Where's My Tea?

Tea parties . . . town hall protests . . . inappropriate banners at health care rallies and outright rudeness . . . even toward the president . . . what is going on? Where are all these people coming from and what is their ultimate purpose? I remember when the Delphi Company cut their employees’ wages in half . . . no one took to the streets to protest. When an AT&T Executive ordered all department heads to offshore part of their staff, before the next meeting, no one stood with the laid off workers. By the way, that AT&T Executive, Ed Whitacre, (also known as Captain Outsource by his former AT&T Employees) who ordered those jobs off shored, is now the Chairman of the Board for General Motors. Ed guarantees the cars and trucks that we build or your money back. To the best of my knowledge, Ed has never built a car or truck and probably has never been inside an assembly plant. What the hell is he doing guaranteeing anything we do? And further, mortgage writers almost single-handedly crashed the housing market by writing bad paper and funding bad investments and no one held a march, tea party or anything in Washington. But just let someone (President Obama) step forward to amend these wrongs and the "Don't Tread on Me" crowd comes out of the woodwork. Well, let's just speak the truth here for a minute. These folks and the rest of us better hope that president Obama and his supporters in the government can help us all because the American business leaders have long since wrote us off. As an astronaut would say, talking about releasing space trash, we have been jettisoned. As we have found lately, even as consumers, we have been marginalized as the corporate global pirate’s lust after the 1.3 Billion shoppers on main-land communist China. Here at home, GM did not roll our retirees' health care into a VEBA to provide them with better coverage. Thank God the UAW has input into how this fund is operated. The Saturn Vue is not built in Mexico to help raise the Mexican Worker out of poverty and AT&T does not hire folks in India, who now accept your maintenance inquires, to make their service centers more user friendly; (please watch the movie Slum-Dog Millionaire to see who AT&T is hiring in place of your children.) All of these business decisions have been made to remove cost from the bottom line. All of these moves also put people on the street and in some cases into tent cities that are popping up around the country. This global thing is really working out isn’t it? Recently, our government sponsored a program called "Cash for Clunkers" that was supposed to jump start the American Auto Business and take some gas guzzlers off the road to help the environment. Our government representatives (bought and paid for by the business community) could not even bring themselves to keep this program for American owned Manufacturers only. In the end, many of our tax dollars went to foreign auto companies. Toyota even bragged about hiring 800 new engineers with the money that they made from "Cash for Clunkers." Where were the Tea Party Protesters on this one? My guess? . . . driving a Toyota. Now these other auto-building nations, Japan and Korea are planning “Cash for Clunkers” programs of their own. Do you think the American Manufacturers will get equal treatment?
Our country is in still in great trouble and the tea’s are trying to pull down the only person working on a fix. More bankruptcies of individuals and companies are caused by medical bills and insurance costs than by any other factor. We all need to stand with our president during this tough time and see this through to a better place. If you really believe that government programs don’t work just call and cancel your social security or tell your local township you will no longer require police protection and give them your address. If these government programs aren’t working why bother? Some of the leaders of this Tea Party movement have introduced legislation that would tax our health insurance as income. Now there’s a real fix. We need to move forward with a public option for insurance and get everyone covered. It’s the right thing to do. The people in the government were elected to lead . . . now is the time. Pass healthcare reform and then let’s take a look at some of these trade deals. Thanks for listening . . .Tony

Don't Ever Yell at the Coach

I know there is probably more important things for me spend my time on but I just could not resist taking a look at the recent outburst by Addison Graves Wilson, (he prefers Joe) a U.S. Congressperson from South Carolina who stood up and shouted "You Lie" at President Obama recently during an address to the American Congress. I always thought educated men from the south were supposed to have reams of self control, tempered with chivalry and love of country. So much for all of that finery. If I would have turned on CNN during this outburst I would have thought I was watching the Venezuelan Assembly or the North Korean Parliament, not the Congress of the United Sates. America is that wonderful place where we can agree to disagree and still be civil. That's how we have been able to accomplish so much over the years, not by shouting one another down. Especially when that person is the President of the United Sates. Our economic and political systems in America only work when the person who is standing mid-way down the ladder respects the position of the person further up. You don't have to agree with that person or you might even aspire to replace that person but while they hold that position we have to be cordial. Without this type of personal control and responsibility we will end up like any other third world country. Not only did everyone in the U.S. see Mr. Wilson's display of his backside but the whole world was privy to our dirty laundry. I don't know about Joe but when I was a kid an outburst like that in church would have gotten me the back of my mother's hand. I wonder if Joe got a call from his mom on this manner. Perhaps it is something in Joe's background that made him so anti-Obama. In 2000 Joe was one one of only seven South Carolina State Senators to vote to keep the Confederate Flag on top of the South Carolina State House. I'm just saying. Thankfully smarter people prevailed and the Flag was removed on a 36 to 7 vote. What to do . . . what to do? First let me ask, where was the congressional security? Joe was easily over the line, obviously unbalanced and cross ways of the Congressional rules but what if he had continued? What if he rushed the podium, is this allowed too? What if he does it again? This is not first amendment freedom of speech here this is common manners that we all learned in elementary school. You don't shout at the teacher, boss or coach. If you do you will be spanked, fired or thrown off the team, end of story. Joe needs to be sent back to the State of South Carolina where he will be free to paint a confederate flag on his garage door and throw rubber bricks at the TV like the rest of us bad actors. Thanks for listening . . .Tony

