Originally, unions were established to provide a voice for employees who, as a group, could have influence and impact that, individually, none could.  But that ceased to be the case long ago.  Now, unions are powerful instruments of bullying and extortion; organizations whose violent tactics and threats are shrugged off and taken for granted as a cost of doing business.  Their mantra has been a constant harangue of “the owners and producers make too much money” and “we’ve got to soak them for everything we can get” for decades now.  (And one could argue that workers themselves know this.  Union membership is down from a high of 37% in 1960 to just over 12% last year.  That’s one reason why union leaders and Democrats are pushing for the elimination of secret ballots in union elections – so that union bosses can use the kinds of tactics for which they are infamous to pressure reluctant employees to vote for them.  After all, why use choice when you can use force?)

Many have warned that cushy benefits (GM’s $17 mil a year for VIAGRA?) and lavish pensions would cripple the car companies.  And now, they have.  And what is the answer?  Have the federal government bail us out, so that we can continue to spend more than we take in. Unions lie to their members, assuring them that they will be “taken care of.”  Meanwhile, the very companies upon whom the workers depend for their livelihoods teeter on the abyss.  And when union demands kill the golden goose, where will the workers work?

And so it is for the Democratic Party.  They used to be the party of “the little guy.”  Now they are the party of the elite, the wealthiest and/or most powerful groups on earth: the Pravda media, Hollywood, academia, and union bosses.

Just as with the union leadership, Democrats have become a group that does nothing but demonize the most productive members of society – entrepreneurs, innovators, business owners and managers – people upon whom the prosperity and security of this nation depends; individuals whose companies employ the very people Democrats purport to “care” about (and without whose assets the Democrats would have nothing to redistribute).

And, like unions, Democrats hide behind their tattered and long-outdated status as defenders of the disenfranchised to extort more and more money from hardworking Americans who have made sensible, self-sacrificing choices, in order to throw hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars into failed or failing social programs that not only do not alleviate the problems they are intended to solve, but make them worse, by financially rewarding the poor choices that caused them.

And, as was the case with the investment banks holding billions in worthless securities, and the auto companies now facing bankruptcy, our government has been warned that its expenditures are outstripping its income in ways that portend catastrophe.  Just this past summer – well before the financial markets went haywire, a report issued by the United States’ Acting Comptroller General warned that the government is on “an unsustainable long-term fiscal path.”  (For those unfamiliar with the lingo, this is stereotypical accountancy understatement.  A good translation would be, “YOU’RE HEADING FOR COLLAPSE, YOU IDIOTS!”)

In short, liberals’ favorite “business model” is failing.  Democrats in Congress ignored the warnings about the inflated real estate markets and lending institutions overly dependent upon them.  And then we saw the system collapse.  Automakers ignored the perils of rising gas prices, shrinking demand for the cars they produced, and the insatiable demands of oppressive union contracts.  And now they are broke.

Our government has been warned that we cannot continue to spend – and promise to spend – more than we are taking in.   And yet Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid blather on about the billions in new programs they plan to propose under the new Democratic administration.  On “60 Minutes” this week, our incoming President made the statement that we cannot worry about debt while we are taking care of the economy.  This is like saying we cannot worry about the water while we are taking care of the flood.

What’s left of the Republican leadership – as well as the next generation of conservative leaders – should be taking this opportunity to tell the truth to the American people.  I do not pretend that this is an easy message; it is difficult to tell people that they cannot have everything they want, and that there are limits even to what is seemingly the most inexhaustible source.  There was a time when people thought that multinational corporations could not be soaked dry, or that entire industries could not collapse.  Now we know differently.   It is time we take the same critical eye to our government.  This is a message that MUST be told, Americans WILL understand it, and it is certain that the Democrats won’t say it.  We have seen, firsthand, what happens when we ignore the warnings of fiscal irresponsibility in business and in industry.  Everything has a breaking point.  Even the United States government.

(Source:  By Laura Hollis, www.townhall.com)

By MITT ROMNEY

IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

I love cars, American cars. I was born in Detroit, the son of an auto chief executive. In 1954, my dad, George Romney, was tapped to run American Motors when its president suddenly died. The company itself was on life support — banks were threatening to deal it a death blow. The stock collapsed. I watched Dad work to turn the company around — and years later at business school, they were still talking about it. From the lessons of that turnaround, and from my own experiences, I have several prescriptions for Detroit’s automakers.

