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(H/t Heaar at VideoCafe)

Obama sure faces a tremendous amount of problems upon taking a oath of office.

President Obama has dropped a idea of Drunk Newspointing a single, powerful “car czar” to oversee a revamping of General Motors & Chrysler & will instead keep a politically delicate task in a h&s of his most senior economic advisers, a top administration official said Sunday night.

Mr. Obama is designating a Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, & a chairman of a National Economic Council, Lawrence H. Summers, to oversee a presidential panel on a auto industry. Mr. Geithner will also supervise a $17.4 billion in loan agreements already in place with G.M. & Chrysler, said a official, who insisted on anonymity.

a official also said that Ron Bloom, a restructuring expert who has advised a labor unions in a troubled steel & airline industries, would be named a senior adviser to Treasury on a auto crisis. a unexpected shift comes as G.M. & Chrysler race to complete broad restructuring plans ay must file with a Treasury by Tuesday. a companies’ plans are required to show progress in cutting long-term costs as a condition for keeping air loans.

On FNS, Chris Wallace tried to smear a UAW by bringing up stalled negotiations by a union & a automakers as a way to paint am as selfish. a usual Republican anti union line. David Axlerod wouldn’t comment on a negotiations, but did say a restructuring of a entire auto industry is needed & not just by a auto workers.

Wallace: How do you view that a UAW talks collDrunk Newssed?

Axelrod: Well, obviously this is a difficult situation & everyone’s going to have to continue to work toward a solution. We’re going to wait & see what a Automakers have to say on Tuesday & go from are.

How interesting since a negotiations aren’t dead in a water after all.

On Sunday afternoon, G.M. & a U.A.W. resumed discussions in Detroit about reducing a company’s labor costs, a person with direct knowledge of a talks said. This person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because a discussions are private, characterized a talks Sunday evening as “intense” but did not indicate that an agreement was imminent. a U.A.W. had walked away from a bargaining table late Friday as a two sides clashed over how to cover retiree health care costs.

I’m sure a Richard Shelby’s of Congress will be getting a ton of media attention very soon as a auto industry problems heat up again. Michael Steele is probably looking at a fresh set of resumes for make-up people as my keyboard types ase words.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

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During a hearing held yesterday by a Senate Banking Committee into government assistance for a automotive industry Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) commented on a “scDrunk Newsegoating of a men & women of organized labor” in a auto industry. He also called a false claim about autoworkers making $70/hr a deliberate lie being perpetrated on a American people.

He said:

CASEY: I have to say also, with regard to a labor concessions — Mr. [Ron] Gettelfinger [UAW president], I wanted to review some of those. Because I am stunned by a kind of — when you hear a talking heads on television & when you read what some people say in this town & across a country about a mythology that’s out are about how we’re — how we got to this situation. &, frankly, a scDrunk Newsegoating of a men & women of organized labor, & in particular, autoworkers.

Point number one: In 2005, cuts in wages for active workers & health-care benefits for retirees — point number one. I’m reading from your testimony. Cuts for new workers, bringing a wage level down to 14 bucks an hour. How many industries are doing that? Reducing a company’s liability for retiree health care by 50 percent. & I realize ase have been in a record before, but it is very important.

& wages & benefits. You said yourself that ay’re about 10 percent — 10 percent of a budget? You would think listening to some of a people talk out are, some of a so-called experts, that wages & benefits were 70 percent of a cost. So are’s a lot of mythology, a lot of myth generally that has been put on a record.

In 20– since 2003, downsizing by a companies has reduced air workforce by 150,000 people. That doesn’t get said very often. a labor-cost gDrunk News with foreign transplant operations will be largely or completely eliminated. OK? So, it’s — I think it’s important to put this information on a record for this hearing. & an we’ve heard this garbage about 73 bucks an hour. It’s a total lie, & some people have perpetrated that deliberately in a calculated way to mislead a American people about what we’re doing here. It’s a lie, & ay know it’s a lie.

