PegasusWing's Blog

                                        Do NOT Bail out Auto Makers

           Let capitalism work.  Let businesses that are unwilling to adapt to changing needs go out of business.  If the US auto makers went out of business, they would be split up and bought out.  Currently they are run by CEO’s who simply have no clue.  Auto workers are paid hourly wages 10 times the minimum wage.  Let the auto workers be re-hired at a reasonable wage and competent management replace Mr. Noclue.  That will save the auto industry.  You do not reward incompetence!

           In 1972-3,  I had my brother’s Dodge Charger.  It got 8mpg.  When gas doubled, my father offered to buy me another car.  I wanted something small like a VW, but the US auto makers were crying “Buy American,” so my father bought me a Plymouth Duster.  It promised 18-22mpg, but I got half that; 12mpg on the highway at 55mph.  Other Americans also decided to support American industry and bought US autos, so the auto spokesmen came out and said, “See Americans want the bigger cars.” 

They never had a clue!

            My next car, was a Honda civic, the next, a Hondo Accord.  I thought the best thing that I could do for America was to send Detroit a message they could understand.  It was the inability of the CEO’s of the American auto companies to comprehend the needs of the public that opened the doors to foreign competition.  They refuse to give us choices.  Gas guzzlers only!  No electric.  No quality economy cars.  No hybrids.  No alternatives.  The bigger the better.

         Americans are hurting.  Americans have hours cut,  jobs lost,  homes foreclosed.    In no way should money come out of our pay checks to bail out incompetents who are screwing up the American economy.  I always suspected that the oil companies paid US auto mfgs to continue making gas pigs.  Now our economy depends on Arab oil.  Even if we could manage without imported oil, sooner or later the world will run out of fossil fuel, yet we are doing nothing to wean ourselves off oil.   

            Look at what $70 billion to banks and securities got us.  Nothing!  I thought the $70 billion would save the economy.  Instead one expert explained that it bought the effects of an air bag.  You total your car, the air bag limits the damage, but doesn’t repair the wreck.  I don’t want to pay $70 billion for a freaking air bag!  I don’t want to pay another $25 billion so more freaking incompetents can pay themselves $25 million a year for more air bags.   NO!  They can not do the job!  Capitalism will work if the government will let it. 

There are other solutions.  A small business owner would for-go his own salary to keep his business afloat.  Not these guys!    Or--Each auto company has more than one plant.  Let them sell one to save the others.  That is capitalism.  With competent management they can save themselves.  Bail outs just reward incompetence.  This is not the way to go.

The Mormon church, that raised so much money to fund a legal amendment against gay marriage, has made the choice to involve itself in political affairs of the state rather than maintain a “separation”.  It should, therefore, lose its tax exempt status. 

Thomas Jefferson, when drafting the Bill of Rights, did not want any one church forcing its beliefs on others.  People were to be able to choose their own faith and were expected to afford others the same privilege.  Nothing in the First Amendment ever granted churches a tax free status.

There is another instance where one church group has legal privileges denied others religious groups.  Granting one church special exemptions over other churches is unconstitutional.  Quakers are granted immunity from the draft.  This exemption from the draft is not fair and equitable treatment.  Richard Nixon was in the US Navy, but in WWII never engaged in any battle because he had amnesty as a Quaker.  As President, he denied amnesty to conscientious objectors who refused to fight in Viet Nam, which was an undeclared war, unlike WWII when our country came under attack!  Nixon called draft dodgers, who could not get draft exemption, cowards.   It is time that that inequity be corrected as well.

FDR had it right. Get everyone working.  With jobs, people can afford to buy housing.   That was all that was needed to save the banks.  Those banks buried in their own financial ineptitude that can not repair themselves, would have been bought out.  Our government is out of money and living on credit.  We can not afford bail outs for companies run by greedy, incompetent CEO’s who are now thieving millions of tax payer’s bail out money to line their own undeserved plush retirement.  We should demand immediate pay back for those misappropriated government funds; demand accountability, and long prison sentences. Work program with positive, long-lasting effects on our country would have done more good than bail outs into the hands of incompetent CEO’s. 

Yesterday, House Representatives noted that the three auto CEO’s each flew to DC in plush, private jets, then held out the tin cup for 25 billion dollars!   They didn’t jet pool or lower themselves to flying first class.  “They just don’t get it.”  Nor were the CEO’s willing to put their own multimillion dollar salaries aside for the sake of the bail out.  That admission seemed to solidify congress’ reluctance  to fund any bail out.  Americans out of work and homeless after foreclosure should sacrifice to ensure the 3 to 7 million dollar salaries of these jokers!?!