The Three Story Christmas Tree

Do we have the Kaunas's to fix health care? What with more personal bankruptcy's caused by it and fifty million folks only using the emergency room, you would think rational people could see that the time has come to get off our collective asses and come to the table. For sure, health care costs played a large part in the demise of General Motors and Chrysler. Last winter I had to visit a friend who was in a local hospital, William Beaumont in Royal Oak, MI. It was during the time of the year when all the auto plants raise money for charity by placing small angels on a Christmas tree with the names of local families who need help during the holidays. Employees or groups of employees take angels from the tree and fulfill the wish written on the angel. Most of these kids ask for clothes or items for school. Well low and behold when I walled into the lobby of William Beaumont I was absolutely blown away by the three-story, fully decorated, lighted tree. It made the auto company's tree look skinny by comparison. I could clearly see where the money had gone . . . from manufacturing to medicine. Ever since the Reagan Administration we have been off-loading good paying manufacturing jobs like sixty going north. All the while, many of the jobs that have replaced those benefit paying endeavors have been jobs that pay less (see service sector) and don't offer the same level of of health benefits . . . if they offer any at all. Also, these jobs pay less in taxes, including taxes for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. So, let's add this up, less taxes coming in, fewer employers offering health care and exploding health care costs. Hey! Some body's got to flip for that three story Christmas Tree. You can see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel is our health care system headed for a reality wreak. But who's to blame you say? Well let's see . . .if you have a company that: whenever costs go up they can just raise their insurance rates, what do you predict will happen? Will costs ever go down? Will there ever be any belt tightening? Believe me, I know about belt tightening . . .it sucks! No! Rates will go up, hit a plateau, especially when people complain a little and then continue to climb to the stratosphere and beyond. But the medical insurance companies can't get past those pesky manufacturing jobs, you know the ones that paid all the premiums but are now in China. Premiums going up, ability to pay premiums going down . . .can you say crash and burn? Until recently, many people in the health care industry believed that manufacturing workers were the great unwashed society that was over paid and received too many benefits. They are just now beginning to understand that hard working autoworkers and unionized employees are one leg of the stool on which their fat asses sit. We can get through this thing together but some stuff has to change. To all health care professionals I would pose these questions. What kind of car do you drive? Do you remember those Delphi employees getting their wages and benefits cut in half? Were you present when General Motors whacked the health care of all their salaried employees? Do you know that my mom, who is eighty seven, has just started paying for her own Medicaid Part B premiums? And now the big question. Did you believe that after all these events took place that you would simply zip away in you BMW unscathed? President Obama has given a wish list of items to congress that he would like to see in new health care legislation. Those items include" a public option, much like we all have available after the age of 62. Another item is to cover every American citizen. Well duh! Those two items have caused some to scream socialism and worse. Well, let me ask these folks, are we not already socialist? Just look at how we operate our Police and Fire Departments. We all pool our money (taxes) and whoever needs a policeman or fireman can call one. Sounds like socialism to me. Why can't health care work the same way? The same reason that other things don't change I would imagine . . .somebody is getting rich. Perhaps the real answer to this problem is to get all the health care money out of our political system. Millions of dollars are donated every year to a multitude of political campaigns. This makes the debate not just hard but impossible. Perhaps the health care professionals need to reel in their costs like the rest of us. And finally, we need some tax money from the upper crust in society to help pay for a new health care system. The can afford it. They have been livin' the high life for years while middle class retirees choose between food and medicine. I hope Barack has the horsepower to make a new health care plan happen. It has been a long time coming and there are still more hurdles to clear. We all need to get behind our president's ideas for health care. Quality health care should be a right for all Americans, not just something for the richest among us. Heck with a little luck the Big Three might even be able to afford a bigger Angel Tree next Christmas. Thanks for listening . . .Tony