No unions in the financial sector. What’s to debate?

Did I hear yesterday that Shelby or that little worm Sessions might filibuster?

I think there should a general strike by ALL labor in the USA to remind management what makes an economy work and produce “wealth” and it’s not management and “finance”.

That should happen so often the fecker(s) will wish they never heard of the word.

Shelby warns of filibuster of auto bailout

I saw a headline that Shelby threatened a filibuster on one of the Sunday bobblehead fests. Didn’t bother to read it cuz I figured he or Corkhead would anyway. Where’s my thermal lance?

Tribune’s board approved Zell’s bid, which used the ESOP as a vehicle through which he borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars to tax-efficiently fund the transaction. The scheme allowed Zell to pony up just $315 million of his own cash to wrest control of the company and made employees technically Tribune’s owners.

But ownership came at a price: Tribune cut back its 401(k) contributions and instead committed to use a portion of its payroll to pay down the hundreds of millions in debt that a trust set up for the ESOP used to buy Tribune shares, according to employee stock owner plan expert Corey Rosen. ”It was like a mortgage that you use to buy a house with no money down,” says Rosen, who wrote a report that goes into detail on Tribune’s ESOP arrangements.

http://www.eschatonblog.com/20…..1973936157

People need control of their Pensions no more than 10% should be in any one sector let alone any one company outside of that pros should handle it not the Tribs board!
You can invest your private money in what you want if you think you got a good idea retirement cash has to be protected often from good can’t miss ideas.
Why didn’t the Tribs executives buy the company with their stock options if they thought it was such a good deal?
Corporate Boards are great st spending stockholders and their employees money.

We should target this guy us and the Unions if we had a list he should be on it.

Shockingly, the economy wasn’t doing too well,
even before the current crisis. Who knew?

OMG, the haircut is hysterical. The Illinois Governor looks like he could be a fill-in on the Brady Bunch!

_Median household income dropped in 79 percent of the cities and towns. Incomes dropped in the wealthiest communities as well as the poorest. Charleston, Ill., home to Eastern Illinois University, saw the biggest drop — 31 percent — to a median household income of just under $21,000.

Apparently many outside the Beltway were well aware that things were headed south. Strange that these figures are just now being put together for the great unwashed masses to contemplate.

There was some economist or something at the auto hearings with a haircut that looked like an escapee from Star Trek.

Ian, Krugman, Stiglitz, and the Sheila Bair, Brooksley Born, Meredith Whitney, and Tanta, just to name a few.

Shelby and Sessions, Japan first!

-G

I think it’s time for a general strike.

Does he like like Roman Polanski (sp?) or is it just me?

And putting it out now does absolutely no good because the CW has been set in stone. :-(

Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee activated a voter turnout operation that it’s been honing for more than a decade.

From the “Dems in Big Trouble” link. I can read the above in more than one way for some reason.

Which side are you on

Solidarity forever

BBC Business report this morning, to cheer you on. ;-(

Japan sinks deeper into recession

Japan has sunk deeper into recession in the three months to September than had been expected, new figures indicate.
The economy, the second largest in the world after the US, shrank by 0.5%, for an annualised rate of 1.8%, significantly greater than expected.
Japanese firms are closing factories and laying off staff in the face of declining demand and a rising yen.
Prime Minister Taro Aso has promised public spending to soften the impact of the recession.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7772545.stm

Now he tells us, indeed!

Bush *must* be feeling like a real lame duck, or he never would have opened up on evolution.

Remind me to stop reading the swill politico puts out.

Obama: “Generally, government historically hasn’t done that very well.”

Just great, another POTUS talking out his arse. Where does Obama get off that “government” in the US has run businesses? A few times during war and other emergencies, but on a regular basis – never. On the other hand, if you count Social Security and Medicare, they are two of the most efficiently run “businesses” in America, far, far better than most private American companies for the money they manage and services they offer.

If the unions take a 10% cut then so do the bank employees same with their CEO’s and no other compensation like awards of stocks, private jets etc.
Lets see if the GOP wants to defend that to the tax payers!

Politic-hole.

The 80% approval ratings that Obama is garnering is clearly a good sign for Republicans.

An Obama relection in 2010 will be good for the GOP too.

-G

McCain still has us right where he wants us.

He has been listening to the GOP DLC again. Its funny every politician thinks that he understands business probably because the business lobbyists all tell them how smart they all are.
If you have money and or power and people want something from you distrust what they tell you.

So right you are…

“I’m just a simple president.” George W. Bush quote. (sigh)

It looks like Pelosi is now floating a trial balloon for car czar:
Paul Volcker

Quit it.

Breaking News:

Obama is nominating George W. Bush as Failure Czar.