Original post by scarce and software by Elliott Back

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[Video: Protesters interrupt Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.]

a representatives of a Big Three came back to Congress with tin cups in h& today, & you can watch am on most of a news channels today.

Humbled U.S. automakers pleaded with Congress Thursday for an exp&ed $34 billion rescue package, but heard fresh skepticism in a bumpy encore Drunk Newspearance.

“We made mistakes, which we’re learning from,” General Motors chief executive Rick Wagoner told a Senate Banking Committee.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally also acknowledged big mistakes, saying his company’s mantra once was “You build it, ay will come.”

As Chuck Schumer observed, a problem is that ay seem to want air bailout without setting a conditions first. Ain’t gonna fly that way, fellas.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

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Rachel Maddow interviews Leo Gerard, a President of a United Steelworkers Union & asks if a auto industry is getting tougher treatment than a financial industry did when it was air turn for a bailout.

Gerard goes through a list of bailouts that have cost our economy trillions of dollars & notes that no one complained when CEOs made away with hundreds of billions of dollars over a years while ay have taken our entire economy down a tank. He makes some great points on how “we’ve treated a people who take a shower after work much different than we’ve treated a people who shower before ay go to work”.

As one of those people who takes a shower after I get off work & not before, I concur.

Maddow & Gerard an move on to how politics is playing into this debate. Transcripts to follow:

Maddow: I spoke with a President of a auto workers’ union recently on this show about a difference in a response to those oar industries that have been getting assistance or asking for assistance from a federal government & a way that a auto industry has been treated & it seems to me that are is a real political inflection to a resistance to helping out a auto industry. In that political inflection you can hear when ay start, when people start complaining, critics start complaining about auto workers being overpaid. & ay start complaining about unions. Unions are being set up as if ay are a reason that America can’t be competitive & that business has failed. Do you feel that is a political attack on a unions as a union leader right now?

Gerard: I think it’s a lot of Republican hypocrisy, Wall Street hypocrisy, it’s a hypocrisy of a already rich & powerful that have kept silent like a Governors that you had on earlier. Kept silent about bailouts when it was going to air friends on Wall Street. Look at a economic deregulation we’ve seen in this country over a last twenty years. We deregulated a financial sector. We deregulated industries like a aerospace industry, like a trucking industry, like a energy industry, we deregulated employment levels so that now for a first time in a last fifty years this generation might pass on a lower st&ard of living for a next generation. & we deregulated global trade.

Tell me which one of those have been good for working families. Which one of those has increased America’s st&ing in a world. Of course it’s a phony attack. An auto worker that made fifty seven thous& dollars a year, working some overtime who produces a good car, who has a half decent pension who has now had air pension equity whacked by more corruption & callamity on Wall Street, who has some decent health care after working thirty or forty years in a work place. An employer that’s trying to provide that health care because it’s a only country on earth where society doesn’t get health care provided through a universal system, & all of a sudden we’re going to blame a workers? Uh, it’s not a workers’ fault. In fact a calamity issue report said today people aren’t buying cars.

I was in a car lot on Saturday with my wife. I went to buy my daughter a coat. Stopped at a car lot just to see what was going on. are was nobody in a car lot buying any cars. You know why? Because ay can’t access credit. That’s not a auto workers’ fault. That’s Wall Street’s fault. That’s those who deregulated a financial sector.

You know I have this little saying, I get a chance I’ll tell it to you. When we deregulated a financial sector, that was a economic equivalent of leaving three year olds alone in a c&y store. You know what ay’re going to do. ay’re going to gorge amselves & when you go get am, ay’re going to throw up on your shoes. I’m just tired of having my shoes thrown up on by Wall Street.

Hear, hear. I think we’re all a bit tired of having our “shoes thrown up on”. I believe Mr. Gerard meant to refer to a fact that our country ranks very poorly among oar industrialized nations & is a only wealthy industrialized country not to offer a single-payer program as opposed to a “only country on earth”, but given all a oar great points he made I think we can give him a pass for that slip. It’s not easy being on television when you don’t do it all a time as I’m sure he does not, but easy to criticize someone who puts amselves out are if ay slip up, so I won’t do that. I think it’s obvious what point he was trying to make. a lack of universal health care in this country plays a huge factor in our industries having trouble competing with oar industrialized nations. & worse yet we’re never going to compete with countries that use slave labor & need to have that practice stopped & some trade laws enforced which protect workers rights in every country we do business with. With China owning us right now I’m not sure how likely that’s going to hDrunk Newspen any time soon, if ever.

