stack's Comments (71)

“Far too many people in this country don't have pensions at all. Then, there are those who thought they would get a pension, but the company they worked for went bankrupt and essentially stole their pension from them, leaving them with much-reduced benefits paid through a federal agency. Croft talks about how pension funds can be invested safely to strengthen manufacturing jobs in this country. It is a win-win. The pensions of hard-working people are safe. And future jobs for hard-working Americans are more assured.”

“The former "Car Czar," now "Manufacturing Czar" Ron Bloom did a terrific job with this report -- White House Plan to Revitalize American Manufacturing. As a former USW man, he's a guy we can all support. If Republicans would just read his report, they could support it as well.”

“This is a great idea, Fred. Take Civil Rights actions to the next level!”

“We don't need to set up an either/or with Japan and China. Both engage in protectionism to aid their economies. The United States must assist its beleagured economy by safeguarding its manufacturing base beginning with a manufacturing strategy.”

“Good luck at the White House today, Leo.
Someone needs to persuade the government that stronger trade laws are essential to preserving U.S. jobs.”

“Wasn't that a fabulous moment! The head of the only auto company that didn't take government money said unions didn't hurt him -- in fact they work well together. Good for him!”

“OMG! You SO don't know what you are talking about. TARP, passed by Republicans under BUSH bailed out Wall Street banks.

Separate Business and State? Are you out of your mind? That kind of deregulation brought us the Great Depression and this Great Recession -- with the word "great" used unfortunately.”

“What are you talking about? Republicans blocked strong Buy American language in the Stimulus bill. That's a fact. And if strong language were in the bill, none of this would have happened. Broad Buy American provisions would have required that turbines be made in America -- not in Spain or China.

There is nothing dishonest going on here. The stimulus bill failed to require that all products bought with stimulus money be made in America, so they're not.”

“Demonstrating at sites where stimulus already has been spent to create foreign jobs is a good idea. But an even better idea is stopping new grants of our tax dollars intended to create jobs in foreign countries.”

“Even when a U.S. manufacturer is healthy -- like the Simmons Mattress Co. -- some private equity company will come along and suck all the wealth out of it and leave it on its death bed (so to speak), which is, in the business world, bankruptcy court.”

“"The Texas windmill farm developer announced this week that its Chinese partner plans to construct a $50 million turbine factory in the U.S., according to a story in the New York Times. But that facility won't supply the turbines for the project that the partnership wants $436 million in stimulus funds to support. Those would come from China. So, in the end, it still means nearly half a billion in U.S. tax dollars would create 2,000 turbine-building jobs in China."

Let's see, the Texas consortium wants $436 million in taxpayer money to build turbines in China, but as a sweetener offers to invest a measly $50 million in a wind turbine factory in the U.S.

Why don't we just use our $436 million in U.S. tax dollars to build wind turbine and solar cell factories in the U.S. and cut out the Chinese completely?”

“Really, really? There wasn't a better CEO in America for the Business Council for International Understanding to toss a prize? Well, maybe there wasn't a better CEO who wasn't a member of the secretive BCIU. Secretive? Why would an organization supposedly begun by a U.S. President need to be clandestine? You tell me. Call and ask for a list of the Council's member companies. The tight-mouthed little group won't give it to you. What's the problem? Are there really only five member companies or what?”

“Frederik Balfour wrote this in his blog in the New York Times on Nov. 2 about readers upset by the notion that their tax dollars would go to China: "But what a lot of readers overlooked {though the Times did not} was that A-Power is listed on Nasdaq. Remember that ordinary Chinese are not allowed to invest in overseas stocks, so while jobs may be created in China, the profits will accrue to U.S. and other international investors in A-Power."

So, Mr. Balfour, American taxpayers should fork over nearly half a billion dollars so that a few stock holders can, possibly, realize a profit in one of the three companies in the consortium? What kind of capitalist are you, Mr. Balfour, a communist/capitalist? Governments don't invest in companies in capitalist countries. If you want to live in a country like that, Mr. Balfour, move to China!

Also, stockholders got their bailout. It wasn't called the Stimulus. It was called TARP. They need to keep their grubby hands off the workers' Stimulus funds!”

“In the New York Times story Friday about the Federal Reserve and Treasury actions, reporter Stephen Labaton talked to Citigroup traders who,he said, "shrugged off the pay rules imposed by Mr. Feinberg as affecting only a handful of the company's 275,000 employees."

