GM and Chrysler have been the two automotive companies that have come under heavy government scrutiny since receiving bailout money. The companies are running out of time to offer a restructuring plan to the Obama administration. The two seem destined for government controlled bankruptcy and closings.
Since March, President Obama has said that these companies would not be "wards of the state", but would be forced to stand on their own. But getting this far has cost the American taxpayers close to $28 Million. Needless to say, the federal government has invested quite a deal into the restructuring of GM and Chrysler and would have over 70% control of the company.
The President seems to be making a lot of decisions about the future and direction of these two companies. President Obama has already asked the CEO of GM to step down, whereas Chrysler's CEO volunteered to step down. President Obama has asked the restructured GM and Chrysler to implement tougher fuel standards.
Capitalism allows businesses to be free from government control and allows for survival of the fittest (only those companies that are profitable will continue to exist, whereas inefficient companies will close down). By coddling these companies, President Obama and President Bush have violated the basic rules of capitalism. If these companies were that inefficient, they should have been allowed to close regardless of how many workers would have been affected. Their closings would have allowed other businesses to capture more of the market share and employ workers displaced by the closings of GM and Chrysler when the economy rebounded.
Our founding fathers put in place a very elaborate political system because they knew that absolute power corrupts, absolutely. President Obama's Automotive Task Force, heading the Chrysler restructuring, has engaged in some less-than-honorable practices of patronage.
There are an estimated 789 dealerships that are set to close by June 9th which will result in approximately 38,000 jobs lost. This during a time when President Obama has been trying to create jobs to alleviate the high unemployment (which, as of Thursday, unemployment benefit requests dramatically decreased; a welcomed sign of the recession's end).
Chrysler President, Jim Press, has said that the decision on which dealerships to close and which would remain open "really wasn't Chrysler's" as the company is under pressure from President Obama's Automotive Task Force. Many of the closing dealers have been reported to donate large amounts of money to the Republican party. One particular dealer "conveniently" having his dealership closed is U.S. Representative Vern Buchanan (R-FL), whereas Mack McLarty (former Clinton White House Chief of Staff) and Robert Johnson (founder of Black Entertainment Television), both strong Democratic supporters, have been allowed to keep their dealerships.
U.S. Representative Aaron Shock (R-IL) has called for an investigation into the Obama Administration's methodology in determining which dealerships stay open and which close.
There is also a strong correlation between dealership closings and the congressional voting districts that President Obama did not carry in the 2008 Presidential election. Texas and West Virginia are getting hit hard, whereas the Republican districts in Florida are also seeing some of their dealerships close. The blue states Obama carried during the 2008 election seem to be receiving the better end of the deal.
There is no doubt in my mind that Chrysler needs to close some dealerships, but if the report from Chrysler President Jim Press is true, then the Obama Administration has unethically began closing dealerships in areas that are traditionally Republican. He may have done so out of spite for these Republican districts or to increase the unemployed that can benefit from some of his programs, helping him fair better in the 2012 election.
To me, this is the primary reason to keep the government out of business, no matter what the cost. When the President's friends start to make out better than enemies, the whole market is at a disadvantage (regardless of who is in office). And once again, President Obama, you have managed to show us that you are more of the same, and the promise of "Hope" and "Change" was just a ruse. The liberal media has yet to catch onto this story, and I doubt they ever will.
So, you heard it here first. I beat Fox News to it. And I know I'm going to catch flack for it on the online edition, but that's okay. I have always found it amazing how people will write such negative and nasty things online when they get to use an anonymous screen-name to hide their identities. I'm just reporting the truth, whether or not you want to hear it.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Remembering Memorial Day
For many Americans, Memorial Day is first long weekends of the summer. Friends and families will gather to celebrate with a barbeque. People may take camping trips. Others may elect to use the extra day for a home-improvement project. In Bell County, Memorial Day also coincides with the time-honored tradition of the Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival.
But lets not get wrapped up in all the celebrations and forget the reason we celebrate Memorial Day; to honor fallen war heroes. This has not ever been a issue in Bell County. People in Bell County have some of the strongest, if not the strongest overall, sense of patriotism I have ever known. This day is, and rightfully should be, sacred to all Americans.
