Cash for Clunkers

How about that? Big and Bigger Governments new program to make automobiles more affordable is working.

Cash-for-Clunkers

Who would've guessed that making cars more affordable would encourage Americans to buy them. Certainly not the Detroit automakers otherwise they would've thought of it 30 YEARS AGO!

While car prices have been sky-rocketing to pay for fender rivoters' pension plans and free healthcare America has been sinking further and further into oblivion. We get all panicky when someone uses the phrase "socialized medicine" but nobody says a word when they socialist based United Auto Workers union (UAW) runs roughshod over the American auto indutry. The socialst UAW has run the auto industry and the American economy into the ground.

Compare socialism to the UAW. In both the workers get free healthcare, guaranteed pensions plans, and paid when they don't work (laid off workers get 95% of their take home pay and benefits).

The UAW workers are a financial burden. The foreign auto-makers have proven that it's possible to make affordable cars on Amercan soil. American auto-makers just don't seem to have a clue how to do it. They could stop over-paying the UAW employees for doing jobs just about anyone can learn how to do in a matter of weeks. In a November 18, 2008, New York Times editorial, Andrew Ross Sorkin showed that, counting benefits, each UAW worker receives $74 per hour while Toyota workers receive about $44 per hour.

The whole assembly line technique was invented by Henry Ford. Henry Ford wanted the factory to be filled with what he called "Farmer Machines". They were called "Farmer Machines" because they were supposed to be so simple to use that he could take any farmer out of the field and have them productive in two weeks. The auto industry is no different today. Why should UAW workers be making the same money as highly educated people with Bachelor and Masters degrees for doing jobs so simple any High School can do them?

Obama channels McCain in Michigan

Obama’s speech in Michigan today was supposed to be a Townhall. Could it be that it was changed so Michigan citizens could only listen to him read from a teleprompter and not ask him questions?

In his speech he told Michiganians “some of the jobs that have been lost in the auto industry and elsewhere won’t be coming back,” calling them, “casualties of a changing economy.” Hmmm, about 1 year ago John McCain told the same people almost the same exact line. He went on to get his butt kicked in the primary by Mitt Romney. Maybe it’s not a good idea to tell a state with 14.1% unemployment that their jobs ain’t coming back.

He stopped short of telling them that if they wanted to continue to work in the auto industry they might want to consider moving to Huntsville Alabama (Toyota plant), Lincoln Alabama (Honda), Kansas City Missouri (Mazda), Smyrna Tennessee (Nissan) or West Point Georgia (Kia). Hmmm, they seem to be making more cars in the south than in Detroit. Maybe GM, Ford and Chrysler should outsource to the south instead of overseas.