Who are the patriots?

Posted by Ray on February 18, 2011 under Main | Be the First to Comment

Social unrest has swept the globe and the only surprise to this fact is that it has taken some 3 years for it to happen. In foreign lands which many have never even heard of the name of the countries the people want change, real change. Some are fighting because of political repression and others because of higher food prices, thanks Ben, and they are politically oppressed. Regardless of the reasons people are on the move and America is not immune from this change.

In Madison Wisconsin we are witnessing the first of what I predict will be many protests over public union contracts. It is simply amazing that the unions are so upset over modest changes to healthcare and pension premiums, 12% is the magic number there. However, it seems the real sticking point is that Wisconsin wants to reform the collective bargaining arrangement which has consistently favored labor for the last 50 years and, in my opinion, has allowed for unions to make demands that have led to higher taxation of the people because the pension funds were so underfunded, as participants did not have to add any money to it, and healthcare costs rocketed to the moon, again, participants had to add little to no money to their health insurance plan. On top of these fantastic benefits they have job security meaning they literally cannot be fired.

In a nutshell, states are going bankrupt in order to pay a few peoples pensions, often 70-80% of the last 3 years of the employee’s highest earning pay. Oh, did I mention that they also got mandatory 4-5% cost of living adjustments during their working years and during their retirement? It is a good deal and getting these public sector jobs are difficult and you typically have to know someone to get one. You also get nice vacation time as well, often starting off with up to 3 or 4 weeks and earning more as time goes on. When things do not go well you strike to get your way.

Unions are what drove GM and Chrysler out of business and their bankruptcies allowed them to start over with their contracts. Since those contracts were redone both firms are doing much better, go figure. Ford forced unions to the table threatening bankruptcy and got their contracts redone and look what is happening there. In all 3 cases the union employees are happy. Sure, they are not as happy as they were when the Job Bank was there, they got paid for months at normal rates if they were laid off, but they have hobs, goof benefits and in GM’s case they got the biggest bonus ever, I believe, last year. This is evidence that when you take the power away from unions it actually benefits the employees, but only time will tell if this continues but so far it looks pretty good.

The public sector though, well, should they be unionized at all? I personally do not believe so, but at the same time when dealing with the government some protection is warranted so I would say a nontraditional union is needed not the super strong unions we currently see that curry state and the federal government into bankruptcy. If you are paying attention to the Madison situation it is very interesting especially from the media’s perspective.

I have been watching a lot of MSNBC lately who was classic for smashing and ridiculing the Tea Party last year. I have to say that their coverage of Madison is much, much different than their coverage of the Tea Party events. For starters the Tea Party events were all nonviolent, completely peaceful open gatherings where kooks were chased away. Contrary to all reports no racists were there and I saw plenty of nonwhite people attend and, in short, they were people who cared about the country and wanted to restore some sanity in the government which is a noble cause in my mind. They were described by MSNBC as America hating racists who want to destroy this country, all we stand for and are violent, not one report of violence was ever reported to my knowledge.

Compare that to Madison which is all white, ironic in my opinion, they spat upon state senators, pushed them around, shouted them down, shouted for an Egyptian style revolution and held signs of the usual Hitler pictures. MSNBC said these people were being stripped of their civil rights and are fighting for democracy even though their elected officials fled the state so a vote could not take place. The protesters were teachers who walked out of their jobs, that they love, supposedly, to protest for a week straight so kids are now without school which means parents are paying for daycare or babysitting. These people are not fighting for work, they are not fighting against a massive pay cut or furloughs what they are fighting about is paying an extra 12% for their benefits that are outstanding and still way underpriced.

Keep in mind that if this bill does not go through some 6,000 people will lose their jobs, think about that for a minute. Instead of giving up 12% and the right to strong arm the state later on they instead decided to walk off their jobs, spit and shove people, and cost 6,000 people their jobs. Oh, the 12% benefit hike was on the table last fall and the union rejected it and they are trying to get it back now because of the removal of the collective bargaining language in this bill, keep in mind that the senate only got rid of the collective bargaining language because they rejected the 12% then, but decided to take it when the state decided to play hardball. What the new language does is gives the state more equal say in negotiations with unions instead of the unions having 90% of the power like they have now. It is time to reduce their power especially in the public sector where we all pay for these people through our tax dollars.

