- Banned
- #361
The date of your posted article is May 09. 2009. Frankly, I'm not interested in your political blathering on this whole thing. It's JOBS JOBS JOBS that concern me, and it should you.
GM is already able to invest $257 million in its assembly plant in Kansas City and in the Detroit-Hamtramck plant keeping thousands of people employed.
The government can't "create"jobs, Maggie. Government jobs de-fund the private economy. They don't produce anything. They just take money out of one citizen's pocket and put it into another.
What this administration needs to do in order to get employers hiring again is to abandon their job-killing agenda. But they're not going to do that, are they? Which leaves us no choice but to PUNT their stupid asses out of office in 2010 and 2012. That's how I'm going to show MY concern about jobs... at the ballot box.
It doesn't matter if the article I sited is from last year if GM's plans haven't changed, if they're still closing plants and still moving jobs into cheaper labor markets. And isn't it convenient how people's confidence in foreign cars has dropped here lately, so that GM can afford to expand its product line? The Democrats in Congress might have been pure as the driven snow in it's sanction of Toyota... but who but an abject moron would believe it when their political fortunes are tied to the health of their bailout projects?
During the financial crisis that led to GM filing for bankruptcy protection last year, the automaker closed 14 factories and shed more than 65,000 blue-collar jobs in the U.S. through buyouts, early retirement offers and layoffs. The company now employs about 40,000 hourly workers in the U.S.
After the event at the Kansas City plant, Whitacre was scheduled to fly to Washington, where he will meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers.
GM's moves come as a new poll finds that slightly more Americans now say the U.S. makes better-quality vehicles than Asia, with 38 percent saying U.S. cars are best and 33 percent preferring autos made by Asian companies, according to an Associated Press-GfK survey.
The poll suggests the shift in sentiment is largely fueled by a plunge in Toyota's reputation and an upswing in Ford Motor Co's. The poll was conducted in March, as Toyota was suffering bad publicity over its recall of more than 8 million vehicles around the globe.
When the same question was asked in a December 2006 AP-AOL poll, 46 percent said Asian countries made superior cars, while just 29 percent preferred American vehicles, reflecting a perception of U.S. automotive inferiority that began taking hold about three decades ago.
(more...)
GM Pumps $257M into Michigan, Kansas Plants - CBS News
Note that if you read the entire article, no mention is made of how GM paid us back with our own taxpayer dollars.
Note also that as soon as Whitacre made his press release in Kansas... he jetted off to Washington for a meeting with Nancy Pelosi.
What amazes me is the vociferous complaint that we so often hear from liberals right on this very board regarding corporatism... but that they can't seem to recognize it when it's right up under their noses.
Back on topic, I've noticed that the GM ad is getting quite a bit of play on talk-radio... and just this morning I heard one of our local talkers defending GM against a caller who was boycotting. Not so, Glenn Beck on his Fox Broadcast earlier this evening. He had already fired them from his advertising line-up a good while back... and gave them the shit that they so richly deserved tonight for LYING to the public.
No media outlet is explicitly trustworthy. We have a responsibility as citizens to seek out the truth for ourselves. And sticking our heads in the sand because the truth doesn't necessarily jibe with our chosen ideology solves NONE of our problems. I heard two conservative talkers discuss GM today, one was taking advertising, one wasn't.... and their verbiage was very different. And in the article above, we see that CBS doesn't feel the need to share with us how GM paid the money back. I have to wonder if GM is advertising with them too.
The U.S. Government should NOT be in the car business, or the bank business, or the healthcare business. You can't be the referee *AND* a player on the field with a vested interest in the outcome. That's how we end up with a corrupt, corporatist system.
You can't keep the money from affecting the press... but damned if we should put up with it in our government. That's OUR house. WE are the sovereign.
Government such as our own is, by definition, an umpire for our society, NOT a player. Only in the rarest of circumstances should the government be a player. When the government is a player it is as though the NFL umpires fielded a team of umpires, while trying at the same time to umpire the games. Who do you think would go to the superbowl every year in that case?It is OK for the government to kick-start some things such as space travel, or the post office, or our railroad system in their beginnings, but as soon as they are up and running government should withdraw and allow the market place to run these things, insuring only a level playing field for all the competing teams. When government picks winners and losers and plays the game there is no fairness for anyone.
That worked very well for that Mining Company, didn't it?