UNIONS CREATE GOOD WAGES FOR AUTOWORKERS AND OTHERS

To those who are complaining about unions while still benefiting from those same unions:

  I recently replied on another blog to a fellow who was blaming unions for the nations ills.  He is benefiting from the the high wages and benefits he was receiving at a non union factory due largely to union workers in union factories. 

The person wrote this:

 "Companies are exporting jobs because of Unions. Unions demand so much from companies that they can go else where and not fight with unions. I work in the auto industry and we are not union but we get paid just as good and have better benefits. One thing that is different is my company doesn't have to pay millions a year to fight with the union. Why do you think Japan is building plants over here, its because in Japan you have to be in a union. Think about it do you ever hear about ford or chevy building plants in Japan or China...NO because of union."


This person was too stupid to see the correlation between the union fight for benefits and his own wages.  This is my reply to him:

We will start ith something simple, yes General Motors and Ford both have factories in China and Japan as well as around the rest of the world.
You work at a foreign transplant factory and you don't have any idea of the history behind foreign auto companies here.  There is a law on the books that says a foreign auto company can only import a small number of vehicles here ( I think it is 35,000)  Therefore if they want to sell more vehicles here they have to have factories here. 
  As far as your good wages and benefits are concerned, the only reason your getting them, is because of unions. If foreign companies weren't competing with domestic unions your wages would likely be at minimum wage.  It is not the unions who are destroying the middle class, but it is the greed of corporations and the culpability of politicians who allow the decimation of the middle class.  Obviously you, once again don't know history.  The fight by union workers for better wages, benefits and working conditions are what created the middle class. During the 1950's and 1960's is when the middle class became a reality.  Back then CEO's made only about 40 times more than their workers and tax rates on the highest incomes were about 90%.  This allowed for infrastructure spending on roads and bridges and made it an incentive for companies to share the wealth with their employees as well as their stock holders. If a company gave more wages and benefits to employees, they could deduct that amount from their profits thereby keeping more money that didn't go to taxes for themselves. With the advent of the 40 hour work week, more people were hired, which in turn advanced our economy.  When an individual has an income,  they spend the money they make on goods and services.  The more people who have jobs and spend money, the more they create  jobs by demanding more goods and services.  It does make a difference on what the individual buys, as to how much their local economy thrives.   
   Foreign companies, who earn their money through trade with the USA, is a good example of how; where you spend your money determines the local economy. Buying domestic products that are made and bought here do more for the economy than buying foreign goods do. Also the profits for the foreign companies go back overseas, and are not really taxed here. So we lose out on two fronts.  Yes competition is a good thing, but not when your playing with the deck stacked against you. 

China for instance doesn't allow free trade in their country, and they don't have basic regulations to protect their environment from polution or to ban slave labor.  They are just now realizing that environmental regulations need to be in place to prevent their water supply and land from becoming unuseable.
  Also there is the problem of lead and other toxic contaminates that have been found in the products that they export. There are many countries unwilling to buy those products from China, due to the lack of safety regulations in China. 
Next is the fact that China does not recognise patents so they steal ideas and produce products that other countries are unable to do  Patent laws are  recognised nearly everywhere but China.  For instance, if you take any new gadget into  China, they seize it and reverse engineer it so any patent you may have held on the item becomes a moot point.  China therefore is able to produce the product over there for cheap, and with no regulations or need to pay the original owner of the product in question.  And  because their laws allow for theft of any foreign idea or product, the "free trade" playing field is skewed in China's direction.   If you want to have jobs return to America, people need to quit buying all these chinese made goods.  We need factories to resume operating in the United States if  we want jobs and the economy to return.  We also need to close loopholes in the tax system that allow companies like Exxon/mobile and Dow chemical, to pay nothing in federal taxes even with their obscene profits.  Also to end the corporate welfare of those same companies ( ie, the oil industry has gotten 1.3 billion dollars in subsidies and even more money in lucrative government contracts) that makes it difficult for smaller start ups to exist.  And we need to end the tax credit for companies that ship jobs overseas, until we do so the American worker is at a disadvantage.
 Last but not least, we need to get rid of the bribery going on in Washington D.C. and around the country, that allows companies and special interests to pay politicians (in the form of campaign contributions) to make laws benefiting those same industries, and often to the detriment of average Americans.
We need public funding of elections, to make sure that the laws passed by congress, and signed by the president, are in the best interests of all Americans, and not just a select few corporations and individuals.
If you want to help this country recover, you can do things like buy local, shop for items made in the USA, or start a factory that makes goods here. It would be nice if someone like Warren Buffett or George Soros would spend his money to create jobs by actually starting factories and other businesses that create jobs instead of just playing in the stock market, which usually doesn't create any jobs.  It would be nice if America could return to the heyday of the middle class that took place in the 1950's and 1960's.  It would not only help America but the rest of the world as well, especially if  free trade were actually done on an even playing field.   And we need to quit the practice of allowing billioniares, who get the majority of their money from the stock market, to have fewer taxes than the rest of us. There is no reason why Warren Buffett or any one else in the top 1% should pay less in taxes as a percentage of income than any of the rest of us.