Congress seemed all too willing to take the focus off their own irresponsible “failed policy,”  a republican laissez faire attitude toward big business.  Congress already forks-over 4 billion dollars a year to the auto industry, without requiring increased fuel efficiency! The auto companies and banks do not employ all the incompetents.  The American voters must assume some responsibility for electing incompetents to office.

Mr. Obama, if you do not solve this insanity, you will be blamed for the whole mess.  I know that the auto industry should not be shut down.  These CEO, incompetent fat cats should be fired and competent management be installed before you fork over one penny of my tax money.  Auto workers are paid significantly more than I am, so maybe renegotiations of their contracts will bring down some of that $25 billion price tag.  They must make sacrifices, themselves, if they expect the rest of us with so much less to make sacrifices for them. 

Face it.  Sooner or later, the world will run out of oil and come to a grinding halt.  World wide energy conservation and efficiency is of paramount importance immediately!  This insanity has gone on too long.

In reality, the sanctity of marriage can only be protected by dedicated couples, considerate of each other and dedicated to family.  Overall, heterosexuals have desecrated marriage quite enough without any help from homosexuals.

Would doing away with divorce protect the sanctity of marriage?

Sometime around the turn of the last century, Nellie Bligh, a reporter, got her self admitted into an insane asylum. 

There she found women whose husbands had them admitted, giving him freedom and her what today would be illegal incarceration for life.

Then divorce was hard to get, making marriage more enduring if not endearing.

Frankly, what other couples do behind closed doors is none of my business, and I do not want to hear about it whether they are gay or otherwise.

If it is the word “marriage” that people want to protect, call gay marriages, “garriages”. 

Garriage should afford couples the same legal rights; joint tax returns, inheritance laws of a legal spouse, and hellacious divorces.    This plan would not desecrate the word marriage in intolerant minds. 

Sooner or later, the Supreme Court will over turn laws that discriminate against gays.  Women’s suffrage, Black rights, now gay rights, who will be the next target?  Unless we protect our prejudices, we will run out of groups to bully.

The price for gasoline is now down to $2.

Why?  Now, fuel did not begin increasing with the cost of crude.  It began increasing when we went into Iraq.  I thought the price was going up because of the war, but it was just for oil profits.

I expect it to go flying back up there once Obama takes office.  Republicans will then say, "It was under $2 when Obama took office and now is up to $8, the highest in history.  Obama did this."

Maybe the oil companies brought down the price of gasoline because  the democrats have been talking about taxing unfair oil profits.  I think 85% would be fair.  Maybe 150% to make up for the gouging we got under the Bush administration would be more fair.

Gasoline prices fell for the consumer, so that should still complaints, yet they left the price high for diesel, which is more inflationary.   

With the drop in gasoline prices, consumers are buying the gas pigs again and the Prius are lined up in the lots.  Gasoline prices will go back up again.  You can never under-estimate the intelligence of the public.

Did you notice that the Auto CEO's flew to DC to beg for money on a private jet.  One lives in Seattle and jets back and forth to Detroit weekly, yet has the audicity to beg for money.  He makes $28 or $38 million a year! 

They would probably take the bail out money and give themselves fat retirements.  Ineffective leadership has put the auto industry in the hole, so tax payers should fork over bucks to support financial ineptitude! 

The gov't should take back what it can from the banks.  They are misappropriating funds already, smack the thieves in prison, then use the funds to create jobs. 

FDR used government, public works programs to put people to work.  Like FDR did, the work programs should build things that will serve the country for years, like transit systems.  Then people would be able to buy houses, and that will take the pinch off the banks.  But give big bucks to the idiots who dug this hole, not too smart.

This nation is buried is the greatest debt of any country in the history of the world.  Stimulus packages to the individual tax payers really did nothing to stimulate the economy.  It was just a flash in the pan, then nothing.  Rather it just depleated the national coffers further. . . well increased the debt.

Wouldn't it be more sensible to increase the income of the country?  Both candidates are now saying that companies that take jobs overseas would lose all tax breaks.  That additional income would help. 

FDR used federal work programs to put people to work.  Jobs are really better than one time hit stimulus packages.  Nobody really minds paying taxes if they have the income.  The stimulus package felt more like an attempt to buy votes.

It is necessary that these work programs go to useful projects that will bring long term relief to the country.  Public transit systems would help reduce the consumption of fuel long term.  Putting engineers to work on electricity producing wind turbines affordable for the individual homeowner would reduce further the need for fossil fuels. 

