To the CEOs of Ford, GM, Chrysler, CitiBank,
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the the heads of
the auto workers union, to the auto workers
who are union members, to the citizens of the
USA who wanted to get rich quick, to those
who just did not bother believing we could
end up like this, and to those who believe
pie in the sky is for all of us, etc...,
Once upon a time, within my lifetime, I remember that people were for the most part fiscally responsible. if they took a risk with their money, well they did not put all of their eggs into the same basket, so when they lost that money they had more in reserve. Of course if they took more of a risk they lost more money, and if they risked it all they could lose it all if things went wrong for them. The thing was though, when something bad happened financially, even the ones who lost it all realized they had lost it. They may have applied for some sort of financial assistance, but mostly what they did was worked at earning a living. Today that has all changed.
Today, people expect handouts for everything that they have lost even when they have lost it through absolutely fool hearty risk taking on their part with their, and sometimes with your, money. Now the thing is that if someone wants to give them handouts from their own pocket books, well that is fine with me. I get pretty upset though when the folks who want the handouts, and the folks who want to give them the handouts, come to the likes of me expecting me to shell out my hard earned cash to fools. What gives them the right or even the balls, to demand that people like me, who took no to extremely minimal risks, have to dig deep into our pockets to bail out the bum who now are come begging. I seem to remember that not too long ago those same bums were snubbing their noses at me telling me I was a fool for not investing my money in this get rich scheme of theirs or that one of another wanna be get rich quick guy.
Well I am not giving mine away to them without a fight. You see, over the past 14 years, maybe even a few months less than 14 years, I paid off my 15 year mortgage. I now own my house free and clear. I had to work hard to do that, so did my wife. We were not able to save a lot of cash, we need to try to do that now because we need cash to maintain our house, and to take us into our retirements comfortably. So tell me again why is it I should give it to the likes of bums come begging, arrogant ones at that who were fools with their money, and maybe with yours too. Hmm, wait a minute, if they were fools with your money, that means you let them invest your money, so you were a fool too. I'll agree, maybe not as bad, or as greedy, or as foolish as them, but if you are also come begging please just go to work and start earning all over again. Wait just another cotton pickin minute - you never worked all that hard did you. You were one of those folks who dreamed of the get rich quick schemes in the market, in real estate that would never depreciate, in junk bonds, in junkier mortgage funds, and now want MY MONEY.
I am no fool. Sure you will probably tax me to death, but don't be surprised if I fight you til death. No I am not making a threat, just saying I will fight fools, bums, arrogant snobs, and worthless money grubbers who want my share of the pie. Why not wake up, realize you screwed up, take a deep breath and accept responsibility (remember that word or is its meaning lost on you) and admit defeat. Admit that you will never be able to take any money and have it be worth a damn because you have no idea how to WORK TO MAKE IT GROW at a reasonable rate. All you want is to get rich
I worked for my money. I invested what I could wisely with small returns, but guess what I am earning interest on my small savings weekly and my home has been paid for completely. Sure I need to take out loans for my kid's college, and I have to pay off another such loan I took, but I am still working three years after becoming eligible to retire. Yep I am still my family's bread winner, I still bring home the bacon, I make sure that we have a pot to piss in, a window to throw it out of, and the ground to catch it. Now you want to take what little I have earned and use it to prop yourselves up back in your greed mongering business, all failures at that! You disgust me, each and every one of you. Instead of asking for bailouts you should be cutting back, coming up with plans to produce more for less, or in other words to be efficient, and you should be making a competitive product in stead of selling junk. You should be hiring Americans and by that I mean U.S. Citizens and legal resident aliens, you should not be farming out work to Pakistan (hell they are virtually our enemies or at least protect our enemies) or to India, or to Mexico (hell we have enough people here legally from these other countries who can work, we do not need to send their relatives work in foreign countries, nor do we need to allow in illegals from any country, do we).