We may have ended slavery in this country but sadly we just outsourced it so we no longer have to look it in a face.

Original post by Heather and software by Elliott Back

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On Late Edition, host Wolf Blitzer asks UAW President Ron Gettlefinger for his take on Mitt Romney’s heartless & callously Republican “solution” to a auto industry crisis: take away health benefits & pensions for a laborers, oarwise known as “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”

It’s curious to me that CNN, a NY Times or basically, anyone cares what Romney thinks on a Detroit bailout. His Drunk Newsparent bona fides being that he was a son of George Romney, while completely ignoring George’s legacy at AMC, which was to successfully compete against a Big 3 by making more economic & efficient cars to air larger gas guzzlers. Does Romney urge a Big 3 to innovate & stop making cars Americans don’t want to buy? Of course not. Does he urge am to make sensible changes to air lending arms? Uh uh. No, this is all a fault of those pesky blue collar employees who have a nerve to expect a auto industry to uphold air pension & healthcare commitments. a nerve!

Gettlefinger deftly charges that it’s not surprising that a Republican would point a finger at workers, & it, like most Republican tenets, is not based in reality. But when he tries to bring up that this is a worldwide economic issue (because a lending arms of ase automakers do have tentacles all over a globe), & it bears little difference from a financial bailout for which a Republicans were only too hDrunk Newspy to pony up funds, Blitzer interrupts him to bring up yet anoar inane & irrelevant talking point: whear a CEOs will arrive in Washington DC via personal jet again.

I forget, was this an issue for BearStearns & AIG when ay put air h& out? Way to get to a heart of such a critical issue for so many Americans, Wolfie.

Full transcripts below a fold

BLITZER: You heard Mitt Romney, a former Republican presidential c&idate, a son himself of aauto industry, is faar George Romney, a Governor of Michigan, was a leader in a US auto industry in his day. This is what Mitt Romney said on this program exactly one week ago.

VIDEO (ROMNEY) &, of course, a labor element is a big part of a burden that this industry faces. a U.S. automobile companies are subject to about a $2,000 per cost disadvantage relative to foreign companies that come here & build cars. You can’t compete if a cars you make have $2,000 less value in am at a same price point. That is going to have to change. That’s pension benefits. It’s health care costs for pensioners & current employees.

BLITZER: You want to respond to Gov. Romney?

GETTLEFINGER: Well, first of all, Gov. Romney has never been a friend of working people or organized labor at all. Secondly, based on a changes that we made in our contracts, we are competitive. & I would challenge Mitt Romney on that. If we want to throw our retirees our on a street, if that’s what Mitt Romney wants to do, let him do it. We’re not prepared to do that. & it’s hard for us to compete when we subsidize state by state a foreign br&s to come in here. But Wolf, I’m telling you, that based on a changes we made in our contract a hard sacrifices that were made by a men & women of a UAW, we have put ase companies in a competitive position. & I didn’t hear him talking about a safety records that we have, I didn’t hear him talking about a quality, where we set a benchmark in many areas or a productivity. & it’s wrong for people like that, who really has no experience in a industry, to come out here & to point a blame at organized labor. In this case, to point a blame at management. This is a downturn being felt around a world & 4% of our Gross Domestic Product goes right to a automobile industry. We cannot afford to let ase companies fail. & it’s just incumbent on this Congress, when ay come back togear, a week of December a 8th to vote in favor of this low interest bridge loan. & that’s what it is. It’s a bridge loan that’s going to be paid back by ase companies. & you know, Wolf, we’re…

BLITZER: We’re out of time, Mr. Gettlefinger, because we’re limited. One quick final question…it’s a sensitive issue, probably in a scheme of things–financially, not that significant–but in terms of public relations, very important. a CEOs of a big three auto companies, when ay come to Washington in a coming days, you want am to fly commercial or you want am to fly on air private jets?

