Bailouts

I was digging around the archives looking for a post I thought I'd created, but it must have just been an email I sent to the die hard fans on my mailing list.  It was my proposal for the banking industry bailout and it went something like this: 

If you want my money, these are the rules: (for PUBLICLY OWNED/TRADED COMPANIES)

1.  Salaries of all "c-level" employees (CEO, CFO, CIO...) are not to exceed 20 times the average salary of your full-time employees, or, if you prefer, not to exceed 30 times your lowest paid employee including part-timers.

2.  C-level benefits packages must be available to all full-time employees at similar proportions of their incomes.  

3.  No other form of compensation (options, parachutes, trusts) may be provided to C employees that are not also available to and resonably attainable by all other full time employees.  

4.  You can return to your ridiculous pay structures as soon as you've paid back all principal and interest.  

If you don't like these terms, don't take the money.  Four rules.  Simple as that.

Remember,  it's you bastards who got rich while the rest of us lost our homes and our jobs over the last seven years.  Don't wait too long for us to come to your rescue.

These rules were part of my proposal for publicly-owned and traded companies, but especially for those financial companies who sit at the top of the funnel, up through which all of America's money passes.  

To that I'd like to add that it's time the people on top of that funnel, where the entire nation's wealth is concentrated should be subject to THE MOST scrutiny and REGULATION of any other industry in America.  That's ALL of OUR money up there.  They skim the most of it off and keep it for themselves as it is, and that's fine as long as their practices are sound.  You don't have to be a financial genius to know that naked short selling isn't sound and shouldn't even be legal.  WTF!?

But what pissed me off the most about the whole deal was that these are the same people who call welfare, adequate public education funding and universal healthcare "socialism" but when the money goes the other direction it's "vital to our economic stability."

These bailouts are welfare.  Plain and simple.  The only difference is that the tax money is going straight to the top... as if even the welfare must now trickle down to save us.  Our money just wasn't getting funneled up fast enough -  Bush's plan to sell out middle Amercia to Big Corporate wasn't working fast enough, so now we'll print more money than we have, hand it directly over to those at the top of the chain and put the bill on the middle Americans who actually manage to keep their jobs... and their kids and grandkids.  The dollar goes down, the debt goes up and the guys who got us into this mess walk away with fat wallets, as usual.  That's the only "economy" we're saving.  The pressure and the deadline (fear tactics) for the billions we handed over to the banks came straight out of the "we must invade Iraq" playbook.  And though raising taxes is a horrible idea, every man, woman and child in America is now strapped with an additional 3-grand to pay back at some point... but it's not a tax, so that's cool.  We don't want to raise taxes 'cuz it would kill the economy!

So now we're contemplating bailing out the auto industry as well.  There are certainly a lot of perspectives from which to approach this.  As an Ohioan, whose household income has been comprised in parts varying from 2/3 to 1/2 from the auto industry over the years, it's a tough line to walk.  The funny thing is, the employers providing that income have been either German or Japanese since the early 90's.  Those German and Japanese employers' biggest customers have been Ford, GM, and Chrysler, but they've also made parts for Honda, Toyota, Nissan and a few others here and there.  My wife and my brother both currently work for German companies whose primary customers are the Big Three.  Fortunately for both of them (and me) their companies also supply the OTHER American auto industry, so while their business has slowed with the economy, their fates don't rest solely with the Big Three.

Having lived in the shadow of the Honda Engine plant in Anna, OH, I'm amazed at how many large companies and mom and pop shops spring up to support that operation.  What's so amazing is how so many jobs can be ignored by so large a segment of America.  Whenever I hear someone tell a Honda driver to "buy American" I wonder what they're talking about.  I don't know if it's true anymore, but the Ohio-built Honda Accord was for a number of years the MOST American of any car "made in America."  Show me a car company that has invested more in Ohio jobs in the last 20 years than Honda?  Show me a plant newer than the Marysville assembly or Anna engine plants.  My point is, the auto industry in America, and especially in Ohio, isn't dead, there are just a few new names.

There are plenty of viable automotive manufacturers employing thousands of Americans across the U.S.   They don't need bailed out and sales of some of their models have even increased.  Their business model is slightly different than the Big Threes' models. They anticipate and build to the market (what a novel idea to let the market dictate) rather than just building cars that won't be bought to satisfy ill-advised union contracts accepted when times were good. They pay decent wages in a clean, safe environment, and best of all, they pay taxes.  Their employees pay taxes, and they and their employees are likely to survive this recession. That union part is a whole other post, but the business model is a key part of my plan for the auto industry bailout... so now that I've told that story, I can tell this one:

I will add only one modification to my bank bailout rules for the auto industry and it is this:  auto industry execs need not apply.