-G

Morning, pups. How come we haven’t seen anything of Froomkin lately?

He meant Simpleton. But he was too simple to remember.

Obviously I’m confused as to what you mean. If I didn’t know better I would think you were insulting Obama?

This Froomkin
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..newsletter

Hey, got a ?

How many here are union members, past or present?

A fecking professor of Constitutional Law flunks history, the one next up for president. Do any of you recall the TVA at all? Is there anything in the water, or the air that causes brain dead?

My doG, you all are in for some deep shite!

Cummings is such a concern troll.

Ah no. I’m applying the media rule that anything that happens in politics is good for the GOP.

I am being facetious.

-G

I’m not worried. Harry Reid is a Master at Tamping Down Filibusters…

by Democrats.

Obama’s not even prez yet and the naysayers are already whining about how he hasn’t done anything and his policies suck. In the meantime Shrub and Co are doing to our country what the white rulers of South Africa did when they turned power over to the ANC. See Chap 10 of Shock Doctrine for details.

Thanks, and here’s why I love him.

The public has rejected him. The nation is in crisis — and eager for the massive course corrections promised by an Obama presidency. But none of this appears to have penetrated President Bush’s well-defended brainpan.

The president who promised to sprint to the finish is denying reality until the bitter end — celebrating all his great successes in a continuing series of farewell speeches and interviews.

Here’s proof.

not a union member but a big suporter of unions.

Current card carryin’, dues payin’ member of the IWW.

I am so with you. What is wrong with people?

Jesus Loves Me, Yes I know, For The Bible Tells Me So. – Dubya

As an undergrad

OK, reason I ask — how do you feel when you union screws you? I was used to it from crops. Specifically, 1st time, it was the CWA. Yeah, a long time ago.

We’ve turned into an instant gratification society. 5 Nov and the great Obama should have solved all our problems so the great unwashed masses can go back out and live wildly beyond their means, define who they are by the stuff they own and generally be an ignorant pain in the ass.

Well that makes Laura?, Barney, & Jesus.

You go man, I am with unions all the way. Unions are the lifeblood of the world. I say we keep it that way.

Me.

Who will pay Shrub for speakin’ engagements when he’s finished Presidentin’?

AEI? PNAC, Heritage Foundation? Coors/Miller Brewing Company? Home Depot? Ramada? Anybody? Bueller?…

Hey there is nothing wrong with questioning certain policy proposals and nominees. I didn’t sit through 8 years of the imperial presidency of Chimpy, so I could lie down and listen to the likes of Dan Gerstein say : Obama is the Decider, he should pick whoever he wants. And That — is so strikingly similar to what Lieberman said about Chimpy. Granted Obama is not Chimpy, but some of us might want to pushback on the imperial presidency residue left by stinking Chimpy and try and make sure Obama doesn’t have a total “moderate” Clintonian-type administration. (Motive: Some of us *do* want to get out of Iraq, return to the rule of law, etc.)

no one.
aHAHAHAHA!

But, but, but he says he’s not a literalist.*

*except when it’s convenient to be one

It’s troubling that Obama seems to accept some right wing memes that disparage government. Started with Reagan’s joke “the most feared words in America, I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” The country then began electing Republicans that proved government was the problem by insuring that government didn’t work.

And it is said that Democracy is at it’s best when it is adversarial. Plus Naomi Klein doesn’t approve of “cheerleading.”

Ringling Brothers/Barnum and Bailey?

Chimpy thinks they are a law firm.

-G

It’s Czar Czar Galore!

Barney . . . the dog he bounced off the sidewalk?

He can tell a Wal-Mart convention how he helped protect them from the evil unions.

I was once for solidarity. CWA member, then shop steward, did some arbitrations, edited local newsletter. First union action at AT&T was a sympathy strike for another local. When our turn came, it was FYWGO.

Just before my time there, the workers were 14th highest on pay scale in the country. CWA arrives to improve matters (and they did, with their sweetheart contracts) and the end result was 41st.

But I got better, some qualifications, and became a broadcast engineer. That led me halfway around the world and back, and now I live, since 1974 in Australia.

Errr…some of us “bank employees” are serious peons, just exactly like other workers. When the banks look at other area salaries in order to set wages, they look at fast food wages and set them accordingly. The starting wage for most of the bank processing jobs are about 10 cents/hour over McDonalds. Cut the bigwigs’ wages, sure, but leave us bottom feeders alone, k?

I would suggest that checking Obama’s background and his corporate support gave a fair indication of what his administration would look like. One of the reasons I never expressed unqualified support of any Dem candidate was because of their corporate ties and their support of the free market ideology, Kucinich excluded. None of Obama’s appointments or policy proposals should come as a surprise.

