Perhaps another way of saying it: “Do you really trust a car salesperson?”
GM needs, again, more money to keep the doors open and auto workers coming to work; It has made some progress with its creditors and the UAW, but neither of those negotiations is final, so some of what GM can do to cut costs and improve its balance sheet will have to be taken on faith.
Also, as quoted from TIME’s Online Newswire service, in an article entitled: “GM Bailout: Billions to Put People Out of Work.”
GM claims the amount of money it will need for the year at $16.6 billion. That will not guarantee the largest car company in the U.S. will get to break-even. If auto sales in America keep falling, GM may need more capital this year, and it will almost certainly need more again in 2010.
Now with this known and understood; the government is faced with several complex and painful decisions.
Analysts believe that GM going into Chapter 11 would put hundreds of thousands of Americans at the car company and its suppliers out of jobs. To counter that, the Congress and Administration may have to keep GM on life support indefinitely. The alternative is too awful. The part of the GM request for money that is very clear is that, in exchange for $16.6 billion, the company will fire 47,000 people. It may be the only example in U.S. history where the government will pay to put tens of thousands of its own citizens out on the street. Most of these people have probably been paying taxes to the IRS for years. The perversion of the government stepping in to run an industry to save the broader economy is that it must live with the consequences of its own actions, which in this case involves investing capital into a restructuring that increases the burden on social services, causes great suffering, and is a lesson to private enterprise that failure can, in some cases, be rewarded. The Administration knows that it has to save GM as part of steadying the economy, but it has put itself into a policy position where killing some jobs is the excuse for saving others.
Analysts believe that GM going into Chapter 11 would put hundreds of thousands of Americans at the car company and its suppliers out of jobs. To counter that, the Congress and Administration may have to keep GM on life support indefinitely. The alternative is too awful.
The part of the GM request for money that is very clear is that, in exchange for $16.6 billion, the company will fire 47,000 people. It may be the only example in U.S. history where the government will pay to put tens of thousands of its own citizens out on the street. Most of these people have probably been paying taxes to the IRS for years.
The perversion of the government stepping in to run an industry to save the broader economy is that it must live with the consequences of its own actions, which in this case involves investing capital into a restructuring that increases the burden on social services, causes great suffering, and is a lesson to private enterprise that failure can, in some cases, be rewarded. The Administration knows that it has to save GM as part of steadying the economy, but it has put itself into a policy position where killing some jobs is the excuse for saving others.
Now here’s where the meaning of the word “Trust” comes in; suppose we the taxpayers along with a “little” administrative help from our legislative branch of government lend GM the $16.6 B-bucks (this could mean the dismissal of 50,000 auto workers too), and after the aforementioned has been completed, GM would then declare itself “Bankrupt” any way.
Those two newspapers were leaning against my front door this morning. I can't find the envelope with my cash tip inside. What am I going to do? I stood, newspapers in hand, and looked down my long driveway. It is a white nightmare down at the end of it. Overlapping plows in unwitnessed combat have crisscrossed the cul-du-sac and left jumbled 'Tiger Teeth' of piles strewn everywhere down there. I cannot imagine making my way into that mess to find my papers. I have got to tip this mysterious elusive newspaper person. Christmas stress. I read Judith Warner, a replacement columnist for David Brooks in the New York Times. Where is David? Oh, he needed a break for Christmas, I guess. These 'princes of press' must have their rest. I mean, after all, it takes intensive labor to sit and write something interesting. Another Christmas crock. Like the garbage Judith wrote this day. Brainless. Let's see, she writes about the fact that reason and logic are triumphing over the forces that make Christmas what it should be...wonder, marvel and faith. I am paraphrasing, as her stuff is not worth memorizing. She calls this the 'Woody Allenization' of Christmas. I do like that line, however misplaced and addled it is. You see, Judith is lost in the combating and overlapping mythologies of Christmas in our culture. She is all caught up in the Santa Claus thing, I guess. I am so very sorry Judith, but even though Norad has been tracking Santa's Christmas Eve flight ever since 1955, he is not real. We made it all up to have fun with our kids...and quite possibly for control and discipline purposes as well.
