Workin' For The Big Three

In a new CNN poll, 60% of Americans are not in favor of a bailout for the auto industry.

Which means, 40% of all Americans work for the auto industry.

Wow, it really is too big to fail.

Depressed?

You should be.

Barack Obama plans on patterning his presidency on that of FDR.
And that ain't no good for none of us.

But, if this sounds like a good idea to you, it's because your Joe Biden and you have fond memories of FDR murdering Herbert Hoover and installing himself as Dictator-In-Chief in 1929.

And you remember FDR forming this Manhattan Project type research team, and instructing it to invent the television.

And you remember FDR solving the depression by appearing on said television and magically pulling high paying jobs out of his ass.

History is funny...if you're Joe Biden.

Bankruptcy - A Republican Opportunity

Republicans have an opportunity to redeem themselves.
They won't.

The Big 3 are back in town, having driven themselves this time, to grovel at the feet of Reid, Pelosi, etal, for more taxpayer money.
What they don't realize, or are willing to ignore in order to guarantee the funds, is that the self flagellation and humiliation is not necessary.
Congress is going to give them the money.
Selling the corporate jets, having a "plan," is all just a dog-and-pony show, complete symbolism, having no basis in financial relevancy.
The Democrats are not going to say no. They were never going to say no.
They are indebted, not to the car companies, but to big labor; and the cool $25 billion is a thank you for the votes.
A wink and a nod for years of reciprocal back-scratching.

"U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she believes the federal government will step in to aid domestic automakers because bankruptcy is “not an option.”
“I believe that an intervention will happen,” Pelosi said at a briefing in Washington. “It’s pretty clear that bankruptcy is not an option. Everybody is disadvantaged by bankruptcy, including our economy.”

There ya go.

But, "not an option?"
NOT an option!?
It should be the only option! What other option is there!? Bankruptcy is the necessary culling of the herd.
We have bankruptcy laws! Bankruptcy is real.
Bailouts are just made up. We didn't even have bailouts until a few months ago. (I'm ignoring subsidies and protective tariffs). Then we, well, Henry "(Like a) Chicken (running around with his head cut off) Little" Paulson and an only too eager Democratic congress started throwing money around like it was a bumper crop on harvest day in the money fields, and suddenly bankruptcy is no longer an option...for anybody.
Well, not anybody. Only those "too big to fail."
"Too big to fail?" Listen, if something is "too big to fail" in this country, then the first thing it needs to do is fail. Because is has too much power.
But there is no company "too big to fail." This is just a myth wrapped in a fable served up by a liar.
Then why do politicians keep repeating this mantra? What does it mean?
I'll tell you what it means. It means one of two things: 1) these politicians have no understanding of basic economics, or 2) ...I can't think of what else it might mean. So, it means these politicians are ignorant of basic economics. Let's go with that.
"Too Big To Fail" for the economically challenged: If we allow this company -company, not an entire industry, which is okay too, but just this company- to fail, i.e. go out of business because their revenues are not sufficient to pay their bills, X number of workers will be thrown out of work, as will workers in related, dependent industries, and will have no income, thus no purchasing power, thus causing a ripple effect throughout the entire economy, until everybody is unemployed and broke, and America looks like an episode of Survior and Jeff Probst is our god.
This assumes these now unemployed workers will never again find work, won't receive unemployment compensation(another bailout, I forgot that one), and that more efficient companies won't buy up the assets and fill the production void caused by the inefficient company's insolvency.
Hogwash and tommyrot!

It's even possible, if these companies were allowed the option of bankruptcy, they might be able to restructure themselves in a way that allows them to be leaner and meaner in the future.
And we need to know if that can happen. That's the basic knowledge we need, can they survive on their own? And bankruptcy is the perfect mechanism for discerning this knowledge.

And so...now is the perfect opportunity for Republicans to explain and defend their conservative fiscal philosophy. Namely, that companies, like able individuals, must be responsible, self reliant citizens. That bad decision making, and even the march of time, has consequences. That sometimes these consequences are painful, but never without cessation. That the free market is by far the best tool we have for sorting out these situations. That sometimes the best thing the government can do is to do nothing at all. That we shouldn't artificially, at the expense of the American taxpayer, prop up these failing companies. That by doing so we are not only prolonging the process but costing, in real dollars, ourselves more over time.

