The Violence Worker!

A Right To A Job?

With high unemployment sitting on top of the "summer of recovery" like a the stench on a steaming pile, it's becoming increasingly apparent that there is no recovery and we are not in for a "double dip" recession.  We are in a prolonged one with no end in sight.  The stimulus did not work and a second attempt will most likely be met with the same epic fail.

This picture was on Drudge most of the day.  The article it was linked to was about youth unemployment.  It didn't mention that a job was a right but the picture got me thinking.  Exactly what do they mean by "A job is a right"?

In wading through a plethora of liberal to radical websites, it became clear that the government (in whatever form) is the ultimate guarantor of your right to a job.  As the Workers World folks wrote in an editorial recently:

The workers cannot afford to be in denial. There is an urgent need for mass mobilization to open struggles for jobs, to end the layoffs, for the reopening of closed facilities and, above all, for a government Works Progress Administration-style program to provide jobs, at living wages with benefits, to the tens of millions who are out of work or underemployed.

Ronald Sokol, an American attorney who practices law in France says this in a 2007 NYT op-ed:

If governments exist to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then the right to a job must rank among its main obligations.

Sokol admits in the same article that the 1973 French law making it nigh unto impossible for an employer to fire or lay someone off is detrimental to the economy.

It is widely acknowledged that the difficulty and cost of laying off employees has been a major factor contributing to France's high unemployment. An employer who is uncertain that he can fire an unsatisfactory employee or lay off employees when sales decline will exercise caution before hiring.

Admitting that it hurts an economy doesn't seem to deter Mr. Sokol from advocating that a right to a job should exist.  Indeed, he even declares that Sarkozy must CREATE [empasis mine] the right.  (As if it's any human's right to create a right.)

So do you have a right to a job?  Should the government guarantee that you will have a job and a "living wage"?

The obvious answer to conservatives is a resounding NO!  Rights are something you are born with, not granted or created by some head of state, legislative body or judge.  A right is the freedom to act and when you act, accept responsibility for whatever actions you take.  Your rights are the freedom to act without asking permission.

I found an interesting definintion in my research for this essay:

A right is something you are born with, and you will die with, granted to you by your "Creator" (whatever you imagine He/She/It/Them to be). A privilege is granted to you by the King, General, Church, or the State, and may be revoked at any time, if one loses favor. This is usually caused by a failure "consider the king", a failure to pay the "royalty", tax, indulgence, tithe, license fee, etc.

When you depend upon privilege from the state, you are essentially reduced to serfdom.

VW

The Real Victims?

According to KOMO-TV in Seattle, the real victims of the Chrysler bankruptcy are not the bond holders or the share holders or the dealers or the banks. None of those are the real victims.  The real victims, dear reader, are the trial lawyers victims of Chrysler negligence!

Yes friends, the real victims are those who are in the process of suing the old Chrysler,  That company no longer exists.

Now that Fiat owns Chrysler, the new company is no longer responsible for any dangerous defects with the old Chrysler products.

This is going to affect people injured in Chrysler products and those who might get hurt in the future because of a design defect.

Consumer advocates say the bankruptcy court wiped out more than a billion dollars in pending class action and product liability lawsuits, and put the brakes on any future product liability claims.

Oh the humanity!!!!!  No damned wonder the cost of a car is in the tens of thousands of dollars.  

Seattle attorney Sim Osborne handles product liability cases. He says anyone with a vehicle made by the old Chrysler - the company that existed before bankruptcy - just lost some of their legal rights.

"If you buy a used Chrysler made before today and something goes wrong that causes an injury or causes a family member injury or death, (you have) no right, no product liability claims," Osborne said.

In short, you have no right to sue Chrysler. 

In short, trial lawyers are gonna lose some business!

Life for Jeanne and Joseph Polio of East Haven, Conn., changed forever on July 1, 2005. They were driving their 2000 Jeep Cherokee when it was T-boned by another vehicle. The Jeep rolled over and its roof collapsed, leaving Jeanne a quadriplegic with medical bills that have already exceeded a million dollars.