Christmas is filled with wonder, marvel and faith. You just have to look beyond the mythologies. The wonder that people can take a bit of time and think about the plight and condition of others around them. The marvel that they will go out and spend time and money to get something for somebody else that is just right, just to have that person feel a little bit better about life, and maybe them. The faith that something is at work of goodness, driven by, well, you don't have to know. You just have faith that there are more people like you out there, buying stuff not totally out of obligation but because you really want to get stuff for them. There was an old school joke about faith that always liked, even thought the underlying premise was discomforting. Johnny is sitting in the back of his grade school class when his teacher asks the big question. what is faith? Johnny raises his hand, which the teacher tries to avoid, as Johnny is a notorious trouble-maker (i like that part as I was always in that coat closet in my Catholic School for shameful questions). But the teacher caves in when there are no other hands. "Alright Johnny, go ahead...," the teacher says, with disappointment and a bit of trepidation. "Faith is believing in something that you know is not really true," Johnny responds, in his normal fashion. Johnny went, of course, straight to the coat closet, to inhale the aroma of all the little girl's coats hanging there, if he was like me. But the premise of that story is not true. You can have faith in any number of things that may or may not be true. We just don't have enough data or life experience to know. God is like that too. Is He there? Is He a He? What is the deal? I think He is, but I am not sure. I am beginning to sound like Woody Allen, who I never liked, although he is funny...but with some real bad personal habits.
About teaching. The Times had an article about teaching in it. The writer combined the plight and conduct of my beloved auto workers with that of teachers. They are unappreciated. That part is true. But auto workers do not stay up nights working on their stuff, worrying about their charges and taking extra time and effort to help a small person who really needs it. Teachers are different. I know one well. I mean one right now, sleeping and shopping away because she is off for the holiday (one of the few small benefits of the profession). This teacher is kinda normal I think. She asked me to write a short story for her grade school classes. So I wrote The Treasure Pool, which is found somewhere back there in these blogs. She gave out forty-nine copies and then had all the students write reviews back to me. She copied and stapled, read the story to make sure I had not slipped in any filth (I am, after all, an ex-Marine!) and then spent time and trouble helping these kids to come to terms with the plot, the theme and the elements of English such necessary educational arrows to have in their quivers. The critiques came back, and they were wonderful. Oh, I got dinged pretty good on my grades in certain areas. I wrote back to those kids who had given me bad grades for the most minor of things. I was stung. I was nice, but I had to say something! But the story is not about me. It is about the extra time and effort this teacher, Mrs. Machado, takes to really help and advance her students. She is an example of what it is all about out here, and in this holiday season. She follows Sister Sarah Fogarty (my fourth grade teachere) and Sister Michael Marie (my fifth grade teacher) in being one of those unknown and unsung saints. Maybe here, in this lonely blog, she will get the only public recognition she ever gets. But she is all about Christmas. The embodiment. And she is filled with reason and logic and understanding the universe. But she is also a thing of wonder, marvel and faith. Merry Crhistmas Anise Machado. We love you.
In a time 25,000 years ago, a small tribe located in a primal valley attempts to survive the many threats from geology, weather, hunger and health of the times. The perspective of this sweeping adventure is from that of a young boy, cast down by not out, ignored by his family and friends, but accepted by the animal life indigenous to this period. It is a story of integrity lost and won, hard-earned honor and its meaning and effect, but above all, a romance of great proportions. The boy loses and learns, fights for love and survival itself, while attempting to overcome physical and social difficulties that at times seem insurmountable. The first novel of this series is called The Boy and it establishes a benchmark for the beginnings of the meteoric rise of the homo sapiens species, from its lowly beginnings to its eventual dominance over the entire planet.
And so reads the back cover of the new novel. I wonder what the public is going to think of it. So much of that (the public's opinion) is all about some of the things I rail about on this blogsite. Who has access to the eyes, minds, hearts and souls of this population we all belong to? Who has access at all to the outpouring of sensory pleasing technology? The books, the television and the movies? It is not me. I have a large voice in Hollywood, on two shows, but I am mostly unknown (credit is much harder to come by in Hollywood than money). I have a little bitty voice on the blogsites. Learning about how to have a larger voice is fraught with hard-work, serendipity and relationships. How to make it all work to get a message out. I ponder into the cold dark night. It is below zero here and the wind is right at twenty on my anemometer. It is to snow again tomorrow and the next day, and this is proof of global warming. I read that on Fox, one of the scrolls across the bottom of a screen that went by while ORielly was talking bad talk about Blogojevitch, the embattled governor of Illinois. He is even colder than us, up here above him in Wisconsin. Cold and becoming more alone with each passing day. Soon, the icicle he married will dump him too, and rejoin the ranks of Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, Kelly Rippa and the rest of the brittle botox queens of advancing age and declining beauty.