Will Republicans do it?
Of course not.

We still have the Department of Education; a minimum wage law; a failed Social Security system; No Child Left Behind, a prescription drug entitlement; a costly, and mostly ineffective, War on Drugs, etc.

If Republicans won't stand up, then they should stand down.

And one more thing about Pelosi. She says, "Everybody is disadvantaged by bankruptcy, even our economy."
Then let's do away with it...for everybody.

The Big Three...Idiots At The Washington Post

If it weren't for Marie Cocco(for how stupid Ms Cocco is, visit Shout First) and Kathleen Parker, E.J. Dionne would be the biggest idiot writing for the Washington Post.
Oh, what the hell, let's just assign the title on a rotating basis.
Today, E.J. Dionne is the biggest idiot writing for the Washington Post.

Mr Dionne writes, in his column, Bailout Must Focus On Auto Workers, "There is a paradox at the heart of the proposed bailout of the auto industry. The rescue would have no chance of passing without the muscle of the Big Three's unionized work force. Yet you can't turn around without hearing someone trash autoworkers for the terrible crime of trying to earn a decent living."

Firstly, there's absolutely nothing paradoxical about that. Nothing.
You know, it would be a really good idea if people who are paid to write for a living actually knew the definitions of the words they use.

Secondly, as for trashing "autoworkers for the terrible crime of trying to earn a decent living"...give me a break!
Autoworkers are paid well. Very well. They are paid more than you.
They are paid so much, they'll probably hire you to count their money.
The lowest figure I can find, and this from someone defending these division-of-laborists, is, including benefits, $38 an hour.
That's $79,000 a year.
Without benefits, the average UAW thief makes $58,000 a year.
Toss another wage earner into the household, and hey, you're talking about decent money.
So, spare me the "trying to earn a decent living" populism, Mr Dionne.

Besides, we know you're in favor of these false wages because, as you write, "Long-term economic growth depends upon a well-paid middle class."
Well, no it doesn't.
If it were that simple, then all employers should just raise everybody's wages. Oh, but wait, then prices would rise and we'd be right back where we started.
Long-term economic growth -or, continued prosperity, if you will- depends upon allowing the free market to determine prices. And that's exactly what wages are. Wages are a price.
But when you allow union bullies to distort that process, well, you end up with companies that can no longer afford those prices.

And please don't tell us, as you do, that "if the Big Three had designed better cars, they would not have lost as much market share to Toyota, Nissan and other competitors."
Market share, while diminished for the Big Three, is not the issue.
If GM loses money selling 6.6 million cars, as they have done through September of this year, then they would, if they became a smaller company, lose a correspondingly proportionate amount if they were to sell only 3 million, or 1 million cars. You know, like Ford and Chrysler.
If market share were the sole determining factor, then Toyota would be going broke too, as their market share is roughly equal to that of GM.
Market share is only a problem insofar as legacy costs have to be paid. (I'm assuming each of these companies earns enough to pay their suppliers, meet their payrolls, and keep the lights on. Because if they can't even meet those costs, then there's nothing worth discussing here. Not only should they not get a bailout, but congress should pass legislation shutting their doors immediately). But legacy costs don't have to be paid. So, the Big Three should simply stop paying them. Let the UAW strike, then replace them with people willing to work for wages determined by the free market.
Legacy costs are simply future costs predicated on present conditions(the good times), with the assumption that the present conditions, market share, will remain, at least, static, or expand in perpetuity.
The Big 3 made these cradle-to-grave promises when times were good; now times are bad and they are not able to honor those deals.
Since their market share contracted, the only solution, short of not paying the legacy costs, is to raise the price of their cars. And be undersold by the competition.
Which is exactly what is already happening. Only they're not raising the price of their cars. which would cut their sales even more. Hence the fact that they're broke.
Will the recipients of these legacy costs make any sacrifices?