As far as who are the patriots I would have to say the Tea Party wins hands down. You may not agree with their politics, but I can guarantee you they will always be polite to you, respect your views, not spit on you, shove you and they will defend your right to say whatever and gather wherever you want just as the Constitution allows. I am not so sure about the Madison people I have a feeling if you agree with them they will like you, but if you disagree with them get out of their way and that is not patriotic, American or the sign of a healthy Democracy. I had to say m peace. Thank you.

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If you own a pickup truck you might be a racist

Posted by Ray on January 19, 2010 under Main | 2 Comments to Read

According to Mr., and I use that term loosely, Olbermann, if you are a pickup truck owner, like trucks, against bigger governments or, apparently, a white guy you are a racist. Hey, don’t yell at me, he said it and makes the suggestion and I just tell you about it since his audience consists of me and 2 other people locked in a basement somewhere. In fact, MSNBC has been playing the race card for the past year now asking how race relations have changed over the past year.

The irony is that I rarely if ever think about race of individuals at all and I don’t think most people do except those baiting for a fight, MSNBC in this case. I never even hear Fox make much reference to race, but MSNBC brings it up all the time, why? How in the world can race be more important than a person’s beliefs or policies? You see, that is what I pay attention to, what people say and do, not what color they are. I simply do not care what color people are, but apparently the progressive, liberal, MSNBC does and yet I am supposed to be the racists. No, I do not own a pickup truck, but I am a white guy and I detest big government, uh oh!

I am only boosting Keith’s ratings tonight because I want to see his face if/when Brown wins, he called brown a racists, homophobe (spelling??), bigot, sexist, and on and on while completely ignoring Coakley’s willingness to let a pedophile go free because of political ties. Of course, all Democrats seem to ignore things like this, don’t worry Republicans seem to ignore the tax cheats and corruptness of their friends to, but at least they are not touching little kids, except for Foley, even then the kid wasn’t 2. Regardless, the hypocrisy of the Democrats is, in my opinion, so much worse than the Republicans in 2006.

I recently wrote a liberal and asked if he knew why Obama received $23M from Wall Street, more than most other candidates, he did not know. I told him it is because most Democrats are too stupid to understand how Wall Street works and that is why the likes of Goldman give the Democrats more money than Republicans. Of course, the media and Democrats say Republicans are for Wall Street, but that is simply a lie. Proof of this is no further than Freddie and Fannie who gave massive amounts of money to, guess who? Democrats. Guess which party blocked attempts to regulate the GSE’s? Exactly.

Anyhow, I guess if you believe in the Tea Party movement, what a dumb name anyhow, you are a racist. That may come as a surprise to many of the black people I saw at the rallies, on TV, not in person. I just cannot get over the fact that these idiots on TV sit there and called protestors in 2004 patriots then, but now they are racist “tea baggers,” which by the way is a crude term for when a man sticks his you know what’s in someone else’s mouth, now you know and now you know the intellectual level of MSNBC hosts. What these idiots on TV do not get is that people are hurting, broke and see the level of corruption and spending in Washington from the people who were supposed to be “on their side” and all that spending and corruption never trickled down to the people, just to unions and, well we really don’t know where now, do we?

What Keith and the other idiots on MSNBC also do not realize is that is that Democrats had control of Congress since 2006 and only increased their margin of control in 2008. Knowing that fact, who do you think really owns the financial crisis? Sure, Bush owns a big chunk of it, but the Democrats own way more than they will ever admit to. Those are the little facts that the talking heads and Democrats want you to forget about, but how could anyone really forget that? I guess if you say it was the other guys fault enough times people will, but in time people will remember.

In the meantime, brown is kicking the snot out of Coakley and it looks like Ted’s seat is going to a Republican, he must be mortified wherever he is. I am willing to bet the market rallies tomorrow, but this is not good news for the market because this means spending is going to be reigned in, to a degree. I would not be a buyer tomorrow, but this makes me like utilities more and biotech along with other select healthcare stocks. If Coakley wins, I am buying insurers.

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