UAW Irony

Isn’t it ironic that UAW leader Shawn Fain railed against Trump in a recent speech saying: “every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriched people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers. We can’t keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don’t have any understanding of what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class.”  Either he is hilariously tone-deaf as to the political climate that has brought about this strike or he is getting greased by the democrat machine. Wonder which. Newsflash Shawn: Biden is that segment of the millionaire class who doesn’t understand the problems of the working class and his party hasn’t for decades. And come on, man we know what this strike is all about. As the automotive industry struggles to transition to Electric Vehicles to satisfy government-imposed mandates, they will be forced to modify their plants, move operations, and perhaps lay off workers to remain profitable. And EVs require less labor to manufacture than IC vehicles. The handwriting is on the wall and surprisingly, you cretins can read it. So Shawn wants to essentially reduce the number of hours worked as well as increase salaries and benefits while guaranteeing union workers will have a job. Sweet. To anyone with a functioning cortex, those parameters would appear to be untenable for a business to survive in this increasingly green environment. How exactly is that business going to increase overhead, and guarantee employment to produce a product that requires fewer workers and is currently operating at a loss? Yes, the big three are losing roughly $60000 per EV sold, with Ford recording a 700 million dollar loss in its Ford e division in the first quarter of 2023, hardly a recipe for financial viability in a marketplace where they are competing against non-union shops and foreign competition. So when NPR broadcast a story about a woebegone auto worker forced to choose between staying in Detroit and becoming unemployed versus moving to a plant five hours away to keep her job, criticizing the automaker for not retooling her local factory so that she could remain in Detroit, they show inexcusable ignorance of how business actually works. An industry that is moving towards a smaller workforce to build government-mandated EVs and forced to consolidate resources should not be spending billions to retool a local plant to satisfy workers’ geographic preferences any more than companies that have moved overseas to escape corporate taxes, union demands, and inflated wages should be obliged to move back to America. Their first responsibility is to the shareholders, and to do that, they must remain financially viable and relevant in the marketplace. Sure, treat your workers well but you must produce a superior product and offer it at a competitive price. But the big three are failing on both counts. Their product is of inferior quality and the price tag is too high. And the reason for that is government. Government mandates, government emission standards, a high corporate tax rate, OSHA standards, disability insurance requirements, minimum wage increases, raging inflation, and the Democrats’ unrelenting support of union labor’s demands are all making America a difficult place to do business. All working in concert to make the American automobile industry unable to compete against non-union competition and foreign imports who are beating us on quality, value, or both. And if millionaires are at fault then look no further than Joe Biden and his administration’s policies. More than 45 years in public office having never worked in the private sector and yet Fain suggests he has insight into the working class. Blame Trump all you want, but he got one thing right: he predicted the demise of the American auto industry if “crooked Joe Biden’s crazed concept of all-electric cars goes into effect.” How will that benefit the “problems of the working class” autoworkers?

Appearance compromised

The demise of the formality of the tie, then the suit and jacket as we slide into a perpetual casual Friday malaise in the workplace. And now we have the announcement that the Senate, no less will abandon its dress code, a move that most suggest is an accommodation to the hopelessly impaired, freshman Senator Fetterman. Impaired mentally and sartorial challenged as well. Hoodies and gym shorts on the floor of Congress?  Who better to serve as a poster child for America’s descent into a distorted abandonment of tradition and decorum, embracing an appearance purposely contrary to your station, perception over reality? Fetterman is no more a common man of the people as is “Scranton” Joe Biden, and the democrat voting base, obviously attuned to this subterfuge falls in lockstep.

