Ron's rants
2/4/2010
People are Expensive
It never fails to amaze me that folks can't connect the dots. When the facts are staring us all dead in the face we seem oblivious to them. This week, Lowes delivered and hooked up a new Maytag (made in the USA) washing machine in my house. I was at work when the wife called me saying the machine had broken last week and dumped soapy water all over the floor in the utility room. After a day of taking wet laundry to the Laundromat (pricey way to get your clothes washed) and cleaning up the water damages to the floor and drywall, I visited my local Sears and Lowes stores looking for a quick replacement for our 15 year old washing machine. I found out just how things have changed in the manufacturing of washing machines in the last 15 years—most are no longer made in the USA. I ended up at Lowes buying a Maytag for about $100 more than a comparable model sitting right next to it that was not made in the USA.
The frugal shopper is asking why pay more? Duh! Can't you connect the dots? Why is this complicated? Jobs in the USA fuel everything. There won't be any consumers buying washing machines without good paying manufacturing jobs!
Look at the US automobile industry. It was the engine of our economy for over two full generations. Auto manufacturing, auto sales, auto parts, auto repair shops, Auto Stores like Pep Boys and Western AutoÉname it; it was associated with US made autos. At one time the official slogan in America was "What's good for GM, is good for America." Now names like Hyundai (South Korea), Toyota (Japan), and Honda (Japan) dominate the car market.
How well has this consumer shift to foreign automobiles worked out for the US car manufacturers and the millions of good paying, good benefits jobs for Americans? Not too well, has it? There are 664,500 people currently employed by U.S. automakers and parts suppliers. Just 10 years ago, that figure was more than 1.5 million. Look at the jobs market in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, California and the other large auto manufacturing states. Can we connect the dots?
"Don't worry," say the "free trader" politicians, who are taking millions of dollars of foreign lobbyist political contribution money. They tell us we need to find "green jobs" in the new service economy and re-educate all our workers for the jobs of the future.
How about the re-education process we are seeing in the aircraft, high-tech industry on the west coast where degreed aeronautical engineers are being re-trained by state unemployment services to become bartenders? Yep that is a "service industry." Same story for all those workers who chased the "new jobs" of the future and entered the computer sciences industry only to see that entire industry we invented outsourced to the Far East.
The truth is no job anywhere is safe. Every profession, virtually every single job anywhere in the USA can be outsourced.
Money is the one biggest issue you hear from the professional politicians on Capitol Hill. We can't afford health care? We can't afford new Navy ships? We can't afford the replacements for the Air Force's aging aerial tanker fleet? We can't afford the jobs stimulus bill? We can't afford an extension of unemployment benefits to the 15 million out of work Americans drawing benefits?
Those yelling loudest about deficit spending are the very same professional politicians that tried to take our Social Security System and turn it over to private investment firms on Wall Street four years ago. If your Social Security had been run by AIG or Bank of America or Bear Sterns where would you be today?
Can we connect the dots? Do you think about these things? I do, constantly. I look at my daughter and think about her future. Do you? Do you ever look at your kids and think about what kind of future they will have? What opportunities they are going to have to enjoy the life that we have had? That is why I write these things. I don't get paid to write them—99 percent of the time I am at home, late at night or early in the morning, sitting at the kitchen table pondering the future of my kids and pounding my frustrations out on my Dell—connect the dots.
Last week one of the really good guys on Capitol Hill whom I respect and will work hard to re-elect as a Congressman said something that I don't agree with. It was about work in his district at one of our large industrial facilities. He was really looking out for those workers in his home district. He said let's take work from "B" and give it to "A" so we avoid a layoff at my facility. The Metal Trades Department represents workers at both "B" and "A" locations. The solution is not to rob Peter to pay Paul, but to invest in a net gain of jobs at both "B" and "A." They both make products that the Defense Department desperately needs. The problem is we can't afford to supply the Defense Department with replacements from eight years of constant wars that haveworn our military equipment to the point of ruin. The equipment of our Army, Navy, Marines and Air Forces is all used up and has to be replaced. End of story. There isn't any money to buy the replacements and pay the troops, feed the troops, house the troops, transport the troops, outfit the troops, etc. People are expensive! Ask your employer.
If you want to quit sleeping at night read the book, "On the Edge of Disaster." Every piece of the American infrastructure is on the verge of total collapse: Our military, our highways, our locks and dams, our national power grid, our millions of miles of levees (not just in New Orleans), our airports, our ports—name it; it needs an overhaul or outright replacement.
Here is a novel idea that connects the dots from a simple old country boy from the hills of Arkansas: Why not invest in rebuilding the critical and vital American infrastructure by putting millions of Americans drawing unemployment benefits in those jobs? We are already paying; why not get tax revenue from providing these jobs to people who need them? Working people pay taxes; taxes pay for government services; government buys products for our national defense, national defense jobs pay taxes—It's kinda like the proverbial "perpetual motion" machine. Like me investing my money in a Maytag washing machine that says "MADE IN THE USA."
Connect the dots. People are expensive but America's workers are worth it.