Government bail outs are not the answer.  We can now probably figure out the cost of the fraud. 

Frankly, the increase in oil may be the best thing that has happened to the country.  Americans are wasteful.  While  most realize that there is a critical problem with energy and oil, we have not taken steps to reduce energy consumption.  The answer is not lower prices on oil, drilling at home, nor even nationalizing the oil companies.

Europeans have double the gasoline costs, but they also have trains that connect every major city in Europe and decent transit systems within each city.  Compare that to Orlando where there is an effort to block the development of a decent transit system which is already crucial to some people who are no longer be able to afford personal means of transportation.

At this spring’s car show there was a Prius that got 150 miles on the first gallon of gasoline.  There after it only got 50 mpg, but the average driver drives under 60 miles per day, so that would work.  That technology should be the goal for every US auto manufacturer.  It isn’t!  My 1998 Saturn got 38 mpg.  The car was one of the safest in its class.  My niece is still driving it.  GM advertise that the new Saturns get 30 mpg.  They can keep them.  By now they should be getting 45 mpg.

Today a car getting 30 mpg is not even worth the investment.  Gasoline will probably be double before most pay off a new vehicle.  US auto mfgs are getting themselves into the same situation as in the ‘70’s when everyone decided to buy foreign.  They refused to make a smaller fuel efficient car.  They leased and destroyed their fleets of electric cars and refused to sell them to the those who leased them.  Thick headed CEO’s ultimately will make the auto workers pay by destroying the auto industry as they nearly did in the 70’s.  Then they will blame it on the consumer for not buying American. 

FPL’s choice to rebuild a power plant in Port Saint John and build a large solar plant on Cape Canaveral are neither forward thinking nor in the interest of the people, but rather in the interest of growing FPL whose profits, relatively speaking are as massive as Exxon/Mobile.

One large wind turbine can produce enough electricity for 200 homes. 

Instead of displacing all the shuttle engineers at Cape Canaveral, the government should put them to work designing smaller home wind turbines. 

The final product should cost about $1000 to produce and install.   If each mini windmill produced enough electricity for 2 homes, the excess electricity could go back to the power company.  The excess power that is sent to the power company could be used like a sunshine fund to go to larger cities or disaster areas temporarily unable to produce their own power.

There would be some obstacles that need to be over come.  Trees might have to be topped off at 30’.   The turbines might have to be designed so that the little wind mills can be raised and lowered easily on a pole for repairs or to prevent damage from a threatening storm.  Perhaps the propeller blades might be designed to be easily removed if a storm is pending, whether it be a pending hurricane or ice storm.

Businesses generate feasibility studies are perpetuate bigger business rather than for the good of the country.  This country needs to begin thinking forward for the good of the citizens instead of the good of big business and increased wealth of individual politicians.

Today on the way home, I passed a trooper's car in his driveway. 

Actually I feel better knowing that several people in law enforcement live in my neighborhood.

I know that there are objections to this. 

If they each drove their own vehicle to work, then three shifts could all use the same vehicle. 

Would that save money? 

The fleet would be smaller, but the milage on each vehicle would increase faster so would have to be replaced more often.

Then I recalled that when we were kids, my little brother told me that he asked his friend's father who was on the police force if he could get a permit to drive an unregistered car to the garage, or how could he do it. 

The officer told him to drive it in at 3:00 pm, because there were no police on the roads because both shifts were at the police station changing cars.

We joked that we knew the best time to hold up a bank. 

So maybe allowing cops to drive their vehicles home have benefits as well?

         Racism is when someone dislikes a person because of his or her race, creed, national origin, or sexual preference, without ever getting to know the person.  I have prejudices.  I could tell you the difference between an Irish man and an Italian or a German and and Austrian.  Sometimes I would be right, probably, as often, I would be wrong.  My prejudices are based on movies that I watched, books that I read, previous acquaintances, and probably the attitudes of my parents, teachers, classmates.

          Shouldn't someone who raised their child in a trailer park be more determined than anyone to see that their child got the intellectual stimulation to become a good student who would rise above his start in life?  It seldom happens.  Thus the term trailer park trash was coined. 

         Orientals, I prefer that word to Asian which is now the politically correct term.  Oriental brings to my mind the "mystique of the Orient" and is far more imaginative, but ok- back to the story: the Asians who come to the states, without the English language, have children who do far better in school than those who cross the boarder illegally or whose great ancestors were brought here on slave ships.