The cause of that loss of market share is not, as Mr Dionne states, the design of American cars.
Toyota, I can aver without fear of serious contradiction, has the most boring line-up of cars on the road.
People aren't buying the Camry because it's sexy.
No, the loss of market share is attributable to one factor: quality.
And whom do I blame for that? The guy who put the car together.

I hope the 3 Big Chiefs make a better case for their cause than you, Mr Dionne.

On the upside, you won't be the biggest idiot writing for the Washington Post tomorrow.

Another Bold Prediction

Oil, trading now at about $50 per barrel, will not go much lower.
$45 at the lowest.
You heard it here first.

Whatever Happened To The AIDS Epidemic?

Today is World AIDS Day.

So, why don't you have AIDS?

Peter Duesberg knows.

If you're old enough, you remember how we were all going to die of AIDS. All of us. AIDS was going to be the epidemic to end all epidemics, and mankind to boot. It was going to jump from its risk groups, male homosexuals and intravenous drug users, and devastate the non-drug using heterosexual population as well. It was going to equal in its lethality the bubonic plague. It was going to kill everybody everywhere.
Think I'm misremembering, like Hillary Clinton misremembered the sniper fire on her Bosnian vacation?
The following is the lead paragraph of John Langone's January 30th 1989 article for Time magazine.
"The barrage of scary rhetoric and hyperbole began not long after young homosexual men started dying by the thousands in the early 1980's. Dire warnings of an AIDS apocalypse came not only from headline writers but also, uncharacteristically, from scientists and health specialists. Declared one: "We have not seen anything of this magnitude that we can't control except nuclear bombs." In 1987 Otis Bowen, then Secretary of Health and Human Services, said AIDS would make black death --the bubonic plague that wiped out as much as a third of Europe's population in the Middle Ages-- "pale by comparison."
(Bring to mind the current Man-made Global Warming scam? But I don't want to go off on a tangent).

So, a funny thing happened on the way to the modern "Bring-Out-Your-Dead" scene.

We didn't start dying in indiscriminate droves.
Well, Graham Chapman died, but not as a result of AIDS.

And AIDS remained confined to its original risk groups.

Why?

Peter Duesberg has, and has had for a long time, a theory: HIV does not cause AIDS. Drug use causes AIDS.

One night, years ago in the late 20th century, I was clicking through the channels when I came upon a chat show on CNBC.
The interviewer whose name I don't recall, was talking to Peter Duesberg, and Peter Duesberg was saying that HIV does not cause AIDS.
I was fascinated.

So, who is this crackpot?
He is a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California at Berkeley.
Since working at Berkeley is no guarantee that you're not a crackpot, I'll proceed.
He isolated the first cancer gene in 1970 through his work on retroviruses, of which HIV is one.
He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1986.
Also, in 1986, he was awarded Outstanding Investigator Award by the National Institutes of Health.

He has written a book, Inventing The AIDS Virus, laying out and defending his case.
He maintains a website, www.duesberg.com, where you will find not only his arguments, but his answers to common questions about his theory, and links to almost all related articles and scientific papers.

I've read his book and kept up with the website.
And, although I'm only a layman, I tend to believe him.
He answers all doubters, and hasn't wavered from his position since first publishing it in 1987.

But what I really like about him can be summed up in the following paragraph from the June 2008 Discover magazine article on him:
"Weinberg, who first met Duesberg in the 1970's calls him a contrarian with a corrosive and acidic wit. He is like man who is shipwrecked on an island, struggles onto the beach, looks around and says, "Is there a government here? If so, I'm against it."

God love a contrarian.

Of course, Peter Duesberg may be wrong.

But would you be harmed in thinking outside the box, even for a moment?

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

I love Christmas.
Everything about Christmas.

I love the lights, the trees, the stockings, the gifts, the giving, the receiving, the shopping (yes, even the shopping), the colors red & green, the movies, the music, the stories, the television shows (even those awful ones on the Hallmark Channel; the common theme of which is children trying to find a perfect match for their single parent), the Christmas themed dinnerware, everything.

It is, ironically, however, when I'm at my most secular.

But I am mindful every day of the year not just that Jesus lived and died, but why he did so.

So, as Tiny Tim says, "God bless us, everyone!"