In a November 21 blog post on the Daily Beast website, MSNBC host and Daily Beast "insider" Mika Brzezinski falsely asserted that "the average Big Three automaker union worker's compensation is $73/hour -- two and a half times the average for the taxpayer being asked to bail them out." In making the assertion, Brzezinski cited a November 18 article by Pete Winn of the Media Research Center's Cybercast News Service (CNS), who reported that "[i]t costs over $73 per hour on average to employ a union auto worker, according to University of Michigan at Flint economist Mark J. Perry." However, as the CNS article noted, the $73 figure includes not only "compensation" for current workers, as Brzezinski claimed, but also benefits paid to current retirees. CNS quoted Perry, who has used the $73 figure to argue against an auto industry bailout, noting that the figure "includ[es] legacy costs -- retirement costs, pensions, and so on -- so it's looking at the total labor costs per hour worked for workers," not just the average union worker's hourly compensation.
As an employee of General Electric Mika Brzezinski is a ward of the state and would do well to show a little humility. Dunno what she makes, but I bet it is a lot more than $73/hour.
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"legacy costs," I love it
To the ice floes with 'em!
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
that figure has been popping up everywhere--
such a crock.
and they're all blaming the workers and unions--with Wall St they never do.
It'a a Repub lie which has become cemented into MCM brains--
See how long the Obama infatuation has kept them from going back to their favorite sources for factoids? Well, not that MCMers weren't using them when they wanted to during the election.
Krugman writes the truth in the NYTimes--still doesn't make a dent in how MCMers "think." But nothing does keep them from their favored Narratives--and the Big Labor has long been a favored Big Villain for the MCM.
Where are the lib/prob MCMers who speak and write the corrections? Ha, they're ensuring they keep their nice paychecks coming.
As Somerby notes, there are few lib/prog heroes in the MCM or among the wannabees in the blogs, magazines. Alas.
I think IF Stone said he didn't want to be able to interview the president--or other power figures--bcz only those who accommodate power can get that close. Or something like that.
oh please!
they have been making stuff up for years, as documented by Bob Somerby, blogging before there was blogging. You just can't blame everything on Obama.
DCB--What does what I wrote have to do with Obama? What I wrote
is to say that during this election the MCMers played on our side of the field. During the primary, they mostly played on Obama's side of our field and against Hillary--but during the general election they mostly played on our side (meaning the Dem side).
As Somberby has noted, this election the MCM had decided to not support the Repub. For whatever actual reasons. He also surmised Obama would get better treatment from the MCMers, altho' he wasn't positive of that.
If I wasn't clear enough that I was criticizing the Mainstream Corporate Media, I apologize. I must have been assuming too much.
As Ashleigh Banfield learned so well--MCMers who speak the truth
to power do not last.
A blogger posted that NBC owes her a lot of back pay, since what she said turned out to be accurate. Like that's going to happen.
Poor Mika Brzezinski
Cursed from birth with an unspellable name and hideous luck. She just accidentally keeps on getting critical facts completely wrong, or leaving them out of stories altogether. The Joan Btfsplk of Professional Journalism™ — it's a miracle she still has a job, poor dear.
With kind regards,
Dog, etc.
... searching for home ...
Detroit will get its rescue
Apparently NASCAR is gearing up to lobby for Detroit. They are targeting GOP holdouts and the political fall out for a red state congressman 'killing NASCAR' would be ginormous to say the least. Even among those that don't like or watch NASCAR, too many towns have grown economically dependent on it in many ways (everything from tourism dollars to merchandising to direct employment). The Deep South GOPers (exceptions being Tennessee's GOP Senators who are for bailing out Detroit) think they've nothing to lose and everything to gain by Detroit's collapse but with NASCAR telling them 'we can't survive without Detroit and several of your cities can't survive without us' I think they'll change their tune.
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
Sell the yachts?
Maybe they could sell their yachts to fund the lobbying?
Seriously though, if any entity could get the masses to brandish torches and pitchforks, it is NASCAR.
Despite that, the South is now the home of Toyota, Honda, etc. and Alabama is where the largest steel (especially stainless) production facility in the US is currently being completed to use cheap, non-union friendly labor to produce steel for the new car factories throughout the South.
NASCAR is on the wrong side of these politics, but since NASCAR is nothing more than a branding gimmick, all it depends on is $$$ to just change brands....
I'm sure Toyota, Honda and Nissan will be happy to buy them off.
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
I Wouldn't
I wouldn't cite NASCAR effect too much. That's almost enough to make me argue for backruptcy. lol
BTW, the story in the media seems to be that it the fault of the Republicans for holding this us, and I in fact blame the Dems more than anyone else because they are supposed to be allies with labor. We're supposed to expect the GOP to have ideological hang-ups on government involvement in business. It is some factions of the Democratic Party that has been hanging this up. The question shouldn't have been if to allow for the continuity of American manufacturing but how best to allow for this continuity, and this is a question the Dems could have controlled. It has been the waffling in the Democratic Party, not the GOP, that has allowed the question to go from "how and when" to "if".
The sad irony I find in all of this is that the president-elect's oft-cited two years of community service had alot to do with fighting for unionized manufacturing workers on the Southside of Chicago. Now, he's "behind the scenes", which seems to be the favorite way of the MCM in describing how Obama governs, and waffling. He's not setting the tone, he's letting the tone set him. I never got why the UAW didn't endorse during the primaries, and then like fools forked over tens-of-millions of dollars to Obama during the general knowing that he wasn't the best choice for them.
I am serious, and I approve this message.
Hehe I'm no fan
...of NASCAR. I'm just reporting what's happening. NASCAR is lobbying for the first time EVAR and they apparently get over $100 million from Detroit a year in sponsorships.
From the article:
With its top sponsors near collapse, NASCAR will begin lobbying Congress next week to help rescue domestic automobile producers, a sector that pumps $100 million per year into the sport.
(SNIP)
But with its own livelihood perhaps at stake, an industry insider said the privately owned – and historically apolitical – sport may have no choice but to start burning up the phone lines on behalf of its largest underwriters and the legions of fans who work on assembly lines in Detroit and elsewhere.
(SNIP)
And with Congress’ lame duck do-over scheduled to begin Dec. 8, the source added that “in the next seven days” NASCAR will begin reaching out to Members, particularly Republicans from the mid-Atlantic and South, where stock car racing is particularly popular.
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So it seems NASCAR is very much afraid and for good reason. There's also a supply chain and domestic parts problem to all of this that isn't get much coverage. American cars use IMPERIAL parts rather than METRIC. That little tidbit is going to have a major chain reaction in other areas should the worst happen.
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
And those Citi (vs. City) folks we bailed out today?
I've been trying to prepare a post on that, ut it just makes me so mad...
The City (NYC) does thing for me. Me and other people. Much more than any bank does.
Bail her out. That is all.
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
"Obama to City: Drop Dead"
that's what we're gonna see, just like with Ford.
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