Do they really think they are going to get huge pay packages when the guys at the top are not? Even if it happens for a year or so, that's not going to last long. Underlings aren't going to take home more than the top dogs.

Silly boys.”

“This is what cracks me up:

'In testimony before Congress, statements to the press, and on its website, the Chamber claims to represent "3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions." In reality, the number is probably closer to 200,000." '

Man, they'll lie about anything. I mean, that's quite an exaggeration!”

“Unions are fighting hard FOR health care reform! Take a look at the AFL-CIO blog site! Day after day they post a story pushing for the public option! The AFL-CIO voted for single payer at its convention in September. Unions waste way too much of their time negotiating over health care costs. They'd like to get that off the table so they could get raises for their members.
What are you talking about?????”

“You are so right, o2bmw76. I often wonder why people are not in the streets here, the way they would be in places like France. Why do Americans just sit back and take this stuff like sheep?”

“A huge difference between Bush's spending and Obama's is that Obama tells the truth about his. He didn't put his Iraq and Afghanistan spending "off budget" so that it wouldn't be included in the deficit figures like Bush did.”

“Yes, of course you are right. I am sure all Americans want to buy Chinese products that they know were made by mentally retarded Chinese people held in slave conditions working in brick kilns or by Chinese teenagers held in locked factories with caged windows 12 days a week under the condition that they must pay a fee to get out of their "work contract" in order to escape. Yea, that's certainly how I want my Wal-Mart sneakers and Christmas decorations made! Nothing like celebrating Christmas with slave-labor decorations! Read the New York Times investigations of labor conditions in China, Hippie Chucker.”

“Hippie Chucker,
The reason the Chinese buy Treasury Bonds is to artificially reduce the value of Chinese currency. They do that to keep Chinese people employed and their economy strong at the expense of the rest of the world, particularly the U.S.
Here is how China expert Peter Navarro explains it in the book "Manufacturing A Better Future for America": "Since 1984, China has pegged its currency, the yuan, to the U.S. dollar at roughly an 8-to-1 ratio. Under pressure from the United States and the international community, China adopted a 'managed float' regime in 2005 based on a market basked of currencies. For all practical purposes, however, the dollar peg remains intact, and the yuan remains, by most estimates, considerably undervalued.
"As noted by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 'China's undervalued currency encourages undervalued Chinese exports to the U.S. and discourages U.S. exports because U.S. exports are artificially overvalued. As a result, undervalued Chinese exports have been highly disruptive to the U.S. and to other countries as well, as evidenced by trade statistics."
This market manipulation has made the U.S., once an import/export creditor nation, the largest debtor nation.
Go ahead, Hippie Chucker, keep buying your artificially cheap Chinese products at Wal-Mart. You are "buying" your country down the tubes. Clearly you respect the Chinese more than capitalists. Why don't you love the U.S or leave it?”

“The tire tariffs are different because they come under a special section of trade law called Section 421 to which the Chinese agreed specifically in order to receive U.S. support for their acceptance into the World Trade Organization. Because China is not a market economy --in other words, it is a communist country where the economy is controlled by the government, China agreed that if a surge of their imports damaged a U.S. industry, the U.S. could impose relief measures like tariffs until the year 2013. In a non-market economy, the government can decide to provide economic support to an industry, so that it can, for example, sell tires in the U.S. at prices lower than they cost to make.
This imposition of tariffs on tires is not symbolic. The International Trade Commission determined that the tire tariffs would preserve jobs in the U.S. tire industry. That is crucial. The U.S. cannot lose its manufacturing base. It must continue to be able to make products of value to sell here and overseas. Trading paper of questionable value on Wall Street clearly is not enough to support an economy. The U.S. has lost 40,000 manufacturers in the past decade and millions of manufacturing jobs. That is a threat to the stability of our nation.”

“Yes, and what's outrageous is that the transfer of the technology in many cases is forced. The Chinese require American companies to hand over their technology if they want to open factories in China. And they do it, even though those strong-arm tactics violate World Trade Organization rules.

So the Chinese benefit from technology that is developed on American soil -- sometimes with the help of government grants and virtually all the time with the help of American taxpayers in the form of support to public colleges and universities like Penn State that train the engineers and scientists that develop the transferred technology.”

“I don't know, realredstateblues. But, again, this weekend, newspapers called the USW position "protectionist" instead of "enforcing it."”

“It's interesting that in addition to jobs, our biggest export to China is raw materials. They send us toys and electronics. We send them iron ore.”

“Sorry, but you just cannot be high while making steel. Much too dangerous.”