FOX NEWS AND TEA PARTY CONSERVATIVES ARE TO BLAME!

TO:  Sarah Palin and Sharon Angle, and other like minded Republican Tea Party Conservatives: I lay the blame of the tragedy in Arizona at your feet.  You are the ones to blame for putting the ideas of "SECOND AMENDMENT REMEDIES" in the minds of unstable people.  You are to blame!  If you people hadn't been spewing your:  guns cure all elections you don't like the results of philosophy, this likely never would have happened.  I believe most of the Tea party candidates can and should be prosecuted for inciting violence.  WORDS DO MATTER!  You people are aready trying to back away from your culpability in this matter. I'm telling you now that it WON'T WORK!!!!  I know the evil you perpetrate on the unwell among us. They don't know that they have been played for fools.  Between the birthers, tea partiers and the DON'T TREAD ON ME  people in the republican and conservative far right wing, You have made clear to the weak minded  that all they have to do is pick up a gun and shoot someone if they don't like election results.  SHAME ON THE CONSERVATIVES, TEA PARTY,  AND RUPUBLICAN RIGHTWING NUT JOBS.  YOU BROUGHT DEATH TO A JUDGE AND A SMALL CHILD, WHO HADN'T YET HAD THE CHANCE TO LIVE, WITH YOUR DANGEROUS RHETORIC!!!  You who LIE to their audience just to get headlines, and to brainwash your viewers into beleiving that what your saying is true.  You people have never, as far as I can tell, fact checked anything you say! A lot of what comes out is pure lying and unreasoned speculation. SHAME ON YOU ALL WHO PREY ON THE WEAK MINDED FOOLS AMONG US AND THEN DENY THAT YOU HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE ACTIONS OF THESE SAME PEOPLE!

My heart goes out to the victims of this senseless act of violence.  Brought on by the likes of the talk show people on FOX NEWS like Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly, as well as their supposed "news" people like Michele Malkin , Sean Hannity, and Gretta Van Sustrind.  I lay this tragedy on the feet of all of you who have gone way over the deep end in rhetoric.  You should all go to jail, for many years, for the incitement of violence that has been  on Fox News and by candidates for political office for more than 2 years  now.
You people, WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER,  have been calling on people to take up arms if they don't like the results of elections, since before Obama became president.

All of you in the Tea Party or Republican Party or Conservative Party, who started this dangerous rhetoric, deserves more than the scorn of the nation:  You also deserve a decade or so in jail for your sins.