There is not much good to say about the mess that Governor Rod has created for himself, and also the one that his enemies are helping to make worse. After all, they want to sell that senatorship themselves, and then the governorship itself. Just as soon as they can get rid of the Donald Trump Hair Guy, I mean. We have watched high offices be traded for favors and more ever since this country got under way. What is this new explosion of outrage all about? I mean, come on. The brother gets appointed, the son, the wife. All the time. To just about any office. Try Cheney's daughters being given jobs to run the Middle East! And look at New York. There is another do nothing law school graduate from a silver spoon background of no life experience being touted for the senator's job there. Her name is Caroline Kennedy. This is to be another of the leaders that is supposed to lead us where? Is there any wonder we are hip deep in the big muddy and sinking fast? While we go down, knowing and stating that we have been lead to our fate by idiots, we appoint new idiots to represent us along the way. Oh Caroline seems like a nice lady. All of us with age watched her at her father's funeral. But what has she done? Nothing. The advantage of gaining public office today is to have done nothing with your life. You cannot be found to have done anything wrong. At least she will be used to the limos and the private aircraft and the rest of the royalty perks we give our own aristocracy, while we look the other way and condemn those evil unions and those overpaid auto workers. Like she is going to give a damn about people like that. Our aristocracy is just like all the aristocracies which have preceded it. They are taught not to give a damn. It is simply a part of being what and who they are.
So I am trumpeting for the auto workers. Yes, those guys and gals who build Chevys, Fords and Chryslers across this land. I am looking to see that they get a fair deal, and they get to keep their jobs at an even higher rate of pay. I want the ideals of America, and how we go here, to this point, to be reapplied. How we got into space with real quality equipment. How we got to the moon. How we built world aviation almost single cultured. How we built the computer revolution step by step. How we did, and are doing, all of it. We did it with hard work, grit, and determination and talent. And we used our money to help fund those efforts. So, God Damn It, lets lay out the bucks to build these new cars that this fickle public seems to want. Give the building cars over to the rest of the world and we might as well just hang on to Mediterranean Place and Baltic Avenue, while ceding each and every other property on this World Monopoly Board to the rest of those cultures out there. Screw them. Let's fix our own situation. Let's get busy and build some real cars and show all those bastards a thing or two, again. And if our representatives stand in the way of this, lets show those people just what riots and tough times are like. They all live in mansions in D.C. and in their home states. Lets go get the addresses and start visiting. Hell, if those craven thieves have their way (the 'conservative' representatives) there will be plenty of unemployed auto workers to make those visits. With tools.
McCain, tried to convince autoworkers that he gave even a rat's patooty about the blue collar worker.
Blue collar workers aren't stupid.
It was an exciting first day of the Convention, topped off by Michelle Obama's show-stopping speech about her story, Barack's story, and the fierce urgency of the moment and the movement.
Governor Strickland was also present, as well as Barack's recently chosen Vice Presidential candidate Senator Joe Biden. Local politicians have commended the pick as perfect for Ohio, and Governor Strickland himself has been nothing but laudatory of Barack's stellar pick for VP, outlining why he's a good fit in this article.
Joe Biden is an outstanding choice for vice president. His foreign policy knowledge is unparalleled, and his humble Pennsylvania roots give him a deep understanding of the challenges facing Ohio families. Ohioans will have a clear choice this Fall—four more years of failed Bush economic policies under John McCain, or a new direction that will bring the the real change we need to Washington with an Obama-Biden ticket.
Joe Biden is an outstanding choice for vice president. His foreign policy knowledge is unparalleled, and his humble Pennsylvania roots give him a deep understanding of the challenges facing Ohio families.
Ohioans will have a clear choice this Fall—four more years of failed Bush economic policies under John McCain, or a new direction that will bring the the real change we need to Washington with an Obama-Biden ticket.
Governor Strickland and Senator Biden share a strong distaste for the Bush-McCain take on the economy: Strickland is poised to deliver a speech on the economic failures of the GOP tomorrow at the Convention, and meanwhile Biden wasted no time in making it clear to Ohio autoworkers how McCain's policies would leave them in the dust, and Barack's would spur growth. Here is part of the released statement:
Senator Obama and Senator Biden support the auto industry plan for a federal investment of $7.5 billion over three years – an investment that will leverage $50 billion in low-interest credit for the industry to help them retool plants and create jobs. Senator McCain has consistently opposed any retooling investments for the auto industry -- including as recently as two weeks ago. On Friday, McCain offered lip-service on the issue, while still opposing providing the industry with the full amount needed to retool and keep jobs here at home.
Even in the first couple days of his nomination, it's clear that Senator Biden is willing to fight for Ohioans.