Don't patronize me with your $1 annual salary offers.  And don't bother telling me you'll now do what Jimmy Carter warned you about in 1977.  We probably shouldn't have done it for the banks either, but two wrongs won't make it right.

Ford says they can weather this storm, having finally acted on Carter's pleas about 28 years later.  Yep, they started building a more fuel efficient product line about three years ago.  They can meet payroll and suffer through until about 2011 according to them, so they don't need it.

Chrysler already had their chance.  I don't know what their prospects are and I've given up trying to understand how much of it belongs to Mercedes, so someone will have to enlighten me on that, but they're out anyway.

The best thing that could happen to GM is to declare bankruptcy and start over.  I'm not sure what effect that will have on the entire U.S. economy, but it's a long time coming.  This is a company who had a production electric car on the market more than ten years ago.  Do you know how many of those they could have sold had they continued to work on that and have, say 100,000 of them perfected and ready to go last spring when gas prices topped $4 a gallon?  Gas will cost that much again, and how much closer to having that old idea ready to go will GM be? They put their money into Hummers, full-size trucks and SUVs not because that's what they predicted the market would bear next year or five years from now, but because that's what was profitable right here and right now.  Now that moment has passed and they find themselves in a bit of a pickle.  Well, you get what you pay for... and what we've paid for all this time.  Don't ask us for more.

My advice to GM is to stick to the small government manifesto that they preached to congress 30 years ago:  let the market run its course.  (actually, they said what's good for GM is good for the nation, but the point was "leave us alone")  So we should heed that point now.  If your business plan accounts for that market, you'll be just fine.  If not, the market will correct itself and you and in the long run we'll all be better for it.  Maybe they should ask their buddies in Big Oil for some extra cash.

I'm sure it will cause quite a ripple if the big G really fails and I'm not sure how comfortably my household will survive it, but like the evil drill sergeant always said during PT, "you can pay me now or you can pay me later."  Might as well pay him now cuz it sure looks like we're all screwed anyway.  Why prolong it?

It doesn't make much sense to offer loans to a company we know can't pay us back when we can buy a majority stake in that company for about 10% of what they seek in loans.  I was an English major, but that's not tough math.  I have to agree in part with Michael Moore - Detroit born and raised, former UAW employee - when he says the best plan for GM would be for the gov't to take it over, convert its facilities to start retrofitting America for mass transit, and when it turns a profit, pay ourselves back and sell it off the highest bidder.  (I know, I know, his arguments are usually just the left version of Rush Limbaugh's... oversimplified, etc. but hey, why not start up a New Deal kind of CCC - Obama's been talking about it anyway.  As soon as we're done in Iraq, we've got a couple a billion a week to pour into it!)

I've heard the argument that cities like LA, who needs it most, were built before true, efficient mass transit was a real concern and that it just won't work there, but I have only one thing to say to that: Rome.  It may not have been built in a day, but it was around a long time before the first commuter train ever appeared.  There's no reason we can't line every major commuter path in American with light rail, skyrocketing the economy and reducing our dependence on so much oil all in the same public works/GM project.  How many frickin jobs will that create?

All right, it's way past my bed time and I've covered more than enough topics for one post.

Laters

Luth

 

Abortions, movie reviews, big government

Well, you couldn't have avoided it on the news. A baby born in Saudi Arabia was pregnant with the fetus with whom she'd previously shared her mother's womb. The Saudi doctors interviewed for the Pravda article I read weren't sure how common, or uncommon this was, but they were sure it was the first time they'd seen it.

Turns out, according to that same Pravda article, it's more common than we might think. By that, I mean the article listed a few other examples of it happening in the recent past - which makes the phenomenon more common than I thought, anyway!

So the natural question that follows, on this blog anyway, is whether or not aborting this "baby" is murder. It's been conceived already so it's a life, but that's not how the medical experts in the Pravda article describe it. Here's a paragraph from the article:

A fetus in fetu can be considered alive, but only in the sense that its component tissues have not yet died or been eliminated. Thus, the life of a fetus in fetu is inherently limited to that of an invasive tumor. In principle, its cells must have some degree of normal metabolic activity to have remained viable. However, without the gestational conditions attainable (so far) only in utero with the amnion and placenta, a fetus in fetu can develop into, at best, an especially well-differentiated teratoma; or, at worst, a high-grade metastatic teratocarcinoma. In terms of physical maturation, its organs have a working blood supply from the host, but all cases of fetus in fetu present critical defects, such as no functional brain, heart, lungs, gastrointestinal tract, or urinary tract. Accordingly, while a fetus in fetu can share select morphological features with a normal fetus, it has no prospect of any life outside of the host twin. Moreover, it poses clear threats to the life of the host twin on whom its own life depends.

