You don’t ask – you don’t get. He wants to start in as good a position as he can. If the current administration listens to anything he says at all – he’s that much better off when he takes office.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/captaintim/3035639444/

Listen, I am the middle class right now but that is not why I am an Obama supporter. Even if i owned my own business and I was taking in half a million a year. If it meant for me to give an extra $10,000 in taxes at the end of the year, I would be happy to because I would definitely still be able to provide food for my family and have a roof over my head…. and I know that I will be helping out others that might not have that comfort.

No one should go through hard times… call me socialist, call me communist, i personally hate labels. I will call myself good.

-Adam

President Elect Obama’s Yakety Side Address

Enjoy!

Regarding unions: the US auto makers are financially hog-tied by their union contracts that hold provisions created when economic and labor conditions were very different. I don’t have a problem with the concept of a labor union. There are situations where they are of real benefit. In this case, The UAW has refused to adjust to changing times and has become a parasite on the auto industry, and is sucking the hosts dry.

Big unions and big corporations are just two sides of the exact same coin: they both want power and influence over their members/employees and their competition. Don’t believe for a second that unions are “good” and businesses are “bad”. That’s just naive. Both forms of organization are primarily intent on their own growth and influence, and it’s the little guys that get screwed in the end. The greedy power hungry leaders of the UAW share the blame with corporate management in creating a business model that cannot be sustained, and their members will pay the price when the bill comes due. This is why I think they both need to be kicked to the curb.

Of course, the auto makers should have made the hard choices before it got this bad, and should have done a much better job of running their companies, but they didn’t. And because they did not, I feel no compulsion to bail them out with money BORROWED FROM OTHER COUNTRIES, some of which don’t like us much at all.

At the same time we are making ourselves ever more vulnerable to foreign influence via oil, we are also weakening ourselves with foreign debt. What’s the point of “buying American” when Americans no longer own America?

Oh, and Talia, I never implied it was easy to get work. I said he had not “tried” to get work. There’s a big difference. My sister also found herself unemployed. She found work doing security for a casino, graveyard shift. It was a big pay cut, and she hated it, but she sucked it up and did her best. According to Obama’s plan, her effort is not worth rewarding, but my BIL will get more checks.

At least with Roosevelt’s New Deal, he put people to work on public work’s projects. This may come as a shock, but there really are a lot of people who will sit around and not work if they can be paid to do so. I object to my tax money being used this way.

A democracy fails when the people realize that they can vote themselves money out of the public coffer.

Well… they have, and they are.

Obama is doing on the table what Bush and his cronies have been doing behind closed doors. I pray that it will change soon. Unfortunately I see him trapped into some pay outs to the super rich. Hopefully that will be a major part of his “change”

America needs to not just buy american but we need to build it. Most “made in USA” stuff is actually built elsewhere.

*and just for the record… I voted FOR Obama.

May we earn God’s blessing,
Timothy…

Man, I wish we had the same here. All France’s got is Bush, only less fun.

Where I know you are wrong is in pointing at a guy who has been in the Senate for 2 years as central to the ongoing problem.

Where I think you are wrong (this part is my opinion, not yet fact) is in refusing to believe Obama is capable of it.

Not even I gave up on Bush until Katrina, when he proved, well beyond my suspicions, that the incompetence of the last 7 years flowed down from the top.

If you cannot even conceive that Obama is capable, then you will be the one holding him (and us) back.

Give the man a chance Flytch. He’s earned it.

My gosh, who doesn’t have their own set of earbuds these days? In the ’30s folks built their own crystal sets in order to tune in the Fireside Chats. Hell, I built one in ’62, just to listen to the Ronettes!

MR

From what I can tell, it looks like the basketball is an autographed ball from Lenny Wilkens, and the set of three books is the Public Papers of JFK, volumes 1961, 1962 and 1963.

What would most likely happen:
1. GM files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy
2. GM’s Chinese partner, SAIC, buys much of GM (Buick, Chevy, Cadillac)
3. GM/SAIC starts importing Chinese-made Buicks and Chevys, undercutting Toyota’s cost advantages
4. GM/SAIC owns the Volt technology, requiring US firms to lease it if they wanted to use it

And I think that would be very bad.

You could be saving almost 100 dollars a year by buying that Civic. And destroying your own countries economy in the process? Priceless.

Firstly I’m not American. I’m Australian. Secondly my point is consumers will buy what is best for them, if that means buying Toyota or Honda then they will. Yes in the long run it’s probably bad for the Country but ‘one little car’ isn’t going to change anything and that’s the attitude that most people take. This is proven by the market share continuing to dwindle for such a long time.

Secondly there’s no need to have a hissy fit because I said American car’s are not as fuel efficient as other parts of the world. They’re not and this is precisely why the Government needs to step in and help them.

What hurts the US hurts Australia especially as our 2 major manufacturers are both subsidiaries of US companies (GM Holden who manufacture your Pontiac GTO and Ford Australia).

Although after reading those other 2 articles posted by Noen and Deviant I can see that there’s going to be a lot more to fixing the situation then throwing money at it and manufacturing more efficient cars.