First, their huge disadvantage in costs relative to foreign brands must be eliminated. That means new labor agreements to align pay and benefits to match those of workers at competitors like BMW, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. Furthermore, retiree benefits must be reduced so that the total burden per auto for domestic makers is not higher than that of foreign producers.

That extra burden is estimated to be more than $2,000 per car. Think what that means: Ford, for example, needs to cut $2,000 worth of features and quality out of its Taurus to compete with Toyota’s Avalon. Of course the Avalon feels like a better product — it has $2,000 more put into it. Considering this disadvantage, Detroit has done a remarkable job of designing and engineering its cars. But if this cost penalty persists, any bailout will only delay the inevitable.

Second, management as is must go. New faces should be recruited from unrelated industries — from companies widely respected for excellence in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations.

The new management must work with labor leaders to see that the enmity between labor and management comes to an end. This division is a holdover from the early years of the last century, when unions brought workers job security and better wages and benefits. But as Walter Reuther, the former head of the United Automobile Workers, said to my father, “Getting more and more pay for less and less work is a dead-end street.”

You don’t have to look far for industries with unions that went down that road. Companies in the 21st century cannot perpetuate the destructive labor relations of the 20th. This will mean a new direction for the U.A.W., profit sharing or stock grants to all employees and a change in Big Three management culture.

The need for collaboration will mean accepting sanity in salaries and perks. At American Motors, my dad cut his pay and that of his executive team, he bought stock in the company, and he went out to factories to talk to workers directly. Get rid of the planes, the executive dining rooms — all the symbols that breed resentment among the hundreds of thousands who will also be sacrificing to keep the companies afloat.

Investments must be made for the future. No more focus on quarterly earnings or the kind of short-term stock appreciation that means quick riches for executives with options. Manage with an eye on cash flow, balance sheets and long-term appreciation. Invest in truly competitive products and innovative technologies — especially fuel-saving designs — that may not arrive for years. Starving research and development is like eating the seed corn.

Just as important to the future of American carmakers is the sales force. When sales are down, you don’t want to lose the only people who can get them to grow. So don’t fire the best dealers, and don’t crush them with new financial or performance demands they can’t meet.

It is not wrong to ask for government help, but the automakers should come up with a win-win proposition. I believe the federal government should invest substantially more in basic research — on new energy sources, fuel-economy technology, materials science and the like — that will ultimately benefit the automotive industry, along with many others. I believe Washington should raise energy research spending to $20 billion a year, from the $4 billion that is spent today. The research could be done at universities, at research labs and even through public-private collaboration. The federal government should also rectify the imbedded tax penalties that favor foreign carmakers.

But don’t ask Washington to give shareholders and bondholders a free pass — they bet on management and they lost.

The American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing. A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs. The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk.

In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check.

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, was a candidate for this year’s Republican presidential nomination.

(Source: NY Times)

Posted in Auto Industry ]]> http://americangirl1974.wordpress.com/2008/11/21/let-detroit-go-bankrupt/feed/ 0 americangirl1974 http://americangirl1974.wordpress.com/2008/11/20/george-w-bush/ http://americangirl1974.wordpress.com/2008/11/20/george-w-bush/#comments Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:19:05 +0000 americangirl1974 http://americangirl1974.wordpress.com/?p=82 ]]> “The only force powerful enough to stop the rise of tyranny and terror, and replace hatred with hope, is the force of human freedom.”

Victory In Iraq Day, Nov. 22, 2008

By every measure, The United States and coalition forces have conclusively defeated all enemies in Iraq, pacified the country, deposed the previous regime, successfully helped to establish a new functioning democratic government, and suppressed any lingering insurgencies. The war has come to an end. And we won.

What more indication do you need? An announcement from the outgoing Bush administration? It’s not going to happen. An announcement from the incoming Obama administration? That’s really not going to happen. A declaration of victory by the media? Please. Don’t make me laugh. A concession of surrender by what few remaining insurgents remain in hiding? Forget about it.

The moment has come to acknowledge the obvious. To overtly declare a fact that has already been true for quite some time now. Let me repeat:

WE WON THE WAR IN IRAQ

And since there will never be a ticker-tape parade down Fifth Avenue in New York for our troops, it’s up to us, the people, to arrange a virtual ticker-tape parade, an online victory celebration.