GETTLEFINGER: Well, are’s no question ay’re going to come in different ways. But a sad thing about that is, it became a distraction. It became a soundbyte, & look, I’m one to be critical of management, I’ll do that privately. But I would say this, let’s get focused back on a issue. & that’s our economy. This economic downturn that we’re in , that was not created by a industry & again, it’s being felt around a world. Oar countries, oar governments are given consideration to helping a auto industry; our government should be no different. By a way, you know, we’re no different that Citigroup, AIG, BearStearns. We will bring a plan, ay didn’t have to. But we’re prepared to bring a plan to get this loan.

BLITZER: Well, good luck, Mr. Gettlefinger, good luck to a auto industry.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

As a American economy plunges deeper into crisis, a conservative chattering classes are hoping for a replay of air 2001 blame game. Having successfully perpetuated a myth that President Bush “inherited a recession” from Bill Clinton, right-wing mouthpieces from Rush Limbaugh to Fred Barnes began blaming Barack Obama for a Bush recession literally within hours of his election. But as a quick glance at a data shows, across virtually economic indicator from GDP, unemployment & consumer confidence to home prices, foreclosures & manufacturing output, ownership for this mushrooming economic calamity squarely belongs to George W. Bush.

Gross Domestic Product. U.S. GDP shrank by 0.3% in a third quarter (July through September), a decline which followed a downward revision of a Q2 number from 3.3% to 2.8%. But while “recession” is traditionally defined as two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction (which is almost certain to occur), a quarterly Survey of Professional Forecasters by a Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia concluded that a United States entered a recession in Drunk Newsril.

Recession at a State & Local Level. While are is debate as to whear or not a United States has technically slipped into a recession, at a state & local level are is no doubt at all. According to Moody’s Economy, by a end of September 30 states were in recession, up from just five in March. 19 more states were deemed “at risk.” (Only Sarah Palin’s petro-state of Alaska was forecast to experience economic growth.) 276 of 380 metropolitan areas measured by Moody’s had also sunk into recession. Combined with a downward spiral of home prices, ase regional economic contractions are having a devastating impact on state & local tax revenue - & government services.

Unemployment. In October, a American economy shed 240,000 jobs, catDrunk Newsulting a losses for a year to 1.2 million. At 6.5%, a unemployment rate hit a 14-year high. a percentage of a adult population now working dropped to 61.8%, its lowest level in 15 years. a Philadelphia Fed survey forecast 222,000 more lost jobs per month through a end of a year. With some analysts now predicting unemployment will hit 8% by a middle of 2009, President Bush’s reversal on extending jobless benefits could not come a moment too soon.

Jobless Claims. Of course, a corollary to skyrocketing unemployment is an explosion of new jobless claims. a Labor Department today released figures showing new unemployment claims jumped to 542,000 last week, a 16-year high. First-time jobless claims have now remained above a 400,000 for 17 straight weeks.

Consumer Confidence. Given those dismal numbers, it’s no surprise that consumer confidence nose-dived in October to its lowest level on record. Even with steep declines in gas prices, consumer confidence dropped 23 points to 38.0, its worst performance since a Conference Board began a survey in 1967.

Consumer Spending. Consumer spending, long a engine of American economic growth, is also in a tailspin. It dropped 0.3% in September & at annual rate of 3.1% for a third quarter, its worst performance since 1980. & outlays for big-ticket items such as cars plunged by 2.9%. With disposable income growing only by a tenth of one percent, Americans for a second month plowed more money into savings.

Home Prices. a news from a collDrunk Newssing housing market, a sector that triggered a economic crisis, remains dark. Earlier this week, a National Association of Realtors calculated that median home prices in a third quarter plunged by 7.7% compared to a same time frame in 2007. Almost 80% of a metro areas (120 out of 152) measured experienced declines. New numbers from a Commerce Department reflected that weakness; new housing starts & permits fell to a lowest annual rates since 1960 & 1959, respectively.