The Polios sued Chrysler, claiming the Jeep's roof was defective. Chrysler says it's vehicle was not defective and met all government safety standards at the time.
"All they are looking for is their day in court," says the couple's attorney, Timothy Pothin. "Chrysler's action and the outcome of the bankruptcy proceeding may deprive them of that."

"It's not honorable for Chrysler to be able to just walk away from this responsibility," said Jeanne Polio.

I'm really sorry for the Polios.  It was a tragic accident and I'm sure it's made their life Hell, but was it really a faulty product?  I'm no structural engineer, but I can think of a lot of things that get crushed and bent in an accident.  I've been T-boned before by a drunk driver running a red light.  I was lucky it didn't kill me.  I can think of a lot of scenarios where the roof will collapse.  If the windshield breaks and the side frame pieces get mangled, the structure holding the roof isn't there!  It also depends on how fast the car that hit them was going, what type of vehicle it was and where it actually impacted the Jeep.  This one might be valid, but we don't know any of the facts.  I suspect it probably is not.

The other scenario is even worse:

In September of 2003, Nicholas Pullano was leaving for work when his Jeep wouldn't start. He was run over by the vehicle while he was under it, trying to jump-start it.

The 54 year old will spend the rest of his life in bed or a wheel chair.

"He cries a lot," his wife said. She blames stress for her heart attack. "It turned from a very loving, happy home to a very loving sad home."

The Pullanos sued Chrysler, claiming the vehicle's design and a lack of safety devices allowed the Jeep to roll over onto Nicholas Pullano. But Chrysler says it is not to blame for this accident. Because of the bankruptcy filing, the lawsuit is on hold and a jury may never get to decide.

I'm pretty sure that Pullano is an idiot.  I've never heard of going under a vehicle to jump start it.  If I was going to go under a vehicle that might possibly start or was running, I would make sure the parking brakes was firmly engaged and the wheels were blocked. 

They could build crash proof cars.  In fact, they do, except that they are not really cars, they are tanks.  You couldn't afford them and most people wouldn't want to have one as a family car.  That means there are trade-offs.  They make them lighter to save on weight which helps save fuel.  They put lots of windows in them so you can see around you.  They make them so they go faster than ten miles per hour so you can get where you are going in a reasonable amount of time.  All of these things can detract from how safe a vehicle is.  I mentioned that I got T-boned once.  I was driving a 1972 Ford LTD much like the one pictured here.  I was lucky to get 10 mpg in that tank!  And that is why I survived, it was like a tank.  The policeman at my accident told me a woman in a Toyota was killed in a similar accident a few days earlier.  My accident happened in Ogden Utah in 1987.  I was hit by a drunk driver that ran a red light.  As an aside, I see that the pic I swiped has a Colorado plate on it.  They drunk that hit me was from Colorado.

My point is that many of these lawsuits are an attempt to win the lawsuit lottery.  Only a trial attorney could make the case that these people are the real victims.

VW

Government Motors

General Motors is finished.  If the deal goes through as planned, General Motors will die on the vine.  Chrysler is also headed fro the scrap yard.  While I am a lousy prognosticator, I just can't believe Fiat or any other entity would want to take a stake in  a company whose majority owner is the same union that helped bring the company to its knees.

I'm not sure how this deal works:

Meanwhile, however, bondholders pose a major stumbling block to the restructuring. Under the proposed offering which GM filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, investors holding $27.2 billion of GM bonds would swap those bonds for 10 percent of the equity shares of the restructured company. The United Auto Workers would get up to 39 percent of the company in return for half of the $20 billion GM owes to a health fund for retired workers. Current shareholders would get 1 percent of the new shares.
The bond holders get a 10% share for 27.2 Billion in bonds.  The UAW gets a 39% share for 10 billion in bonds.  I admit I'm no math wiz, but that makes about as much sense as as buying dimes with dollars..  No matter how you add and subtract, multiply and divide, slice and dice, parse and edit, it looks like everyone but the Union is getting a very short end of the stick.