And what about you blood sucking union representatives and members. No I am not about to forget you guys. You are the one who have HS educations, yet you make up to $70 an hour (see footnote) for what - pushing a button, setting a rivet, and yammering about how you are underpaid. Go screw yourselves, you may do a better job at that than you have done on my American made cars. Then tell me how is it that your competitors at Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, Nissan and so forth can make better cars than you guys while they pay their workers much less. Tell me how for years they undercut you even though they produced their cars overseas, then had to ship them half way round the world, then pay customs duties that were sky high, and yet outdid you guys in Detroit. Tell me how it is they then moved operations here, just like U.S. companies outsource work, and they pay their workers about 1/2 of what you make in Motor City, and yet they still make better cars than you guys do. Yes I know that is a fact. I own a Ford and a Toyota right now. I have owned 2 Plymouths, and a Mazda, and a Toyota previously. And some other American care I can not recall. My family owned many American cars. Chryslers, Fords, Chevies, Oldsmobiles, and guess what - they were all crap compared to the Mazda and Toyotas. So don't come crying to me that you need more money, you need to learn how to live on about half of what you were making, what with your higher education at the HS level and all that brainy work you don't ever do. Get real, become responsible, stop raping my wallet each time I buy American.
What about our politicians. Guys like Barney Frank who never lives up to his name except maybe when admitting he is as gay as a 3 dollar bill. Come on Mr. Frank, get real - get rid of the phoney lisp, and then tell me in a real man's voice - what do you mean we need to bail them out without the Unions or union members giving up anything. How's about nurturing a sense of responsibility in them, that they will get what they have truly earned instead of what unions have strong armed for them. Yes unions have their places, but when they get out of hand they should be put in their places. All the rest of you in DC, I say likewise as I did to Barney Frank. Get real, become responsible. Make a plan that will have people working at a decent salary not an exorbitant one for what they have produced. Why keep paying these bums up to $70 per hour to produce crap. If you cut them to half their salaries then the ones making $70 and hour would get $35 per hour and that would still be: $72,800 per year for guys with HS educations who do dimwit work and are apparently not very good at it at that - just look at the clunkers they turn out.
The same goes when it comes to wet backs who are illegally int his country stealing the food from our mouths, the jobs from our able bodied citizens and legal resident aliens, and the medical care from our ill and injured. It is a disgrace that Congress want to keep blaming the Border Patrol, the president, the employers (yes shame on them for hiring illegals), and the res of us who supposedly will not take the so called lousy jobs they fill. Here is a scoop, come to my home soon. I will take you out and we will go to talk to some illegals at their meeting places where they gather to await people to offer them jobs. We will make believe we are looking for laborers for menial work. You will have your eyes opened when you learn they are asking a minimum of $20 per hour. In a 40 hour work week, over 52 weeks, that comes out to over $40,000 per year. That is not all they demand though, they also DEMAND transport to the workplace, and they demand to be fed, and they demand regular breaks all even though they are here illegally. Now you tell me when was the last time you heard of a down an out U.S. Citizen turning down such a good deal, and remember it is ALL TAX FREE MONEY at that.
You in Congress should be ashamed of yourselves because you are mostly responsible for the illegal alien mess. Yes you. Why? Because you write the laws. You formulated the Immigration and Nationality laws of this once great nation. You make it harder for us to keep them out by repeatedly making laws lax, and therefore easing regulations, and therefore allowing them to sneak in without reprisals. Then you insist they get free medical care, you insist they get free social services, you insist they get rights like those of us who deserve them, you insist they get all the same liberties as citizens except the legal vote (and that will likely be next), and you hope to God they will vote for you (even though they do so illegally), and you hope they will bring their families here even though they come here, work here, take our money and run from here. All the while you disregard the fact that they have brought diseases and pest here. TB is on the rise, drug resistant TB at that. Where did it come from, why is it on the rise. Compare the rise in wet backs inside our borders to the rise in TB cases, is there a correlation - you bet. Then compare the rise in numbers of illegals the recent influx of bedbugs in our nation, is there a correlation - you betcha. Then look at the rise in prison populations and tell me is there a correlation to the rise in the number of illegal entrants - you betcha - and if you doubt it just tell me how many illegals are in our jails for property crimes or crimes of violence. Yep there is a correlation. There are more gang crimes, more rapes, more murders, more robberies, more thefts, more burglaries, more everything because there are ore illegals. Yes they commit a lot of those crimes, and so too do American who they keep out of jobs.
Remember the whole idea that an American Citizen would not do the lousy work that illegals do. Here is a brief partial list of some jobs that illegals I have encountered have done: brick mason, carpenter, electrician, painter, carpet layer, taxi driver, convenience store worker, deli clerk, supermarket worker, factory worker, security guard, cowboy, truck driver, dentist, doctor, nurse, lawyer, and the list goes on. Sure many of them are lawn workers, day laborers, or kennel workers. Guess what, my son is a kennel worker, he cleans up dog shit to earn money to save for a car and towards graduate school. I used to work as a security guard, as a factory worker, a deli clerk, a supermarket stock boy, and as a newspaper delivery boy. I did all of that because I had a work ethic. maybe if you taught your kids that work, hard work, was good and built character while giving experience and being a source of income instead of sticking a gold plated nipple in their whining mouths, well just maybe they would do something like one of those jobs and be better off for it. For the last 29 years though I have had a better job, a career at that. All those other crappy jobs, they paved the way for me to better myself. My so is doing likewise right now and I am proud of him, so is my daughter.