        I would conclude that Asians are excellent parents.  When I say this, I am guilty of prejudice.  I could also say that there is a far lower percent of obese Asian children.  I conclude that Asians are better cooks and probably excellent parents.  Is this prejudice?  Is anyone free of prejudice?  There are exceptions and outstanding role models for any group.  

       The solution is that if you are a part of a group that is burdened with negative expectations, just be sure that your children are brought up to rise to the top.  Teach them values, encourage education, present a healthy role model and family life style. 

Halliburton stock went from $8.04 in 2002 to now $47.43 in 2008. Vice President Cheney is experiencing no recession.

President Bush increased his person wealth from oil in the same period by $60 million.

They can afford the price of gasoline if it increases to $100 a gallon!  Easily.

Which of the two mentioned made the most money because of the war, do you think?

I remember Lady Byrd had investments in helicopters.  At the end of VN war, helicopters were flown to the Navy ships where the men tipped them overboard.

I also remember my classmates who never came back, those who came back maimed and hooked on drugs as they underwent heroic medical procedures.

The American soldier, he, and she as well, are unique in that they are willing to put their lives on the line to rescue strangers from distant countries.

 The American people have always risen to the call to do our part.

But somehow, the leadership and the soldier and the people have different objectives.

I have spoken with people who remember living through the Great Depression.

The tell me there is major difference in the character of the Americans and of their leaders, then and now.

Some Americans are expecting a greater depression, from which we may never recover.

We no longer have the industry to expand.

 Our open markets import merchandise made by child and sweat shop labor that puts American industry out of business.

This wonderful Free Market is not reciprocal. 

We are in serious trouble here, trillions on the war, billions on illegal invaders, free trade that benefits anyone but the US, debilitating inflation, outsourcing to the point that it destroys US industry and job opportunities, soaring fuel costs, and crooked, bribe-taking leadership.  All supported by taxes of the people who are increasingly finding supporting their families near impossible.

The Sunshine Law makes candidates tell who makes campaign contributions.

However, the difference between stock profits and out right contributions is mere semantics.

Is there leadership with the patriotism to put the future of the American nation before their own goal of acquiring massive personal wealth?

In grade 5 in our science book, we read that nuclear power was going to be too cheap to meter.  I believed it.

We also read that someday we would use little plastic computer cards to pay for everything, even gas, and instead of pay checks, your pay would go directly into your account.  I didn't believe it.

Now I look at this energy crisis and think: The American public and politicians are going to get smarter and come up with alternative means of energy.  We will get off the ever increasing consumption of oil and conserve.  Maybe I am just not a good guesser.

Maybe people will remain self indulgent.  Politicians will watch out for themselves and destroy the country with their greed. 

I envision some company designing wind turbines that can go up a pole like a flag, produce electricity for the individual home, then in case of hurricane, just be slid to the ground and safely secured and protected.  I see cost effective public transportation expanding in cities and between major cities.  I see electric cars being advanced just as the gasoline engine advanced from the model T to the electronic, luxurious wonders today.

Survivalist are on the move again, stockpiling food and weapons.  Maybe they are better guessers.  Politicians will look out for themselves and watch the country burn out.  Oil companies will pay off politicians and car companies to keep up the production of the gas guzzlers, which will bury the auto industry.  Food and fuel will become too expensive to buy.  When the country burns out, oil investors will be on some remote island sitting fat and content having cocktail parties with the politicians.

What are the solutions? 

If you had the power, what would you do to change the direction of the country?

Am I a dreamer, gloom and doomer, or finally guessing right?

In a court of law, a person has to be found sane enough to understand the difference between right and wrong.

Well that is stupid. 

Think about it.  Does a sane person commit murder?

If someone really got you mad, do you kill him?

Of course not, because you are sane (most of you bloggers).

Therefore, if someone commits murder, they are insane. 

All murderers are insane. 

So is it a difference of degrees?

If you begin with the premise that the law is there to protect the innocent, then there should be a verdict, "Guilty by reason of Insanity."

We do not put them away to punish them, but to protect the innocent.

One other thing.  In Atlanta, someone held up a store and killed the Emory law student there.  His wife was pregnant.  They caught the guy and sent him to prison.

Now, I was innocent, but I have to pay for this pile of feces to live in prison, (about $200,000 ?) a year for life.

I want a choice. 

Kill the killer, one shot.

Then I pay the widow $40,000 for 5 years.  She has the baby, then goes back to school so she can support herself and her baby.

The loser never gets out on parole.

We save big bucks.