Capabilities called for Britain to field an Army of 102,000. Britain has already achieved that goal. As of July 2008, the Army was short 3,500 personnel, leaving it with a full-time, trained strength of 98,290. The Territorial Army is short by 10,000, leaving it 34 percent under strength. The MoD has also acknowledged that 8,500 of the 52,000 regular soldiers in deployable units are classified as unfit to serve in combat duties. Record spending on recruitment has increased the number of new recruits to the Army, but has not alleviated shortages in key areas or kept pace with outflow.

The Army, therefore, continues to shrink. In July 2008, outflow exceeded inflow by 120 officers and 540 enlisted, a reflection of the fact that in 2007- 2008 only 45 percent of Army enlisted reported that they were satisfied with life in the service.In the first six months of 2008, outflow exceeded inflow in almost every category across the services.] Outflow rates in all of the services are at or near 10-year highs. Retention bonuses have failed to stem the tide. These are unprecedented developments in time of war.

In an effort to meet its recruitment goals, the Army has recruited in foreign countries for the past five years. It is now drawn from 54 nations, primarily those in the Commonwealth. Not including the Gurkhas, approximately 7,000 soldiers, or 7 percent of the Army, have been recruited from outside Britain. These soldiers have performed bravely, and no objection can be raised to accepting volunteers from Commonwealth countries, but reliance on overseas recruitment is a dangerous form of military outsourcing that weakens the connection between the British Army and the nation.

The personnel shortfalls in all the services, especially the Army, have had a serious impact on the readiness of Britain's forces. In the last quarter of 2007-2008, 51 percent of the military reported serious weaknesses in their ability to deploy in a reasonable amount of time, up from 39 percent in 2006-2007. A further 7 percent reported critical weaknesses. The MoD's conclusion was that "the overall readiness of the force structure continued to deteriorate throughout the year."

In fact during the present Iraq war this little know fact reveals just how bad the British military has become. In late 2007, British forces, after making a secret deal with the Iranian-backed militias to allow them to depart safely, abandoned their compound in Basra for a heavily attacked airport base outside the city. As one U.S. intelligence official stated, "The British have basically been defeated in the south."

Britain returned to Basra in 2008 on the heels of Operation Charge of the Knights, conducted by Iraqi and U.S. forces. Brigadier Julian Free, commander of the British 4th Mechanised Brigade, admitted that Britain needed the "huge amount of armoured combat power" that the U.S. brought to bear because Britain "didn't have enough capacity in the air and...didn't have enough capability on the ground." Indeed, he acknowledged, Britain could no longer conduct large-scale operations on its own. This British failure, and the Iraqi and U.S. success, illustrates how the British armed forces, starved of the manpower, equipment, and political support they needed to achieve their mission, have suffered since 1997.Source: American Heritage Foundation

To put all these facts in perspective one must accept the fact that while the Free World is destroying it's military capability to pursue the Welfare state, the Communist Chinese, Communist North Koreans and the nascent Communist Russians are building -up their military capability. And to make things more ominous, the forces of militant Islam are about to develop the night mare of night mares,the NUCLEAR BOMB!!!

QUID PRO QUO FROM OBAMA TO FEDERAL UNIONS

The media will never let this story see the light of day, so I will quote it directly from the source,The Washington Post's Political Blogger.

"Obama Wrote Federal Staffers About His Goals and as a result Workers at Seven Agencies Got Detailed Letters Before the November 4th Election.

John Gage, president of the 600,000-member American Federation of Government Employees, requested that Barack Obama write the letters. Source: By Lucian Perkins -- The Washington Post

The following Federal Agencies received letters from Obama.
The Department of Defense
The Department of Labor
The Department of Housing and Urban Development
The Department of Homeland Security
The Social Security Administration
The Environmental Protection Agency
The Department of Veterans' Affairs
The Transportation Security Administration
American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO

In wooing federal employee votes on the eve of the election, Barack Obama wrote the series of letters to workers that offered detailed descriptions of how he intends to add muscle to specific government programs, give new power to bureaucrats and roll back some Bush administration policies.


The letters, sent to employees at seven agencies, describe Obama's intention to scale back on contracts to private firms doing government work, to remove censorship from scientific research, and to champion tougher industry regulation to protect workers and the environment. He made it clear that the Department of Housing and Urban Development would have an enhanced role in restoring public confidence in the housing market, shaken because of the ongoing mortgage crisis.

Using more specifics than he did on the campaign trail, Obama said he would add staff to erase the backlog of Social Security disability claims. He said he would help Transportation Security Administration officers obtain the same bargaining rights and workplace protections as other federal workers. He even expressed a desire to protect the Environmental Protection Agency's library system, which the Bush administration tried to eliminate.