If the bondholders reject this, they then stand to lose everything in a bankruptcy.  If they take the deal, they get something but the UAW gets a sweetheart deal that smells like payback.

Either way, this does not end well for GM.  I just do not believe the UAW and the Government will be able to inspire any kind of confidence in their product.  As the owner of a 2006 Chevy van, I was looking at trading it in the next couple of years, but I guess I'm forced to run the thing until the wheels fall off now.  If I do manage somehow to trade it in for a new one in the future, it won't be for a Chrysler or a GM product.

This is Socialism.  Welcome to the end of America.

VW

The F Word

Scroll for Update

No, not the vulgar epithet, I'm talking about Fascism.

Most people have no clue what Fascism means.  If you ask them, if they answer at all, they will say Right-Wing Extremists or Nazis or even just Republicans.  It's a scare word anymore. Most people have absolutely no clue, they just toss it out there to sound like they know what it is.  Most of them wouldn't recognize a fascist if one goose-stepped up to them and slapped them.  Fascism has pretty much become its own epithet.

A lot of folks on the left throw the F word around and they really liked to try and hang it on Bush.  They are still calling him a dictator even after he left office after his second term.  Dictators usually try and hold on to their power.  They don't normally walk away after a second term.

I'm not going to call the Obama Administration fascist.  However, I will quote the definition and leave you to draw your own conclusions.

FASCISM:  a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

Obama demands the firing of the GM CEO.  He says he is for the nation or society over the individual and there is severe economic regimentation taking place upon the banking, investing and the auto industry.  I haven't seen forcible suppression of the opposition yet save that full court press against Limbaugh and now, I hear, the "guns" are turning from him to Sarah Palin

You make up your own mind.

VW

UPDATE March 31 @10.00 AM:  This is the first thing I saw this AM:

But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the "Pay for Performance Act of 2009," would impose government controls on the pay of all employees -- not just top executives -- of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

The purpose of the legislation is to "prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards," according to the bill's language. That includes regular pay, bonuses -- everything -- paid to employees of companies in whom the government has a capital stake, including those that have received funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Hat Tip:  Michelle Malkin      Permalink here

Highway To Hell

The Financial Times is reporting that China's Central Bank is calling for a "reserve currency".  It would be a currency not from an individual country, but one managed by the International Monetary Fund or IMF.

In an essay posted on the People’s Bank of China’s website, Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank’s governor, said the goal would be to create a reserve currency “that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies”.

Oddly enough, this is a Keynesian concept and the ironic thing about this idea is that it's Obama's Keynesian economics that is causing the Chinese to explore this idea. 

Analysts said the proposal was an indication of Beijing’s fears that actions being taken to save the domestic US economy would have a negative impact on China.

“This is a clear sign that China, as the largest holder of US dollar financial assets, is concerned about the potential inflationary risk of the US Federal Reserve printing money,” said Qu Hongbin, chief China economist for HSBC.

This should scare the blue-living hell out of you.  If this doesn't worry you, then you are either completely devoid of any common sense, or your transportation to and from school was primarily the short bus.  I have a 15-year-old Autistic son and I can tell you, he has little understanding of money.  He doesn't get it it.

If the economic forecast goes as the Congressional Budget Office is now predicting, we are in some serious trouble.  The debt we are incurring is unsustainable.

The new Congressional Budget Office figures offered a far more dire outlook for Obama's budget than the new administration predicted just last month -- a deficit $2.3 trillion worse. It's a prospect even the president's own budget director called unsustainable.

What that means is that we are on the road to bankruptcy as a nation.    We will no longer be the preeminent power in the world.  We may not even be a power and worst case scenario is that the United States of America may very well cease to exist as we know it.  For certain, our currency will become worthless; requiring trillions of dollars just to buy a loaf of bread - if you can find one.  It's a superhighway to chaos.