The sentiment I have knowing the sacrifice of my forefathers, relatives, and loved ones can be overwhelming at times. I have sense of pride to know people who have served their country honorably and faithfully. I feel reverence and admiration when I see their names engraved on a stone dedicated to the sacrifice of the few, for the many. Those names, seemingly just inscriptions, are the names of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends.
Memorial Day was originally named Decoration Day, because mourners decorated soldiers' graves from the Civil War. Approximately 5,000 mourners, including orphans and widows, placed flowers and flags on the 20,000 Union and Confederate war heroes' graves buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. To show their respect, supporters gathered, recited poems, sang hymns and marched.
However, since the Civil War, there have been many wars since this time. We are still currently at war. There are victims everyday.
No matter your view on war, it is important to honor those soldiers who have paid the ultimate price and honor those who continue to defend us to this day. There have been several occassions where I have seen a man or woman in uniform and I thanked them for their service. Their sacrifice is unlike any other.
So before we light up our grills, get dressed up for the Queen's Coronation, start that do-it-yourself home improvement project, or take our tents out to the camp grounds, let us remember those who died to protect our freedom.
Find a soldier and thank him or her for their service. If you know someone who has been experienced the loss of a loved one serving in the military, offer your condolences and thank them for the sacrifice of their loved one. Mail a simple thank you note to someone serving overseas. They'll appreciate it more than you might think.
And above all else, thank you, veterans for your service and your sacrifice. It will not go unnoticed or unappreciated.
But lets not get wrapped up in all the celebrations and forget the reason we celebrate Memorial Day; to honor fallen war heroes. This has not ever been a issue in Bell County. People in Bell County have some of the strongest, if not the strongest overall, sense of patriotism I have ever known. This day is, and rightfully should be, sacred to all Americans.
The sentiment I have knowing the sacrifice of my forefathers, relatives, and loved ones can be overwhelming at times. I have sense of pride to know people who have served their country honorably and faithfully. I feel reverence and admiration when I see their names engraved on a stone dedicated to the sacrifice of the few, for the many. Those names, seemingly just inscriptions, are the names of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends.
Memorial Day was originally named Decoration Day, because mourners decorated soldiers' graves from the Civil War. Approximately 5,000 mourners, including orphans and widows, placed flowers and flags on the 20,000 Union and Confederate war heroes' graves buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. To show their respect, supporters gathered, recited poems, sang hymns and marched.
However, since the Civil War, there have been many wars since this time. We are still currently at war. There are victims everyday.
No matter your view on war, it is important to honor those soldiers who have paid the ultimate price and honor those who continue to defend us to this day. There have been several occassions where I have seen a man or woman in uniform and I thanked them for their service. Their sacrifice is unlike any other.
So before we light up our grills, get dressed up for the Queen's Coronation, start that do-it-yourself home improvement project, or take our tents out to the camp grounds, let us remember those who died to protect our freedom.
Find a soldier and thank him or her for their service. If you know someone who has been experienced the loss of a loved one serving in the military, offer your condolences and thank them for the sacrifice of their loved one. Mail a simple thank you note to someone serving overseas. They'll appreciate it more than you might think.
And above all else, thank you, veterans for your service and your sacrifice. It will not go unnoticed or unappreciated.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Once You Stop Learning, You Start Dying
This is a follow up to the article, "A Penny Saved is a Government Oversight".
One reader questioned if I thought that people chose to be poor. I took some extra time to think about this while I was traveling over the week. A good car ride allows my thoughts to ferment to fruition.
I arrived at the following conclusion: Not everyone chooses to live in poverty. This, albeit simple, conclusion is the product of knowing there are disadvantaged individuals from birth and will never prosper by the American standard of "success". But it's this definition of "disadvantaged" that will prove to be the line in the sand.
When I think of someone who is disadvantaged and lives in poverty, I think of those who are unable to gain employment and independently sustain living. Most often these individuals are disabled, whether from birth or by accident. My definition of the disadvantaged are the people who are disadvantaged through no fault of their own and have subsequently suffered economically as a result of that disadvantage.
In contrast, there are individuals who are poor yet lack any physical disadvantages discussed above. If you were to compare the individuals without a physical disadvantage (both poor and rich), I believe you would find that the main difference between these groups is not the amount of income they have, but the choices they made that led them to where they are now.