"I asked him to put it in writing, something I could use with my members, and he didn't flinch," said John Gage, president of the 600,000-member American Federation of Government Employees, who requested that Obama write the letters, which were distributed through the union. "The fact that he's willing to put his name to it is a good sign."

The letters, all but one written Oct. 20, reveal a candidate adeptly tailoring his message to a federal audience and tapping into many workers' dismay at funding cuts and workforce downsizing in the Bush years. Many of Obama's promises would require additional funding, something he acknowledged would be difficult to achieve under the current economic conditions.

Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said the letters were intended to communicate to federal workers his position on their agencies.

In a letter to Labor Department employees, Obama wrote: "I believe that it's time we stopped talking about family values and start pursuing policies that truly value families, such as paid family leave, flexible work schedules, and telework, with the federal government leading by example."

Obama wrote to employees in the departments of Labor, Defense, Housing and Urban Development, and Veterans Affairs, along with the TSA, the EPA and the Social Security Administration. Defense was the only area in which he did not make promises requiring additional spending, the letters show.

Some worry that Obama may have over promised, with program changes and worker benefits that would be impossible to achieve. "That strikes me as smart politics," said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. "We'll soon find out if he can deliver when he has to deliver his first budget."

Obama repeatedly echoed in his correspondence the longstanding lament of federal workers -- that the Bush administration starved their agencies of staff and money to the point where they could not do their jobs.

In his letter to Labor Department employees, Obama said Bush appointees had thwarted the agency's mission of keeping workers safe, especially in mines. "Our mine safety program will have the staffing . . . needed to get the job done," he wrote.

Obama lamented to EPA staffers that Americans' health and the planet have been "jeopardized outright" because of "inadequate funding" and "the failed leadership of the past eight years, despite the strong and ongoing commitment of the career individuals throughout this agency."

In his letter to Defense Department workers, Obama said he would examine flaws in pay and evaluation systems, but offered no high-cost initiatives.

Ruch said that if Obama cuts Pentagon spending, he will not have to work hard to help the other six agencies.

"These domestic discretionary programs are peanuts in the grand scale of things," Ruch said. "A small diversion from the Iraq conflict, if they were put into Interior, EPA or NASA, those agencies would be in their salad days. The National Park Service is laboring under a [maintenance] backlog that would be cured by a month and a half of Iraq expenditures."

While pledging money to some agencies, Obama also acknowledged that some cuts may be unavoidable.

"Because of the fiscal mess left behind by the current Administration, we will need to look carefully at all departments and programs," he wrote to HUD workers.

Gage said Obama would cut deeply into agencies he finds lacking, and the National Taxpayers Union says there is plenty of opportunity for savings. Congress last year refused to consider a 25 percent cut for 220 federal programs the government rated as ineffective, passing up a savings of $17 billion a year. Obama did not vote on the measure while he was a senator from Illinois.

His letter to HUD employees suggests a resurgence of the huge housing agency. Obama insisted that "HUD must be part of the solution" to the housing crisis and to keeping an estimated 5.4 million more families from losing homes in foreclosure. Several HUD employees cheered Obama's letter, saying they hoped one particular line foreshadowed the end of political appointees who didn't care or know much about the agency's work.


"I am committed to appointing a Secretary, Deputy and Assistant Secretaries who are committed to HUD's mission and capable of executing it," Obama wrote.

Obama also took aim at the Bush administration's focus on privatization, with contractors hired to perform government jobs -- often at princely sums. He complained that a $1.2 billion contract to provide TSA with human resources support unfairly blocked federal employees from competing to do that work.

"We plan specifically to look at work that is being contracted out to ensure that it is fiscally responsible and effective," he told HUD workers. "It is dishonest to claim real savings by reducing the number of HUD employees overseeing a program but increase the real cost of the program by transferring oversight to contracts. I pledge to reverse this poor management practice."

Gage said he is not expecting every civil servant's wish to be granted but he is hopeful.

"I think Obama's going to be fair, he's going to take seriously the missions of these agencies, and he's going to respect federal employees," Gage said. "After the last eight years, that's good enough for me."

If there was any doubt that Obama is a proponent of bigger government, these letters should reverse the doubts that Obama is n advocate of massive Socialism, not free enterprise!

WITHER GOEST THOU?

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." Teddy Roosevelt

THERE IS NO GOOD REASON WHY THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER SHOULD HAVE TO BEAR THE BURDEN OF THE BAIL-OUT OF THE AUTO WORKERS UNION IN Michigan!
The Democrats like "lying Harry Reid" would like you to think that the bail out is to save an industry, and in a way it is partially that, but the main reason Reid, Pelosi and the Congressional Democrats are pushing so hard for the billions for the Auto industry salvage. Is to save the Union that helped delivered the House, Senate and White House to the Democrats on Novemeber 4th.