This may please some of you more rabid anti-American types, but trust me, you aren't going to want to live in a world without a strong and stable United States.  If there is any post-apocalyptic books to be written about America's last days, Obama's name will be like a curse word.

Change we are getting, it's the hope part that seems to be severely lacking.

VW

Limiting Executive Pay

I want to know what law allows the administration to make up a rule concerning executive compensation beyond bailout money. To me, it sounds patently un-American.

From the NYT:

Increasing oversight of executive pay has been under consideration for some time, but the decision was made in recent days as public fury over bonuses has spilled into the regulatory effort.

The officials said that the administration was still debating the details of its plan, including how broadly it should be applied and how far it could range beyond simple reporting requirements. Depending on the outcome of the discussions, the administration could seek to put the changes into effect through regulations rather than through legislation.

How can the Feds tell anyone that does not accept federal bailout money how much they can make? Who will make the decisions and using what for a formula?

And what about entertainers and athletes (one in the same mostly) who make gazillions and in some cases, probably more gazillions than many CEOs? Will they be allowed to make unlimited money while the CEO of say Hewlett Packard is limited to 2 million a year?

Welcome to the banana republic.

VW

Satire? Yeah right....

Thanks Instapunk.

THE AMERICANS WITH NO ABILITIES ACT

Washington, DC - Congress is considering sweeping legislation that will provide new benefits for many Americans.

The Americans With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) is being hailed as a major legislative goal by advocates of the millions of Americans who lack any real ambition or skills...

'Roughly 50 percent of Americans do not possess the competence and drive necessary to carve out a meaningful role for themselves in society,' said California Senator Barbara Boxer.

'We can no longer stand by and allow People of Inability to be ridiculed and passed over. With this legislation, employers will no longer be able to grant special favors to a small group of workers, simply because they have some idea of what they are doing.'

In a Capitol Hill press conference, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pointed to the success of the Transportation Security Administration, which has a long-standing policy of providing opportunity without regard to performance. 

Approximately 74 percent of postal employees lack any job skills, making this agency the single largest U. S. employer of Persons of Inability. Private-sector industries with good records of non-discrimination against the Inept include retail sales (72%), the airline industry (68%), and home improvement 'warehouse' stores (65%).

At the state government level, the Department of Motor Vehicles also has an excellent record of hiring Persons of Inability (63%).

Under the Americans With No Abilities Act, more than 25 million 'middle man' positions will be created, with important-sounding titles but little real responsibility, thus providing an illusory sense of purpose and performance.

Mandatory non-performance-based raises and promotions will be given so as to guarantee upward mobility for even the most unremarkable employees.

The legislation provides substantial tax breaks to corporations that promote a significant number of Persons of Inability into middle-management positions, and gives a tax credit to small and medium-sized businesses that agree to hire one clueless worker for every two talented hires.

Finally, the AWNAA contains tough new measures to make it more difficult to discriminate against the Non-abled, banning, for example, discriminatory interview questions such as, 'Do you have any skills or experience that relate to this job?'

'As a Non-abled person, I can't be expected to keep up with people who have something going for them,' said Mary Lou Gertz, who lost her position as a lug-nut twister at the GM plant in Flint, Michigan, due to her inability to remember righty tighty, lefty loosey. 'This new law should be real good for people like me,' Gertz added. 

With the passage of this bill, Gertz and millions of other untalented citizens will finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Said Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL): 'As a Senator with no abilities, I believe the same privileges that elected officials enjoy ought to be extended to every American with no abilities. It is our duty as lawmakers to provide each and every American citizen,   regardless of his or her adequacy, with some sort of space to take up in this great nation and a good salary for doing so.'

Welcome To Hope And Change

Or as I like to call it - Zimbabwe II, the sequel. 

Today, the House passed the so-called Stimulus Bill or what others are calling the Multi-Generational Theft Act. 