Keep reading below to find: evidence that the war is over (for the doubters); an historical discussion of previous postwar occupations and guerrilla violence; a list of blogs which have already joined the VI Day movement; free banners and graphics for you to download and put on your blog, if you so choose; and an invitation to submit your own “victory graphics” for posting here.

Observations and statistics agree: The fighting has ceased, the war is over.  I have felt for many months that we had already won the war, but I was spurred to action by this report from Michael Yon:

“THE WAR IS OVER AND WE WON:” Michael Yon just phoned from Baghdad, and reports that things are much better than he had expected, and he had expected things to be good. “There’s nothing going on. I’m with the 10th Mountain Division, and about half of the guys I’m with haven’t fired their weapons on this tour and they’ve been here eight months. And the place we’re at, South Baghdad, used to be one of the worst places in Iraq. And now there’s nothing going on. I’ve been walking my feet off and haven’t seen anything.”

This post at the Mudville Gazette confirmed my conclusions.

On the political front in Iraq, victory has broken out as well. On Sunday, November 16, Iraq’s cabinet approved a security agreement with the U.S., which top analysts and pundits are saying is the closest we’ll ever get to a bureaucratic declaration of victory and of the war’s end.  Hugh Hewitt, for example, says:

The Battle For Iraq Has Been Won. Will The President-elect Preserve The Victory?

Yesterday’s vote by the Iraqi cabinet to approve a status of forces agreement confirms what most reasonable people had concluded this summer -that the battle for Iraq is over and the country is stable and secure even though its enemies remain in small enclaves within the country and across the border in Iran. It has taken five years and come at a high cost in American lives lost and in thousands of wounded soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.

It is, however, a crucial victory in the war against Islamist extremism and for stability in the Middle East.

The News & Observer newspaper came to the same conclusion three months ago, and many of the points are still valid:

Somebody has to write this. The United States has won the war in Iraq. I’m compelled to proclaim victory because, these days, winning wars has become politically incorrect in Western societies. So much so that some political leaders opposed to the war refuse to recognize the definition of victory or to utter the word.

More than five years after the invasion, I still come across people who say they don’t know what victory in Iraq means. That’s on purpose. Feigning ignorance allows them to deny the obvious political and military progress that has been made and continues to be made each day.

The truth is President Bush has been consistent in defining victory. Bottom line, it’s leaving behind a functional and democratic Iraq capable of defending itself from internal and external threats. Iraq is on an irreversible path to meeting those goals.

There is no doubt that much work needs to be done in Iraq, particularly in political and cultural reconciliation. But for all the moaning about Parliament’s failure to reach political benchmarks, Iraqis have achieved more political unity in their country than our Congress has in ours. A peaceful and stable Iraq is no longer in question. It’s only a matter of time.

So the next time I come across an Iraqi War veteran, I’ll not only thank him or her for their sacrifice in defending my freedom, I’ll also offer congratulations for winning a war.

If you don’t want to rely on anecdotal evidence or political analysis, carefully study the official casualty statistics for U.S. troops in Iraq at www.icasualties.org and you will notice they have reached extremely low levels.  So low that they no longer come remotely close to rising to the level of “war”; it is now more dangerous to walk the streets of most major American cities than to be stationed in Iraq.

For example, Chicago, just a single city in the United States, all by itself experienced twice as many shootings and killings of Americans as did the entire nation of Iraq over recent months:

CHICAGO (CBS) – An estimated 125 people were shot and killed over the summer. That’s nearly double the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq over the same period.

What more need be said? Of course, every death and injury of a U.S. soldier is a tragedy and I would wish to see a long string of zeros on that chart over the upcoming months. However, being stationed in a nation and a region that has a long history of hostility to the U.S. and an equally long history of violence means that our troops will always face some danger there. Yet “danger” does not equal “war.” Whatever lingering violence still exists is Iraq is now nothing more than a series of disconnected terrorist attacks, which have become completely ineffectual in changing the hearts and minds of the populace, or re-igniting another civil war.