Lame Duck Congress is Getting Things Done and arguements for campaign finance reform

  Soon the republicans will take over the house, but before they do,  the democrats are getting some things done.  I don't agree with all they are doing , but at least it looks like Washington D.C. is working for now even if it is only temporary. 
   There are those that are happy with the new tax bill that went through but I am not one of them.  Our government needs to get our national debt under control and I don't see how giving tax breaks accomplishes that.  During the Bush years we started 2 wars that were NOT PAID FOR.   The medicare prescription drug plan was started (which I like) but it was NOT PAID FOR.  We had the Bush taxcuts of 2001 and 2003  which were also NOT PAID FOR.  We had rendition programs that would sweep people into Guantanimo WITH  LITTLE TO NO EVIDENCE OF WRONG DOING, also NOT PAID  FOR,  NOT TO MENTION ILLEGAL.  And to top it off we had an illegal torture program, NOT PAID FOR,  AND IT WILL COST US DEARLY IN THE WORLD WIDE ARENA OF POLITICS.  

   Our political process is broken.  There is too much influence by corporations and other special interests that incentivise our politicians make bad laws and bad decisions regarding the vast majority of the public.  Our laws are no longer writen by politicians but by corporations and their lobbiests  for the benefit of those big money interests.  If our laws were actually written to benefit the average American, there would not be ANY for profit company, (whether on the insurance, big pharma or healthcare facilities) that makes money on the backs of the sick and the poor.  Nor would there be any lobbiest for the Wall street firms watering down regulations that are there to protect consumers.  And to top it off there wouldn't be any corporations trying to eliminate the new OSHA  standards that are also there to protect working people. 

   The Citizens United ruling by the Supreme court obviously had bad repercussions for democracy.  There is the Chamber of Commerce who has taken in foreign donations to influence our elections.  There is a huge amount of corporate money that was put out to influence the electorate through outright LIES, in order to get these people to vote their way. 

I will never understand why people vote against their best interest all the time.  But I am sure it is because of inflamatory language that call the healthcare bill "socialized medicine" when it is anything but.  The healthcare industry will still be run by for profit companies to the detriment of working people.  The new "CONSUMER DRIVEN HEALTH CARE" that corporations are getting people to buy into, only causes more people to go into medical bankruptcy because the insurance companies won't pay anything until you've reached several thousand dollars of out of pocket expenses, which most people can't afford.  I am recommending Wendell Potter's book  DEADLY SPIN which outlines how for profit insurance companies are getting the american people to not only buy their inferior product and and allow them to make huge profits on the backs of people who can't afford to pay the additional out of pocket costs, but also to get you to vote for republicans, even though they are looking out for the profits of big corporations and their own re-elction campaign donations (many democrats aren't any better) . 

  The only way to get corporations out of the political process is to have campaign finance reform that includes only public funding of campaigns.  If there are no incentives for politicians to do the bidding of corporations and other special interest groups, then we may wind up having a true democracy for the people instead of for the corporations as it is now. 
If such a thing  can exist  we may be able to have the majority of americans help to write the laws instead of the corporations (who currently influence lawmaking) who care only about profits and not people. 

   The United States has never, since the great depression, been at such a dire crossroads as it is now.  We the people need to speak up against corporate and special interest influence in the lawmaking that goes on in this country. 

 Contact your senators and congressmen and tell them you are sick and tired of the corporate greed and influence being perpetrated on the average citizen.  Also get informed on the laws that are being made. After all, the laws made will impact you for the rest of your life.  Thomas.gov  is a good place to start.  It has all the bills that are currently and formerly winding their way through congress and the senate.  Get informed of everything you can.  Also don't believe pundits from FOX NEWS  or MSNBC  or any other source without checking facts.  You can go to factcheck.org or politifact.com

One of my favorite sources is Democracy Now.org  They seem to have the story behind the story more often than not.  They can be seen on free speech tv (FSTV)  Dish channel 9415 (and I think it is Direct tv channel 348?)  Once again get involved and be active in the political process.  But also get your facts straight before argueing against something. 

I would love to hear from you on any thoughts you may have.