Disney

You are seriously funny :0

Obama did some good by expressing support for the Chicago sit in. I think Obama has different facets. Maybe that will cancel out the Ronnie Raygun love, which is hopefully lipservice. . .

So maybe you became management instead of labor?

Jesus loving Georgie Boy is literal, of course. Dubya’s sixth-grade-bible- study diatribe should be an embarrassment to all, but it’s not because we’re saved. /s

Yes, yes, I know all that. I know Obama is a “moderate.” But like I said, democracy is supposed to be at its best when it’s adversarial.

Several of us are not surprised. That should not stop us from being disappointed (guess he should have put a snark tag after audacity of hope). Because not everyone realized it in advance, there is all the more reason for those who caught on early to continue to explain Obama’s corp friendly policies to those who didn’t.

There’s one union Wal-Mart *loves* and its in Mainland China.

natter on nabobs

away

No unions at Treasury, either. And no experience except for moving the financial pieces around on the chess board.

And after 8 years, I am not about to go around humming “daddy knows best.”

Christy’s up!
So Long, and Thanks for All the Tinfoil: SCOTUS Boots Obama Nationality Case

Compared to George Bush’s reign, anything would be considered “liberal” in comparison. Let it not be misunderstood, I am a progressive, I want progressive things done. Please know that I am a progressive and want such things done….

mui1,

Why do I think you didn’t hum that even before W?

There *was* that Austin Goulsbee/Canada affair that everyone including Keith Olberman, pshawed away. It just *had* to come from the Clinton camp, and not say, the Canadian government.

The 2000 election woke up, I think.

“The bible probably isn’t literally true?”

Silence. Listen. Learn. Practice. Teach. ~ Evolve or DIE!

~ PEACE ~

I’m not sure that’s true. There’s a difference between questioning and being adversarial, I think. The adversarial climate has not been helpful in recent memory. Just sayin’.

You want adversarial? Look to Congress. That’s where the real work is going to get done. Obama’s team and policies have to start to turn things around and the moderate, free market model will be the first thing they try. If it doesn’t work they’ll be scrambling for other solutions. With few progressives in Congress their ideas will only be looked at when everything else has failed. Like Churchill once said, the Americans will eventually get it right, after they’ve tried everything else.

This is not about comparing the two. This is about goals: getting out of Iraq, not bombing Iran, bringing back the rule of law, fixing the shock doctrine economy, fixing Chimpy and his policies for good, etc.

It took about 15 years, and that was a fluke. As chief engineer of a TV commerical production house, I was the conduit between the real workers and the head shed. An interesting situation, being the one management person anyone trusted.

Oh you think I am picking on Obama, I am not. You know how we all feel about our congresscritters. C’mon.

Right. And the rubber stamping apparatchnik Congress we had before 2006, was good?

Or maybe we have a different definition of adversarial. Court proceedings are adversarial. That’s what I mean by adversarial.

No, no, no, no. Not good. Very not good. But somewhere between rubber stamping and adversarial lies…okay, fine, marshmallow land. I am a hopeless idealist. “Can’t we all just get along?” *g*

And that would mean?

Merriam Webster says: : one that contends with, opposes, or resists : enemy

It’s the enemy thingie that jerks my chain, I guess.

What can be considered more progressive than these?

Right on!

It’s only partially about how we feel about Congress. It’s about getting people into Congress who will do things differently. That process has only just begun. Obama will do what he thinks best, the incoming Congress will do what it thinks best for its corporate masters. The Dems gained a number of seats this time around, many of whom are conservative or conservative leaning. I’ve held off criticizing Obama’s appointments, with 2 exceptions, and his policies because I want to see what those policies actually lead to. A lot can change, and rapidly, within the next 6 months.

No, not enemies.

Let us hope that you are right…

Well some criticism is not going to derail those policies.

because remember we don’t exactly have the power of the right-leaning corp world.

I haven’t found anything to criticize. I have, however, found many things to question. The answers will come when policies are implemented. That will be the time I praise or criticize. At this point the brightest point I see is Shinseki’s appointment to VA. Whether or not he is effective remains to be seen.

I’d like to. But it’s difficult when we have democrats in congress that believe congress is a club, and screw Katrina victims.

Not sure of the import of your question. But, to hazard a guess, from the earlier time, I was a worker, rather than management. When I reached that ~exalted~ position, I had not forgot my roots. Thus, I could listen to the problems of the staff and convey them to the general manager, and usually effect some improvements.

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

criticize, analyse, question. Critical as in critical analysis.

Reading a Mike Whitney piece elsewhere, which needs commenting. Have a good day!

Here’s what I mean by adversarial. Not enemies, but sticking to your guns on things like a living wage.