Columnist Ed Morrissey on November 19, points to another kind of benchmark, which indicates the war’s end: the fact that the Iraqi government in now engaging in infrastructure building projects that would only be possibly in peacetime:

Victory in Iraq: The Baghdad Metro

Eighteen months ago, the capital of Iraq worried more about whether it would survive than traffic control. Now that victory over terrorism and sectarian violence has all but arrived, Baghdad has big plans for its future.
Iraq needs to fix its sewer and electrical services before attempting anything on this scale, but the plan demonstrates optimism about the future that has erupted in its capital. They’re already planning a traditional surface-level commuter train to help alleviate car traffic, which has grown overnight into a major headache. Roads and bridges closed due to violence have reopened, and people are once again on the move as Baghdad returns to life.

Representative governments have to deliver on their promises. That accounts for at least part of the optimism seen in Iraq, and for the sudden outbreak of big dreaming by Iraqis. They have their future in their own hands for the first time in decades, and the sudden liberation has fueled their imaginations. This, indeed, is what victory looks like.

Who gets to decide when it’s over?

Indeed, everywhere you look, someone has highlighted yet another detail which, cumulatively, demonstrate that “peace has broken out all over” Iraq.

Each person has their own criteria as to when the war was won: Some say we won the war long ago when we defeated the Iraqi Army in three weeks. Some say we won when the Iraqi government tried and executed Saddam Hussein. Some say we won when Iraqis voted democratically to elect their own leaders. Some say we won when we established control over the entirety of the country last year, eliminating the last remaining insurgent strongholds. Some say we won six months ago when the last remaining organized resistance evaporated.

On the other hand, there are those who are saying (in response to this essay) that we have not reached that magical benchmark. The Iraqi parliament may have passed the security agreement solidifying Iraq’s post-war stability, but some people say we should wait until the U.S. Senate approves it before we declare victory. Others say that the war won’t be won until casualty levels literally drop to zero. Other say we haven’t won until all troops are gone from the country. Others wait in vain for an official announcement.

There is no consensus. And there never will be. Still, the cut-off point between “war” and “not war” has to be drawn somewhere, and if we don’t draw the line ourselves, I guarantee it will NEVER be drawn. Because the Left and the media want to make sure that even ten years from now, when perhaps one US soldier is killed per year in an otherwise completely stable Iraq, that still won’t qualify as “victory.” Because their overarching goal is to make sure that, the war goes down in history as a defeat, no matter what.

My opinion: This is as good a time to declare victory as we are ever going to get. All signs point to “Yes.” If you don’t agree, that’s perfectly fine, you can ignore this essay. However, if you think this is long overdue, then climb on board.

If we won, why are there troops still in Iraq?

Does our victory mean that I advocate the immediate withdrawal of all troops from Iraq? No. Wars may be won but postwar occupations generally don’t end crisply and cleanly like that. Troops often stay around to rebuild or to maintain the peace for years, even decades. Hell, the United States still has several military bases and many troops “occupying” Japan and Germany who have been there continuously since the end of World War II in 1945. We have two major Air Bases in Korea leftover from the Korean War. The Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba is a remnant of the Spanish-American War and has been there for over a century; the U.S. military also “occupied” the Philippines at Subic Bay for nearly a hundred years as a result of the Spanish-American War. More recently, we continue to have a presence in Bosnia at Tuzla Air Base as a consequence of our role in the Bosnian War of the 1990s. What all this means is that it is standard practice in the aftermath of nearly every overseas war in which the U.S. participates for us to keep some troops there on a permanent or semi-permanent basis.

Do I advocate that the domestic government of Iraq continue to assume more and more of a role in its own defense and internal security? Most definitely yes. Do I wish to see U.S. troops going on fewer and fewer patrols and handing over more and more duties to the Iraqi army as time goes by? Yes. Do I wish that there would never be another suicide bombing in Iraq by demented jihadists seeking futilely to destabilize the country? Of course. Do I wish that there would never be another act of violence in Iraq? Naturally. However, these things take time. So, even though the war is over, American troops are likely to stay on the ground in Iraqi bases in some capacity for quite some time – months, years, possibly even decades if circumstances warrant.

But yes, eventually many troops will have to start coming home one way or the other. I am not opposed to an incremental “drawdown” of forces as responsibilities diminish – which has already started to happen under the Bush administration and will likely continue under an Obama administration. What I do oppose is a reckless immediate evacuation of all American troops in Iraq as some sort of political “reward” from Obama to his antiwar supporters. That would send the wrong message to Islamic extremists around the world that the Americans were somehow “driven from Iraq,” which would not actually be the case. Even if we did leave Iraq entirely, it would be in victory, not as a retreat.