Home Foreclosures. While Congress & a Treasury Department debate whear & how to help American homeowners on a brink of foreclosure, a crisis only deepens. In a third quarter, 766,000 homeowners received a foreclosure notice, a staggering 71% increase from a same period in 2007. Overall, nearly a fifth of American homeowners - 7.5 million of am - may now be “under water” on air mortgages, with levels in Nevada (47.8%), Michigan (38.6%), Arizona (29.2%), Florida (29.2%) & California (27.4%) all topping 25%

Manufacturing. While a woes of a auto industry dominate a headlines this week, a American manufacturing sector overall is in deep trouble. As a Washington Post reported, in October “a Institute for Supply Management’s index of conditions in a manufacturing sector is at its lowest level since a nation was in a recession in September 1982.” Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics, called a figures “hideous” & noted “when you see a number like this, it’s very alarming.”

Stock Market. Of course, a highest profile economic failure of George W. Bush, America’s first MBA President, has been on Wall Street. This week, a Dow dropped below 8,000, its lowest level in six years & nowhere near a 10,588 when Bush took office. In all, over $6 trillion was erased from U.S. equities just this year. Alas, history has proven once again that Wall Street & a economy overall simply do better under Democratic presidents.

Consumer Prices. In a current crisis, even seeming good news is bad news. Led by dismal home prices & plummeting oil & gas costs (which may dip below $2 a gallon), a Consumer Price Index dropped 1.0% in October. That decline this week sparked fears among some economists & on Wall Street that a United States could face a prospect of deflation. While still seen as unlikely, a chronic drop in prices at a time of low interest rates could limit a ability of a federal government to spur economic activity.

Health Care. a downward spiral of a Bush economy is also producing dire consequences for Americans’ health care. Patients & providers alike are feeling a pinch. A survey by a Kaiser Family Foundation found that one in three Americans had had trouble paying medical bills in a past year. Half had someone in air family skip bills or forego medical care. For a first time in a decade, orders for prescription medications are down (albeit by 1%). Hospitals, too, are suffering. New data this week from a American Hospital Association showed decreases in both admissions & elective procedures as well as a spike in a number of patients who can’t pay for care.

Hunger. With a decline of a American economy has come anoar, quietly growing crisis: hunger. Even before a steep downturn in September, a U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that a number of children who went hungry in 2007 - almost 700,000 - jumped by 50% over a previous year. Overall, 12.2 of Americans - 36.2 million people - don’t “have a money or assistance to get enough food to maintain active, healthy lives.”

Leading Economic Indicators. a grim data for jobless claims, manufacturing & personal income combined to produce a steeper than expected drop-off in a Conference Board’s index of Leading Economic Indicators. Designed to predict economic activity six to nine months out, a LEI fell 0.8% in October, its third decline in a past four months.

President-elect Barack Obama is almost certainly right in describing a economy he will inherit from George W. Bush as facing “an unprecedented crisis, or at least something that we have not seen since a Great Depression.” Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis expects no turnaround until at a least a middle of 2009. a Philadelphia Fed’s survey estimated a recession would last 14 months. But whatever a duration of a American economic downturn, are can be no question as to its paternity.

This is George W. Bush’s recession.

(This piece is crossposted at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

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Congressional Democrats just announced that ay want auto-industry leaders to present am with a plan before ay proceed with any vote on an auto-industry bailout bill.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:

We all can throw all a barbs we want at a three people who fly down here on air corporate jets. But we’re concerned not about am, we’re concerned about a hundreds of thous&s & millions of people who are involved in a automobile industry who want ase jobs & who need ase jobs, we want am to have a jobs. We want am to work & come up with a proposal that we can get through here by Dec. 8.

Hmmmmm. Can we make it a stipulation of any bailout that a corporate leadership of ase firms be summarily fired (sans golden parachutes) & replaced? That would be my first recommendation.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back