1-22-10--The anti-incumbency voting pattern isn't changing any time soon
On Tuesday, morning, January 19th, I attended a committee meeting of the Federal Workers Alliance to talk about possible OPM-driven government-wide personnel reforms. One topic being discussed was the possible excise tax on federal employee health care based on the Senate version of the Health Care bill. You may be aware that many of the MTD's affiliated unions are opposed to this bill. I said that the election of Brown in Massachusetts may de-rail this entire process. My remarks sparked a discussion of why I thought Brown would not only win in a heavily Democratic seat, but easily win. It is simple—the same reason that Corzine lost in New Jersey and why McDonnell won in Virginia.
Last fall voters voted en mass for change—not tiny barely-able-to-see change, but massive changes in the direction and the tone of our government. One year later, most people cannot see anything that has changed except the number of people added to unemployment.
There is no sense of urgency in Congress to help the average American struggling with massive job loss. What jobs there are are temporary, or part time jobs. Full-time jobs are non existent. Home foreclosures continue unabated. Bailed-out banks cut off credit lending to small businesses. Gasoline prices are rising. Some say "independent voters" are abandoning Obama.
Wrong, dead wrong! It isn't just the independent voters voting the other way. It is a demoralized Democratic base that just stayed home. Why? Why is the base not energized to go out and work? None of the key Democratic base constituencies feels that their fundamental causes are being addressed. Few in the party are happy. Especially organized labor. The prospects for change in a mid-term election year are dim at best. Watered down, half measures that are really bad compromises are worse than real changes that are proposed,then defeated by congressional votes from the opposition. At least then we can see who are our friends and who are our enemies. Until things change on Capitol Hill and members of Congress and the President get it, priority number one has to be jobs, jobs, and more jobs! Not bailing out greedy investors sending our jobs overseas. Not passing laws that we call health care reform but that only guarantees higher profits for the health care industry.
We will see massive changes in both parties in the elections this year. Voters want to "throw the bums out.". The anti-incumbency voting pattern isn't changing any time soon.
1-15-10--“We Are At War”
These words were uttered recently in a news conference by
President Obama and everyone in the US seemed shocked by them. My family knows
this. We have family members deployed in harms way wearing our nation’s
uniform. As a matter of fact, in every US military action in the twentieth
century, a member of my family (me included) has worn the uniform and has
served overseas.
But America is fighting other wars too. Economic wars. Our
enemies are varied, and not necessarily a nation. We still have unfriendly
nations who would like to wipe us off the face of the earth, but they aren’t
the ones we are currently fighting. Keep Reading >
11-10-09 The False “New”
Economy—Seems like everyone is telling us that none of our
manufacturing jobs that have been sent overseas to Communist China and Asia
will ever come back; that we should move on to the “new economy.”
I attended a conference recently
and heard a lot of very knowledgeable experts tell us how to fix our nation and
bring our economy back. I am no economist, not a Harvard MBA. I have no college
degree at all. I’m just a simple old country boy from the hills of Arkansas,
with a PHD from the school of hard knocks. But, I know self promotion when I
see it and there was a lot of that going on at this conference. (What’s new
about that?)
The professional academics were
touting their beloved education system as the answer: re-train, educate people
for the jobs of the new “green economy.” Another speaker focused on foreign
trade policy and currency manipulation enforcement after relating his industry
horror stories about unfair government-aided foreign competition from Communist
China. READ MORE >
09-04-09 Labor Day Message—CHANGE—The state of the American Labor movement is different on
Labor Day 2009 than it was on Labor Day 2008. For one thing, organized labor
made it clear that they were putting all the marbles in the game last fall in
the 2008 general election and left no stone unturned in supporting labor
endorsed candidates, including Senator Barack Obama. After a massive and costly campaign effort by all the unions
in the labor movement, the results were clearly tilted in favor of worker
friendly candidates. It wasn’t a
clean sweep for the Democrats—there were scatterings of losses in hard
core Republican strongholds, but even there, the percentage numbers for
Republican victories were marginalized by the union households’ strong voter
turnout. Some of worker friendly, labor endorsed Republicans also won by
respectable margins. READ ON >
08-27-09 Poverty and Lifestyle Choices—I watched the Bill Maher show on HBO the other day when actor/director Ashton Kutcher was on a panel of guests—spouting off like he was an expert on healthcare…True, Kutcher grew up in a working class family and with a twin brother with a multitude of medical problems, which makes it even more surprising that he would take an attitude about “paying for the lifestyle choices” of an obese fast-food eater. READ ON >
The Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO: The Metal Trades Department was chartered in 1908 to coordinate negotiating, organizing and legislative efforts of affiliated metalworking and related crafts and trade unions. Twenty national and international unions with a total membership of over 5,000,000 are affiliated with the MTD today. More than 100,000 workers in private industry and federal establishments work under contracts negotiated by MTD Councils. Workers retain membership in their own trade unions. Read More..
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IN: Metal Trades President Ron Ault Kicks Off Indy Block Walk for the Employee Free Choice Act.
Rebuilding America: Tell Republicans that Americans Won't Take No for an Answer!
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