If they get away with this rip-off. They will follow with a long list of bail outs for other industrial Unions that helped get the big prize last time we voted.

Not many people realize the exorbitant wages that Union Auto workers get to make a product that has built in obsolescence.

Is it right to tax the average worker making $28.50 to bailout workers whose labor cost is over $73 an hour?” Perry asked.

He explained that in 2006, widely available industry and Labor Department statistics placed the average labor cost for UAW-represented workers at the former DaimlerChrysler at $75.86 per hour. For Ford it was $70.51, he said, and for General Motors it was $73.26.

“That includes the hourly pay, plus the benefits they’re receiving and all the other costs to General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, including legacy costs – retirement costs, pensions, and so on – so it’s looking at the total labor costs per hour worked for workers,” Perry said.

For U.S. workers at Toyota, however, the per hour labor cost is around $47.60, around $43 for Honda and around $42 for Nissan, Perry added, for an average of around $44.

“So we’re looking at somewhere around a $29 per hour pay gap between the Big Three and the foreign transplants that are producing cars in the United States,” Perry, chairman of the economics department, told CNSNews.com. Source:CNS News.com

If you annualized Chrysler’s labor cost of $75.86 an hour per worker over a 35-hour week, for 50-weeks a year, the yearly compensation comes in at almost $133,000 per worker per year.

“The question is, where do you stop? Would this just be a down payment on a continuing bailout that they would need in the future?” he asked.

“Once we’re in for $25 billion, or $50 billion, it’s going to be a lot easier for them to ask for more money later,” If we want this particular industry to be competitive and survive for the next decade or more, they really have to get their labor costs in line with reality and the global marketplace.
It is time for the production to shift towards companies that have lower labor costs; that are more efficient and more productive. Even if that wasn’t production that took place in Michigan by United Auto Workers, it would still be production that would take place somewhere in the U.S. economy. So we would still have a large number of jobs tied to the auto industry.

Historically, one of the strengths of the U.S. economy has been its willingness to let inefficient firms fail and redeploy those resources – money, but also people – to new and potentially more successful businesses. I think that has always been one of the distinctive strengths of the U.S. economy. Write, call, email or telegraph your Congress person to vote no on this political pay off!

STANDARD BEARER DROPPED THE FLAG!!

Governor PALIN ,THE SUBJECT OF UNIMAGINABLE DERISION AND RIDICULE BY THE Left WING press, HAS FINALLY SPOKEN OUT ABOUT THE DEBACLE CALLED THE "BAIL-OUT' AS ENGINEERED BY Secretary PAULSON, a "Rockefeller "TYPE Republican(AKA RINO), DIRECTLY CONNECTED TO Wall Street.

What Palin is saying is the basis of the Free Enterprise System, that even the sitting President and the standard bearer for the Republican Party forgot was a plank in the 2008 Republican Platform!

The 2008 Republican platform document declared, “We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself.” Seems pretty straight forward to me!

You may have noticed that McCain voted for the bailout,and he like Our Party, went down to defeat on November 4. By the way, most House Republicans voted against the bailout! They have been proven right by events. It would be nice if McCain and Bush would admit the error of their ways. But that is not a practice that is commonplace in conservative or liberal circles these days.

Paulson has not really admitted that he himself had made a mistake. Instead, he declared on Wednesday that “It was clear to me by the time the bill was signed on October 3rd that we needed to act quickly and forcefully, and that purchasing troubled assets―our initial focus―would take time to implement and would not be sufficient given the severity of the problem.”

In other words, by the time that the bill had been signed, Paulson knew that the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that he had proposed wouldn’t work. That is why he quickly changed the plan to use the taxpayer money to buy stakes in banks. Now, “new strategies” are being tried and developed, he says. And it is all being done, of course, at taxpayers expense.

When you cannot count on the Republican President and the nominee for President to support the basic principals of the free enterprise system, keep government out of the private sector as much as possible. How would one expect the public to vote for that party, when the other candidate offers a basket full of "goodies" that appeal to the slavish interests of the "gimme-gimme" generation?

As we enter what this blogger believes will be a radical shift to the Socialist way of government. We have no body to blame but those we elected before and tried to elect this time. God Help US!

No wonder there are rumors that Obama is considering McCain for a JOB in his Administration! He deserves one for throwing away the basis of Conservative Principles---Keeping government as Small as possible, and out of private business!