Now let me ask you - do you remember doing any jobs like that or were you always spoiled rotten. Come on now, you probably delivered newspapers, or cut lawns once upon a time way back when. Back how long ago, well long enough ago that those jobs were available to the youth of America, not to wet backs. Oh is wet back a term that makes you all sensitive, do you squirm when you hear it. Well a President of the USA had an operation called Operation Wetback that was in essence one to remove this scourge from within our borders. Too bad none of you have the courage to do likewise as did President Eisenhower and live up to your oath of office and truly protect the United States of America. The invasion from Mexico, from Central America, and from South America needs to end. Is that racist, yes you bet it is. No not me saying it has to end, but allowing it to happened because in so doing so you are being preferential to one race of people. What about all the others around the world who cannot walk across our land border because they would have to swim the Atlantic or Pacific oceans first, talk about being wet - jeesh! It is the people who invade us from the south and demand that we give them extra benefits and considerations and treat them better than the rest of the world who are the racists. I am an American, and I don't care what color, race, creed (or lack of creed) you hold, or what gender you are, or what age you are so long as you are a U.S. Citizen or legal resident alien then I feel you should have liberties and rights here in the USA. On the other hand I don't care about any of those descriptors if you are an illegal alien either, because if you are illegal you need to be arrested and thrown out of our country post haste regardless of race, creed, color, ethnicity, gender and so forth. If you are supposed to be our leaders and cannot get that straight then you are shamefully inept.
Sincerely,
Glenn B
Yes I am ranting. Why - because I am darned mad at the lot of you who expect something for nothing, and expect me to give it to you. You want me to give you my money, my sympathy, my job, my respect, my liberties, my medical care, my rights, my country. You are not going to get those from me without a fight. Come on America - those of you who still believe in the sanctity of our borders, or our nation, of our rights, of our liberties, of our Constitution and other laws, and of self respect - wake up and join in the fight to preserve our way of life. If you don't, well then we are doomed. Write to your elected officials, protest when protest is called for, vote wisely and not for the same old windbags time after time as you did this time around, and if you really want change vote for someone who is, and never has been, and has no desire to become a lawyer. Vote a carpenter, a mason, and electrician, a police officer, a delivery driver, a mailman, a banker, an accountant, a bookkeeper, a shoemaker, a butcher, a sewer worker, a bus driver, a road worker, a house builder, a pilot, a weatherman, a scientist, an unemployed bum, a disabled person, a teacher, a doctor, an auto worker, a military person, but don't vote for another lawyer because they just keep screwing things up. They are great at thinking about doing something, better so than actually getting it done. They are better yet at arguing about how it should be done, but not on agreeing on how to get it down. They just have little to no gosh darned experience in the real world of which to speak - they are for the most part purely academic and that is the problem. You can never make something that is broken work if you don't have someone who has actually practical experience working a it actually trying to fix it.
If you don't make radical changes as the citizen voters of the USA, well then all will be lost to they who would see us become one nation around the world; and while you may want to think that would be fine and dandy it just is not going to work. In the words of Maggie T., words I used just recently, but fit so well here I will use them again: "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money". Allow me to lean on that a bit when I say the problem with this whole mess is that soon you will run of responsible people, then where will you get your votes, your taxes, your bailout money, your respect, your anything at all. Not from yourselves, not if you don't clean up your acts and your messes right away; and not from me if I can help it because I do need to throw good money and effort after bad to fools who will not do for themselves and others by being responsible.
With fear we are losing the battle
for a lasting and strong America,
Glenn B
footnote:
One source for that info: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,452812,00.html
In the linked article, a U.S. Senator is quoted as saying this:
"The average hourly cost per worker in this country is about $28.48. For these auto makers, it's $73. And for the Japanese auto companies working here in the United States, it's $48. So you've got huge costs there."
7 comments:
Rant away! Best thing I have read all day...will people listen?
Jen
Glenn, I tried to read your rant, but gave up after a bit and just scanned the rest. I am a retired GM autoworker, and a retired public school employee.