Every day we are faced with a plethora of choices. Some small, some monumentally life changing. Sometimes we make bad decisions, but hopefully we make good decisions most of the time. But making too many bad decisions can lead to our undoing.
It is my belief that regardless of our socio-economic status at birth, we can all achieve success. That is the essence behind the American dream; it is the appeal that has made America the leading nation in immigration. Our forefathers came to America because America is the land of opportunity; the place where a person can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps to achieve success. To sum up; anyone can succeed, but success is determined by hard work and the decisions we make everyday.
Inherently, those who have succeeded make it easier to pass that success onto their offspring. Those who come from families where success has not been established will find it harder, but it is still possible to achieve.
Now I can fluff on this column from here on out and tell you that success is measured by your own personal drive and say other feel good things that will excite you for a total of 5 minutes. But I won't do that. I won't act like those "get-rich-quick" schemes on late night television. The truth I want to give all the readers is that every decision you make affects where you will be for the rest of your life.
We can choose premarital sex when we're young, and increase your chances of a pregnancy. Having an additional mouth to feed makes it more difficult to achieve successl; if you don't have very supportive parents you have to take whatever job you can get to put food on the table.
We can choose drugs that can ultimately lead to deadly consequences or the missed opportunity at a good career. It's hard to think straight if you're brain is fried from severe drug use. It's hard to land a good job if you have a criminal record.
We can choose to look for a job where we currently live or we can uproot and locate someplace where there are good jobs. It's hard to get a good job in Bell County when there are none and it's hard to uproot and leave friends and family behind. Sometime's it's necessary though to succeed. I feel bad when I see someone working a dead end job, especially when it's the only job they can get in Bell County. But that may be the key; it's the only job they can get in Bell County, not elsewhere. To use an old expression; "It's easier to bring Muhammed to the Mountain than the Mountain to Muhammed".
But the biggest factor in determining one's success is education. Hands down. We can choose to slide by in our education. We can choose to accept a C or a D as acceptable and do just enough to ensure we graduate from high school and never go any farther. It's extremely hard to get a job in today's economy without a higher education and this is the primary reason college enrollment has dramatically increased during the recession. The better the education you have, the more irreplacable you are in the workforce. The education we receive/have will directly influence our income and subsequently, our success.
We've heard this from guidance counselors, teachers, and if we're lucky enough, our parent(s). I was lucky enough to have a father and a mother that pushed me to excel in the classroom and always reminded me that my success was linked to my academics.
I understand there are people who just naturally understand course material in school and there are others that don't. But if I didn't understand the material at first, I took the extra time to learn it. I had to spend a lot of extra time on Chemistry, World Civilizations, and History but I was still successful in those courses.
If we choose to do the work, we learn the material. When we learn the material, we do better on exams. When we do better on exams, we make better overall grades. When we make better overall grades, we increase our chances of being accepted to a good university. When we get graduate from a good university, we increase our chances of getting a good paying job. Today anyone can attend college if you have the necessary grades. There are numerous financing options available. Scholarships may be decreasing in supply (Pell Grants, KEES money), but anyone can get a student loan and the return on investment from that student loan is priceless.
I think part of the problem today is the devaluation of education. This devaluation existed when I was in school and exists still today. Those who were considered "smarter" were teased by classmates, thereby helping to ingrain the idea that education is undesirable. As an example, African American males tease each other for academic accomplishments and in order to win favor with their peers, will intentionally stop learning material. At some point, these individuals hit a point of no return as they are too far gone to catch up.
So our choices directly impact the success that we have in our lives. To say otherwise is ignorance. People do not consciously wake up one morning and say to themselves, "I think I want to be poor for the rest of my life". I never suggested that. But poor decisions yield poor results. So be it as it may, the best path to success is to make the best decisions possible to secure your future success; but start first with your education. Outside of that, those daily decisions are up to you.
One reader questioned if I thought that people chose to be poor. I took some extra time to think about this while I was traveling over the week. A good car ride allows my thoughts to ferment to fruition.
I arrived at the following conclusion: Not everyone chooses to live in poverty. This, albeit simple, conclusion is the product of knowing there are disadvantaged individuals from birth and will never prosper by the American standard of "success". But it's this definition of "disadvantaged" that will prove to be the line in the sand.
