DON'T BLAME IT ON THE UNIONS ONLY

I guess republicans need to persevere on their quest to try to brainwash those who allow themselves to be influenced by Internet emails. They gave it a real big try during the primaries to no avail, with all kind of lies and made up stories about Obama. They failed miserably, but they do not give up on their quest to impose their thinking about anything and everything. To them, their ideals or rather radical thinking must be disseminated and inculcated on every American, so their party wins. It is winning and not country what moves these people. Definitely party over Nation; corporations over middle class; and control over self expression.

Now that the presidential election is over after being defeated by a better prepared Democratic party, with clear ideas and good intentions to change our precipitous course to the cliff where Bush/Cheney were taking us to, they are trying something else.... The "subtle" emails against the UAW. Don't get me wrong, I am not a union worker defender, but neither am I against them. I believe unions are good to protect the right of the employees who work hard and keep our economy afloat. They are not that good if their only intention is to bankrupt the company. And this is not the case of the UAW. Yes, they have a higher payroll than the foreign auto industry in the south, but it is justified for many reasons, which are mainly associated to the cost-production ratio.

I received today an email which was forwarded to me by someone who had it forwarded to him, who got it from another forward, etc. etc. You know how this cancer spreads.... This email blames the UAW solely for the financial crisis of General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford. It talks about the salaries the UAW receive versus the ones paid to the foreign car companies who build in the "Other United States", the South (with a couple of exceptions, thank God). It wants these Big Three to declare bankruptcy under chapter 11 and to get rid of the union contracts. In other words, whoever started the ball rolling wants the UAW to be busted, like president Reagan did with the Control Tower workers. And we all know where the airline industry is now after that "wonderful" personal achievement plus his other one of "Deregulation" that brought Panam down like other many historical airlines in this country.
Yes! Let's all wish for an American car industry to go bankrupt to add three more million people to the unemployment line. Because this "wished" bankruptcy not only includes 180,681 union workers, but also retired members (419,621) and surviving spouses (120,723), and about 2.3 million people related to the car industry (dealerships, parts manufacturing, raw material industries and other).

But these republicans don't care about creating a bigger hole in our economy. As a matter of fact, the more difficult we could make it for Obama, the better chances they might have four years from now. So they think. How naive!

A bankruptcy by these three car makers with the sole purpose to bust the UAW union only shows that for these extremists their only objective is to
strangle even more the middle class in America. It is a shame that their extreme ideals are above their pride for the prosperity of our country. Without a large and comfortable middle class no nation can advance and prosper. Just take a look at our 50s and 60s, even 70s. After that, with the exception of eight of the best economical years we ever had during Bill Clinton, the middle class has been gradually shrinking to what it is today.

How about blaming the big chiefs? The three CEOs combined made more than $110 millions in 2007, not counting stock options and other benefits.
At an average cost of a typical car, this represents a little bit more than 2 cars per 100 built to offset their obscene salaries every year. We are only mentioning the three top honchos. Don't forget the COOs, the Vice presidents and other top executives. And for your information, there were 18 million cars built by GM, Chrysler, and Ford together in 2007. That 2% mentioned before means that it took 360,000 cars to even the salaries paid to those CEOs, or what sounds even more astounding, they needed to build about 1000 cars per day to afford the payroll of these three CEOs !

On the other hand, the cost ratio between labor and average car sale price was in the same year 8.4% Not bad considering that labor in most other industries, manufacturing, services, wholesale and retail business is way higher than that.

Since we all have a message to convey through the Internet, here is mine:
Don't be impressed by emails than sound very patriotic. Most of the times they are not. They are subtle messages to brainwash us in order for these brain suckers to obtain their goal, which is "Party Fist, Country Second". Research the Internet, get all the input you need to understand what they are telling you and why. Get the facts. All of them, not just one side. Analyze and react appropriately, not "sheeply".