From experience I can say, I've never heard of a GM worker getting $70 dollars an hour, my top pay was $23 per hour and required over 4 years of training. (Machinist/Mechanic)
I'd be the first to agree that GM's management has been the PITS, but if you had ever had to work in some of the Hellholes I worked in, at tempuratures over 130 degrees in summer, and below 40 degrees in winter, you might see autoworkers a little differently.
I would also like to note that in my second career at the public schools, I was paid better, had better benefits, and worked MUCH less and much cleaner.
As for the vehicles, I've driven Chevy's, Fords, and Jeeps for 45 years. I've seen friends and neighbors buy and wear out two foreign cars and trucks to my one.
The only thing I currently want from General Motors, is my pension and some sort of health care, which are the only reasons I worked there for 30 years. (I could have made more money outside of GM.)
Things aren't always as Black and White as they seem.
GreyBeard
GreyBeard,
I hope you stopped reading because you read enough to get mad. If you got mad when you read what you did of what I wrote I am happy. Nothing personal, please believe that. I just hope if it really got you fired up because it may do exactly the same for the auto workers, and other people involved in the financial mess. That would be very good. Why? Well because if they are stirred into emotion, they may also eventually be stirred into action, and if they actually read what I wrote and hear it enough from others of the populace who think likewise - well then they just may see that they need to be responsible for cleaning up their own messes, and yes they were partly the cause of the mess - certainly in the auto industry. It is not just auto workers though, it is everyone who wants more all of the time, and who wants it quickly, and who were willing to risk it all on very shaky deals, and not want the rest of us to bail them out. I was sick of socialism before, and am still sick of it now, and these proposed bailouts amount to socialism at its worst.
As for some figures I mentioned: per CNN, FOX and an online news report I read (I forget which one) the highest paid assembly line workers in US Auto plants were earning up to $70 per hour with a high school education. They did not get that pay without mega help from the unions. Unions for U.S. Auto workers have always, as far as I can recall, been getting their workers way too high a pay in many instances. I recall this as a major complaint among adults when I was in my young teens. It is nothing new, and has been a festering problem over many a year. IT IS EXACTLY WHY JAPANESE AUTO MAKERS WERE ABLE TO SELL THEIR CARS HERE SUCCESSFULLY, THEN TO PRODUCE THEM HERE SUCCESSFULLY, ALL THE WHILE COMPETING AND THEN BEATING THE BIG 3 US AUTO MAKERS. You can argue it if you want, but it is incontrovertible fact as to what happened between the 1960s and now.
As to American versus foreign car quality, if you got a good one out of the many more clunkers great; but even the head of GM has admitted they made crap for the last several years and that is pretty much what Chrysler did throughout the 1970s (make crap) resulting in their near total collapse in the early 80s. The head of GM did that as part of his apology to America when begging for a taxpayer bailout sometime within the last few days to a week ago or so, it was all over the news. If you want to argue about quality (and I am not saying you are arguing) then bring it up with the CEOs of the big 3.
Let's face it, there is a good deal of culpability to go around for this huge financial mess, and in the auto industry it goes to the US Auto makers, their CEOs and other execs, the unions and the unionized workers or workers in general. At one time "Made in America" was a symbol of high quality items that were exported around the world, especially automobiles. Now that label is pretty much a joke for many things, not just cars. As for myself, I have owned as many US Autos as I have foreign. The US ones all fell apart much sooner than did the foreign. That of course is simply my experience, but I know many others who would prefer out of simple patriotism to buy American and yet do not because of their experience with the lower quality in cars from Ford, GM or Chrysler.
All the best,
GB
Ok so we disagree on a few items.
But a final point. $23 an hour was pretty much tops in the plants I worked in, and that was for skilled trades. I don't know where the news guys and such get their information, but it wasn't from working in a plant. It kind of fits in with all the other misinformation that get thrown around by the "news".
P.S. After the Heart Attack, I'm not allowed to get mad.
Okay we can leave getting mad to other folks who stop by.
I do not know where they get those figures either but they sure were throwing them around a lot lately.
Oh, don't let me forget to add that I also believe that government wasteful spending is one of the big factors in all of this too. The way I see it, a lot of federal, state and local programs could be cut back or completely done away with. There is just way too uch government in our lives mostly because of people who had some sort of probblems with mommy and or daddy and now feel they have to run everything in everyone elses lives. The Nanny State has got to go.
I aaded a footnote to the post about the auo-worker wages. I do not know the source of the Senator's info, but he is the source of the $73 per hour wage info that I posed.
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