It's alive, but only in the sense that its tissues have not yet died or been eliminated. In addition to posing a threat to its "twin host" it is described as a tumor. Which leads me to wonder... how different is that "tumor" from a single fertilized egg in a normal pregnancy? (alive, in the sense that its tissues have not yet died or been eliminated) How about in a pregnancy resulting from rape... in a 12 year old? It poses very similar immediate physical threats in addition to the lifelong less physical threats of raising the child.

It's been explained to me by some very intelligent Catholics that the miracle of conception is the precise moment at which this mass of cells becomes a life worthy of protecting. That's when the soul is... well, whatever... you need faith, not science to follow that part of the explanation. Prior to conception, no problem, but once conceived, whole new ballgame. So the doctors who saved the pregnant Saudi baby's life are murderers. Likewise the doctors who removed the very human remains from a 36 year-old Indian farmer or the 6 month-old Indian boy noted in the same article... murderers all. Well, actually the farmer was the murderer in that case since his body refused to host his former twin for 36 years. His doctors can only be accused of removing the "still-born fetus" from the farmer's abdomen after he finally complained of stomach pains. But enough about that from me... for now.

MOVIES

Took a break from Christmas shopping/holiday travels to see Four Christmases with the Mrs. Luth this weekend. This in spite of a review that said something like: "their difference in height far surpasses their chemistry" referring to Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon's characters. This kind of blather is exactly why I continue to spew my nonsense here. At least I don't expect to be paid for it. While I will agree with that particular reviewers 2.5 of 5 stars overall, I have to wonder if the the reviewer even watched more than about ten minutes of the movie.

Initially, the two main characters offer little more dialogue than the practiced lines about why they've been together for three years but have no plans to get married or have children. They've delivered the practiced lines so many times that it's clear neither of them really believes them anymore. They're just reading from the anti-marriage script and flaunting their selfish crap about not wanting to get bogged down in the legality or the labels. Mistaking that for a lack of chemistry was a pretty clear indication to me that this reviewer didn't know what he was watching.

Two of the four Christmases portrayed could have been shortened considerably, but they had their moments and the other two were downright funny. One in particular relied too heavily on a ridiculous send up of a mega church Christmas eve service. (the warm up music was Gary Glitter's Rock and Roll part 2) That's only funny if you don't already find all that pomp and circumstance ridiculous to begin with. Vaughn is the guy you expect - funny, vulnerable, macho, stupid, clever, tough and wimpy at the same time. Witherspoon is pretty much the same character from Legally Blonde without so much over-blondeness, which is to say, mildly attractive and funny too, so what else did you expect or want from them?  I mistakenly assumed Jon Favreau cast himself in a larger role than usual in the movies he directs, but he was hilarious as the not quite professional cage fighter brother in two of the Vaughn family Christmases.  The scene where he and his equally red-throated wife dominate a game of Taboo was a highlight, but the actual director was Seth Gordon, who, unlike Favreau, resisted the temptation to insert himself as a character.

As a break from the holiday hustle and bustle, it was well worth the money and it made for an enjoyable and rare night out without the kids. I'm not sure it would have fared too well had it had any real competition though. I wasn't really surprised to hear that it took in nearly 40 million in its first weekend, beating out only a kids movie and a vampire movie.  Although it did manage to top a James Bond movie and a third installment of Transporter!! for the weekend take anyway.  

We went, partly to see if it might replace National Lampoons Christmas Vacation among our holiday traditions, but alas, Vacation remains unseated at the top of the Luther Family Christmas traditions.  This reviewer's recommendation: it'll entertain you, but it'll wait for the DVD too.

BIG GOV

My boss is retiring. While cleaning out her office, she ran across the summary report Al Gore prepared for Bill Clinton before they left office that detailed their efforts to reduce, revamp or eliminate government positions, agencies and in general both the size and the scope of federal government. Backed by OBM dollar figures and OPM body counts, it was a pretty amazing look at the party of big government's largely successful efforts resulting in a budget surplus and the smallest gov't since well before the Reagan years. Which begs the question, on this blog anyway, how in the heck can anyone claim to be a Repub these days because they want smaller, more efficient government? I'll try to remember to dig around for a link to the summary report somewhere cuz you have to read it for yourself. But given the cost of gov't over the last 8 years, the price we paid in interest rates, unemployment and inflation after the Reagan-Bush years, and the numbers in the report, it has to be obvious to anyone not blinded by party loyalty that, just like the Party of Lincoln, the roles and goals of the parties have changed quite a bit over the years.

It's stuff like that that helps me justify true independence. I may be liberal, but liberal ideas can be found on both sides of the aisle if you're willing to look with your eyes open. Allowing them to be closed by the blinders of strong party affiliation is what, IMHO, has led us into the quagmire politics has become.

I want better. If they're gonna hook me for 25% of my income, dammit, I want better. I don't care what party brings it as long as it gets brung.

Luth

Out