Since our troops did in fact win the war, they ought to have a victory parade or national celebration upon returning. But I suspect that, as has been happening up until now, the troops will just drift home mostly unannounced and uncelebrated when their “tours” are over. This is the very reason why we need to declare a Victory in Iraq Day.

If the Iraq War is over, why do we still occasionally hear reports of violence or casualties?

A common misperception of warfare is that when a war is “won,” all fighting immediately stops, and that all members of the losing side passively lay down their arms and surrender. While that does happen on occasion, much more frequently the fighting continues as a low-level guerrilla war or insurgency for years afterwards by the diminishing die-hard loyalists of the losing side. Even wars with crushing conclusive victories and official declarations of surrender saw continued fighting long after those wars were officially “over.” After World War II, which was won as conclusively as any war was ever won; some Germans refused to acknowledge defeat and continued to operate as guerrilla assassins and saboteurs. Anti-Semitic massacres in Europe continued into 1946 long after the Nazis had been defeated. In the Pacific Theater, Japanese “holdouts” on various islands kept up their battle posts against the Americans for years and years after Japan surrendered, some well into the 1970s. After the American Civil War ended in 1865, several pro-slavery guerrilla terrorist organizations and groups of individuals continued fighting against the Union for more than a decade. The same is true of many other wars. It especially happens in modern “police actions” (such as the Iraq War) which have no actual formal “Declaration of War” and thus no official moment of surrender or ending point. (Remember that the United States has not actually declared war on anyone since 1942.)

So, just because there are still occasional suicide bombings (which are becoming rarer and rarer with every passing month) and occasional sniper attacks or IED explosions (also becoming increasingly rare), that doesn’t indicate that “the war is still being fought.” It just means that there are a handful of die-hard extremists who refuse to give up – which is exactly what happens after most wars. The last remaining pro-Saddam, pro-jihad or pro-Iran holdouts in Iraq are no different from any other post-war holdouts, and just because there are still a few left doesn’t mean that the war is still happening, any more than the existence of the Japanese holdouts meant that WWII continued after 1945. Wars end, whether or not every single extremist or die-hard acknowledges it and lays down his weapons.

What counts as “being at war”?

Many other countries have ongoing issues with rebels, insurgents, guerrillas, or whatever you want to call them; simmering civil unrest. But we do not consider those countries to be at war, even though their situations are not really any different than, and are in some cases even worse than, the situation now in Iraq. Tell me: Do you consider Mexico to be at war? Yet they have an ongoing insurgency by Zapatistas in the state of Chiapas. The Philippines? They’ve been grappling with an Islamic insurgency for decades. Is Thailand at war? Millions of tourists don’t seem to think so, but a violent rebellion by Muslim separatists in the southern provinces sometimes produces more casualties than there are in Iraq. India? They’re not at war – are they? Turkey, Sri Lanka, Colombia: The list could go on and on. In each case, the country in question is not considered to be “at war,” yet it endures simmering insurgencies and/or terrorist violence that in some cases exceeds that now found in Iraq. If these countries are not considered by anyone to be “at war” – which they are not – then neither is Iraq.

But where’s the official announcement?

The only reason that the war has not been declared “over” is that the media, which was generally opposed to the war and opposed to any of President Bush’s policies, doesn’t want to give him and his supporters the satisfaction of having been right. The media wants U.S. troops to return home, but only on condition that they do so with their tails between their legs in defeat – not as victorious liberators, which would invalidate five years of subtle and not-so-subtle anti-war propaganda on the part of the left-leaning media. The Bush administration for its part has not declared victory for two probable reasons: first, because they fear that by so doing they would only increase the call by the media and liberal Democrats to “bring the troops home now”; and also by so doing they might invite some last-ditch spectacular terror attack by the few remaining jihadists in order to embarrass the administration. And the incoming Obama administration will certainly never announce victory, since Obama spent over a year campaigning for the Democratic primary as the anti-war candidate. So both sides refuse to say the war is over. Even though it is, in fact, over.

It is up to the American people to declare victory. This is exactly what we are doing right now.

There never will be an “official” announcement from the government or the media, so you can stop waiting for it.

This is the official announcement.

(Soures: www.zombietime.com, www.mudvillegazette.com)