UAW Piling On

It’s frustrating to see the media fawning over labor unions who are flexing their muscles in a tight labor market and making outrageous demands for increased salaries and benefits. Witness UPS workers holding that company hostage to secure a new contract. Of course, they cite the inflationary prices that are increasing the cost of living, effectively decreasing the value of the earned dollar, but they also point to the tight job market, a manufactured crisis aided by the government’s handicapped unemployment statistics, brought about by enabling able-bodied potential workers to sit on the sidelines and suckle from the government teat. And how naive of them to suspect that corporate CEOs and business owners will suddenly join the collective in a socialist epiphany and share their wealth and their businesses with the great unwashed who are demanding less work and more pay. Didn’t we learn anything in the last recession when UAW jobs were guaranteed so much so that when there was no work to do, they played checkers at the union hall and continued to draw a salary while the government bailed them out? That’s not smart business. That’s why Trump, no stranger to the art of the deal, has predicted the demise of the big three. And who loses?  The consumer of course. The taxpayer bailed out the automotive industry in the last recession and now the public will pay for increased wages and less productivity with a corresponding increase in the cost of their goods and services. And that will perpetuate the inflationary spiral. Duh. Did any of these media pundits take a course in economics? 

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

The clown show in New York City starring Mayor Eric Adams has been extraordinarily entertaining, with special guest Governor Kathy Hochul, and in a cameo appearance, the Biden Administration, all forming a circular firing squad blaming each other for failed policies on immigration. Credit Dan Henninger in the Wall Street Journal for pointing out this most welcome exercise most often performed to perfection by their Republican counterparts. But with nary a Republican in sight in this deep blue city, the Democrats have nobody else to blame except themselves.  Oh, the delicious irony. As has been widely documented, Mayor Eric Adams recently flew into a rant for the ages, supplanting Larry Elder for the left’s hilarious title of being “the black face of white supremacy.”  “This issue will destroy New York City”, he railed.  “We’re getting 10,000 migrants a month.  The city we knew, we’re about to lose.”  “We have to feed, clothe, house, educate their children, wash their laundry sheets, give them everything they need, health care.  One time, we were just getting Venezuela.  Now we’re getting Ecuador.  Now we’re getting Russian speaking coming through Mexico.  Now we’re getting western Africa.”  Poke me and tell me he didn’t just say that.  And without a local Republican to blame, he attempted to demonize Texas Governor Greg Abbott by claiming it all “started with a madman down in Texas, decided he wanted to bus people up to New York City.”  This hypocrisy came on the heels of Adams in concert with the hopelessly inept Governor Kathy Hochul attempting to spread New York City’s pain by busing migrants to small towns in upstate New York where local Republican leadership had been resistant.  They have gone so far as to ignore local leadership, cutting back-room deals with underutilized motels to house migrants while the New York City taxpayer foots the bill to move their problem elsewhere.  Interesting that Adams and other northern cities are quick to jump on the sanctuary city bandwagon and trumpet their liberal policies when the border is thousands of miles away, yet when the problem comes knocking at their door, they are equally as quick to adopt a “not in my backyard” mentality.  Adams even went so far as to point to the Statue of Liberty, where Emma Lazarus’ 1883 sonnet proclaims; “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”, as representing the American ideal, the New York City invitation for welcoming immigrants into the country……that is until they actually arrived.  How about those huddled masses camped out on your streets now, Eric?  And to blame Governor Abbott for your immigrant crisis is preposterous.  With over 1.6 million migrants pouring into Texas, Governor Abbott bused a paltry $13,300 to New York.  Meanwhile, $110,000 have shown up in the Big Apple, ostensible by other means than a Texas chartered bus, punching a $12 million dollar hole in the city’s budget, just after Adams awarded the city uniformed unions a $4 billion 5-year contract.  But apparently, this perfect storm was created by New York’s liberal policies and budgetary malfeasance.  When they decided to liberate mental health institutions and turn the mentally ill out into the streets with the claim that they could be managed with outpatient care, they put in place a safety net of sorts that allowed the homeless to benefit from guaranteed housing at the city’s expense.  Alas, it turned out the mentally ill were content to avoid those outpatient clinics and were free to exercise their mental illness-induced proclivities by living on the streets.  The migrants, however, preferred a roof over their heads and three squares a day, finding the perfect policies in place to grant them their golden ticket to life in America.  With a government-supplied cell phone, health care, room and board, and unable to become employed due to a mandatory waiting period before a work visa, could be issued they found themselves with a suddenly improved standard of living with a life of leisure on the taxpayer’s dime.  Now Adams is scrambling to somehow issue temporary work visas to expedite their path to employment.  And exactly what are they qualified to do, Mayor?  With the vast majority of the migrants possessing poor language skills and no education, the only available jobs will be unskilled labor, mostly in the service industry.  Meanwhile, with work-from-home policies still lingering, vacancies in commercial real estate remain at record highs and foot traffic has been drastically reduced in commercial sectors of the city.  Restaurants, hotels, and shops that catered to the commuters have experienced unprecedented hardship and many have failed.  Where exactly are these people going to find work?  Kathy Hochul has proven inept in responding to Adams’ requests for assistance, pandering to the federal government for aid and going so far as to blame the feds, stating: This crisis originated with the federal government.”  So in other words, the border policy by the Biden administration has been an unmitigated disaster.  Is that what you’re telling me, Kathy? In yet another moment of hilarity, Homeland Security Secretary Majorkas, he of the “border is closed” party line, retaliated by accusing the state of New York and the city of making “structural” migrant mistakes.  Adams has even accused the Biden administration directly by stating, “We need an emergency action down at the border.” Adams even turned on Hochul, criticizing her for not forcing upstate communities to share the burden by taking in migrants, putting the Governor in the peculiar position of having to institute a liberal policy in rural upstate New York where the cities along the thruway, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo, remain blue sanctuary city islands surrounded by a sea of deep red rural farmland.  And they are all suffering through the inner city decay and crime that is sweeping urban America, poorly positioned to take on a financially devastating migrant burden.  