When I think of someone who is disadvantaged and lives in poverty, I think of those who are unable to gain employment and independently sustain living. Most often these individuals are disabled, whether from birth or by accident. My definition of the disadvantaged are the people who are disadvantaged through no fault of their own and have subsequently suffered economically as a result of that disadvantage.
In contrast, there are individuals who are poor yet lack any physical disadvantages discussed above. If you were to compare the individuals without a physical disadvantage (both poor and rich), I believe you would find that the main difference between these groups is not the amount of income they have, but the choices they made that led them to where they are now.
Every day we are faced with a plethora of choices. Some small, some monumentally life changing. Sometimes we make bad decisions, but hopefully we make good decisions most of the time. But making too many bad decisions can lead to our undoing.
It is my belief that regardless of our socio-economic status at birth, we can all achieve success. That is the essence behind the American dream; it is the appeal that has made America the leading nation in immigration. Our forefathers came to America because America is the land of opportunity; the place where a person can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps to achieve success. To sum up; anyone can succeed, but success is determined by hard work and the decisions we make everyday.
Inherently, those who have succeeded make it easier to pass that success onto their offspring. Those who come from families where success has not been established will find it harder, but it is still possible to achieve.
Now I can fluff on this column from here on out and tell you that success is measured by your own personal drive and say other feel good things that will excite you for a total of 5 minutes. But I won't do that. I won't act like those "get-rich-quick" schemes on late night television. The truth I want to give all the readers is that every decision you make affects where you will be for the rest of your life.
We can choose premarital sex when we're young, and increase your chances of a pregnancy. Having an additional mouth to feed makes it more difficult to achieve successl; if you don't have very supportive parents you have to take whatever job you can get to put food on the table.
We can choose drugs that can ultimately lead to deadly consequences or the missed opportunity at a good career. It's hard to think straight if you're brain is fried from severe drug use. It's hard to land a good job if you have a criminal record.
We can choose to look for a job where we currently live or we can uproot and locate someplace where there are good jobs. It's hard to get a good job in Bell County when there are none and it's hard to uproot and leave friends and family behind. Sometime's it's necessary though to succeed. I feel bad when I see someone working a dead end job, especially when it's the only job they can get in Bell County. But that may be the key; it's the only job they can get in Bell County, not elsewhere. To use an old expression; "It's easier to bring Muhammed to the Mountain than the Mountain to Muhammed".
But the biggest factor in determining one's success is education. Hands down. We can choose to slide by in our education. We can choose to accept a C or a D as acceptable and do just enough to ensure we graduate from high school and never go any farther. It's extremely hard to get a job in today's economy without a higher education and this is the primary reason college enrollment has dramatically increased during the recession. The better the education you have, the more irreplacable you are in the workforce. The education we receive/have will directly influence our income and subsequently, our success.
We've heard this from guidance counselors, teachers, and if we're lucky enough, our parent(s). I was lucky enough to have a father and a mother that pushed me to excel in the classroom and always reminded me that my success was linked to my academics.
I understand there are people who just naturally understand course material in school and there are others that don't. But if I didn't understand the material at first, I took the extra time to learn it. I had to spend a lot of extra time on Chemistry, World Civilizations, and History but I was still successful in those courses.
If we choose to do the work, we learn the material. When we learn the material, we do better on exams. When we do better on exams, we make better overall grades. When we make better overall grades, we increase our chances of being accepted to a good university. When we get graduate from a good university, we increase our chances of getting a good paying job. Today anyone can attend college if you have the necessary grades. There are numerous financing options available. Scholarships may be decreasing in supply (Pell Grants, KEES money), but anyone can get a student loan and the return on investment from that student loan is priceless.
I think part of the problem today is the devaluation of education. This devaluation existed when I was in school and exists still today. Those who were considered "smarter" were teased by classmates, thereby helping to ingrain the idea that education is undesirable. As an example, African American males tease each other for academic accomplishments and in order to win favor with their peers, will intentionally stop learning material. At some point, these individuals hit a point of no return as they are too far gone to catch up.
So our choices directly impact the success that we have in our lives. To say otherwise is ignorance. People do not consciously wake up one morning and say to themselves, "I think I want to be poor for the rest of my life". I never suggested that. But poor decisions yield poor results. So be it as it may, the best path to success is to make the best decisions possible to secure your future success; but start first with your education. Outside of that, those daily decisions are up to you.
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