How stupid are people?  Do they really think we have a trillion dollars in cash sitting around waiting to be spent?  Do they think that all we have to do is ratchet up the presses at the mint into overdrive and print it all out?  If we are borrowing it, how in hell do we pay it back?

In the end, taxes will be raised to levels so high we will be reduced to third wold incomes, or we will be facing hyperinflation where the dollar bill will be as worthless as used toilet paper and you know how that's working out in Zimbabwe.   In other words, We service our debt, or we print more money.  Either way, we lose.

I suppose it's a little comfort that no Republicans voted for this huge steaming pile of a plan.  This will be passed eventually and the man who promised to pay as we go will sign it into law and and America will start it's final decline into the abyss.

Welcome to hope and change, comrade.

VW

Bailing Out Madoff

Today at work, we were talking about the Madoff mess and I joked that either the investors or Madoff himself would ask for a bailout.  Tonight, as I was perusing the news, I saw this from CBS News:

Madoff Investors May Be Protected By Government

Judge Says Those Duped Need Aid Under The Securites Investor Protection Act

U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton ordered that clients of Madoff's private investment business seek relief under a federal statute created to rescue cheated investors. Stanton also ordered that business be liquidated under the jurisdiction of a bankruptcy court and named attorney Irvin H. Picard as trustee to oversee that process.

Stanton signed the order after the Securities Investor Protection Corporation asked that steps be taken to protect investors in the scheme, which has ensnared several major banks and prominent figures as victims and could result in as much as $50 billion in losses.

Congress created the SIPC in 1970 to protect investors when a brokerage firm fails and cash and securities are missing from accounts. Funds can be used to satisfy the remaining claims of each customer up to a maximum of $500,000. The figure includes a maximum of up to $100,000 on claims for cash.

Does it ever end?  I suppose this is a bit different than the usual bailout.  It's a law that's been around since 1970.  Who knew investments were insured like a bank account.

And the hits just keep on coming!

VW

We The Sheeple

When will it be enough?  Where is the point that the average American says. "NO MORE!!"  When will it dawn on us that the "We the people" thing ceased to exist and we realize we've been taken for the  grandest of rides by both Democrats and Republicans.

If you think you matter one whit to any of these people, you are either delusional, so blinded by ideology or both.  It's all about power and who controls how much.  It's about who can rip off more from the government teet.  It's about politicians serving you a steaming crap sandwich on aluminum foil and telling you it's prime rib on a silver platter.  It's about state control and if you think Communism is dead, then you haven't been watching the news media hide William Ayers.

We are on a full throttle tilt toward the Socialist State and a nationalized economy and the best response you can get from most people is that they hope they get left alone or that the government actually does more for them.  We are selling out our rights one handout at a time.  We only have ourselves to blame.  We want that government cheese.

The free market is dying and the pace of its painful demise is quickening.  It won't be long before we are living in whatever hovel we are told because housing will be nationalized.  We won't have cars because we won't be able to afford the fuel and if we have a job, it will be one of someone else's choosing.

We don't matter.  Obama doesn't give a damn about you and neither did John McCain.  If you think that moron Barney Frank gives a damn about Joe Assemblylineworker, you are just as stupid as he is.

I wrote a letter to everyone of my representatives demanding accountability a while back a ago.  I wrote my state legislatures, the governor, my senators, and my representative.  Since I live in Tacoma, they are all Democrats.  I posted that letter here.  I got only two responses back, one Senator and one state legislator.  Even though they are liberal Democrats, they sounded like Ronald Reagan reborn.  The problem is, they are big parts of the problem, spending my tax dollars faster than they can be shoveled in.

Socialism will not save us. I know it is is what the hope and change crowd want, but sooner or later even they will have to realize that Socialist hope might just leave them without any change.

The Republican party is as much a part of the problem as anyone else.  Blogoyevich might as well have been a Republican.  All the (R) means anymore is that they are slow motion Democrats.

/rant mode off

VW