 

So Republicans sit on the sidelines and gleefully watch the fallout.  And where is the mouthy Representative Ocasio-Cortez, recently back from her socialist tour of South America where a high percentage of these migrants originated?  So concerned is she with the quality of life in the city, so much so that she submarined an Amazon deal that would have brought high-paying jobs and increased tax revenue to the region, yet she appears unfazed by migrant detritus in the streets and a raging crime wave. Maybe they haven’t migrated into her Brooklyn district yet, and they most certainly are not sleeping in the foyer of her tony Georgetown apartment complex. When they do, perhaps she will get the NIMBY fever that has afflicted her formerly woke sanctuary city proponents. In the meantime, the result, unfortunately, will be disastrous for New York City and the state of New York, only adding to tax increases over and above the exorbitant rates already imposed, a reduced standard of living, and a continued exodus of working-class families.  All because of failed policies, partisan posturing and an inability to connect woke ideology with financial reality.

A Cry In The Wind

Admittedly of late, I'm besotted with vast left-wing conspiracy theories. The Democrats continue to bleat the Afghanistan withdrawal as a success, January 6th as an insurrection, Hunter and  Joe Biden as innocents, while our faltering economy, open borders, anarchy, the persecution of Donald Trump, and  China, Iran, and Russia as existential threats to world peace, as Republican aberrations. And, the media in the main, steadfastly either complaint or silent. What's become of us as we quake in the wrath of the amassing malcontents, criminals, and anarchists, seemingly impotent to stand our ground and say enough is enough? Has our once indomitable  spirit been so eroded in socialist indoctrination that we have lost sight of the virtues of our American heritage that allowed us to be all that we can be devoid of government oppression in the countenance of our 

Declaration of Independence and Constitution. We seem to be floundering in indecision, reeling between complacency and frustration, baffled as to what to do or not to do. Yes, I do grow weary of venting my well-worn diatribes, my angst that our country, our society is over. I just can't bring myself to believe it is over and go silently into the night. So, I rant on, even but a small cry in the wind.