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Ed Schultz talks to The President of the United Steelworkers of America, Leo Gerard about the cash for clunkers program, and the need to restore a manufacturing base and invest in infrastructure in the United States. I'm glad to see Ed Schultz having people like Gerard on his show. He's one of the better, plain spoken, honest brokers who stands up for working people I've seen out there representing the union movement and the working class in the United States, which is sorely disregarded or berated by the majority of the chattering class in our media.

Schultz: Just a couple of months ago, labor organized this big bus tour covering some thirty states and the mission of that tour was to basically save the car industry, stimulate sales. The steel workers pushed the program cash for clunkers. This turned out to be the most successful incentive program the government's ever had. For more on that let me bring in Leo Gerard, International President of the United Steel workers. Leo, how good of a sign is this that we're seeing consumers react, I think that's the big thing, consumers are reacting. How encouraged are you by this?

Gerard: Look, I think it's a very positive sign and I'm really excited because as you say, we did thirty four cities in eleven states talking about a need to stimulate demand for the automobile industry, and I think that tour helped to do that. And listening to you and Verge right now, I've got to tell you that you're all on the right track. We need to do more of this. We need to stimulate more demand. We need to stimulate more manufacturing and we ought not to be ashamed of what we're doing.

The President of France said he's going to put eight billion, eight billion with a "b" into their cash for clunkers program, on the condition that all that money would have to be spent on cars produced in France. For us in the steel workers union, we don't assemble cars, but it's our tires, our steel, our aluminum, our glass, our plastic that goes into those cars, so once those cars start moving off the show room, our steel mills will start to work.

Our tire plants will start to work and people will start going back to work. And this shows that President Obama, if he could get more support from Republicans, his program is leading us in the right direction, and if we had more Republicans standing up for America rather than playing petty politics and doing stupid stuff with birthers and everything, we could stimulate this economy. We need an infrastructure bank, just like that.

Schultz: No question about it. Mr. Gerard, do you really think there will be a manufacturing ripple effect, that we might see some jobs created in manufacturing because we're starting to see some cars move off the lot in this country?

Gerard: Absolutely Ed. The fact of the matter is that those cars have to have, and I agree with Verge about buying domestically, those cars will have domestic steel in them, those cars will have domestic parts in them, but let me go one step further. I think we need to do the same thing with the investment banks for infrastructure. If we can do the same thing on domestic infrastructure and start to build our water treatment plants, start to rebuild all of our kind of sewers and pipelines.

Today driving into work I heard about the city of Pittsburg was shut down because the sewer lines busted. So we need that kind of stuff and to go along with the cash for clunkers, we ought to cash for clunkers for infrastructure and that will get people back to work. And I can tell you that our steel mills are going to start, our paper mills are going to start, our rubber plants are going to start and that's going to put people back to work. They'll get some money. They'll go buy something, and I think we ought to push the cash for clunkers and we ought to put more money in. In fact, I've got a good idea, let's take the thirty three billion dollars they gave in bonuses for the clowns that created the economic mess, and let's put that thirty three billion into a cash for clunkers program.

Schultz: Well, I think what we need to point out Leo is the fact that we have thrown billions of dollars at Wall Street. This is a morsal of what we saw to go Wall Street. To the American workers and the consumers that responded this ought to be a wake up call to every person who really supported Barack Obama through it all that he's got the right mix.

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Ed Schultz held no punches back when he went after Hugh Hewitt's idiotic call for a national boycott of all GM and Chrysler cars because he calls them "socialist companies."

A pair of right-wing radio hosts says there's only one choice for conservatives angry about government involvement in the auto industry: Boycott GM. "Nobody wants to support an Obama company," Rush Limbaugh told his audience Friday, citing a poll showing that 17 percent of Americans backed a boycott of GM.

"Every dollar spent with GM is a dollar spent against free enterprise," conservative talker Hugh Hewitt wrote online last week.
"While it's not surprising that Rush Limbaugh would root for the failure of a national institution for partisan political gain, it is surprising that the other so-called leaders of the Republican party are silently going along with him given how many hard working Americans rely on GM for a living," said DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan.

So far, there is little evidence that the government's involvement is turning off buyers. In bankruptcy for the entire month of May, Chrysler had its best sales month of the year.

Ed hits the Grassley nail on the head. Why are Hugh Hewitt and Rush Limbaugh trying to destroy the American automotive industry? What about the families that need these jobs to survive? Will Hewitt and Limbaugh support all the families this child like boycott could affect?
Schultz is calling for a boycott of the Salem radio network.

Ed: Conservatives, are you out of your mind? Do you know how many Americans have lost their jobs in manufacturing? Do you know how many American families are being affected, their livelihoods are being drilled because of this recession and what do they do, they push back on the American families that are doing the absolute best they can to build a great product...
What do you say we just kick the American worker in the teeth. What do you say we just give all the money to Wall Street. Let's just take their health care, let's take their education, let's take their jobs. Let's just genuflect to the Hugh Hewitts of the world.

We know where Hewitt's heart resides. His love of CEOs and fat cats that prey on the working class to finance their palaces. And the media slobbers over Hewitt every time he writes a mindless book, but we never see a liberal on TV who releases one. Where's Will Bunch, where's Eric Boehlert, where's David Neiwert? All three have excellent books just release, but they are almost no where to be found on cable news. Why the silence of liberals? Anyway, it was good that Ed kicked Hugh in the head today.

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June 02, 2009 C-SPAN

Ted Poe is apparently undeterred by Nate Silver's reporting.

Acoustic version of Won't Get Fooled Again by Pete Townsend

I'm going to share with you fine people something that apparently has escaped the notice of the producers and bookers of the Sunday news shows: The Democratic Party won last election day. Not just a little--but decisively. Democrats now hold the White House and a (theoretically) filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and House. A whopping percentage of Americans not only support our (say it with me now, Democratic) president, but think the country is going in the right direction.

Pretty decisive, wouldn't you say? I'd call that a mandate...some actual political capital, if you will. So who would be the natural choices for Sunday's shows? Why, Newt Gingrich, John McCain and Dick Cheney! That's right, the old faces that have been thoroughly rejected by citizens will be on to talk about the new face of the GOP.

Stunning. Here we sit, with crisis after crisis: economy, banking, auto industry, health care, climate change, Iraq, Afghanistan, (need I continue?) and what the bobbleheads think we should care about is the health of the GOP? There's a big WTF for you.

ABC's "This Week" — Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, the president's national security adviser; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

CBS'"Face the Nation" — Former Vice President Dick Cheney.

NBC's "Meet the Press" — Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai; Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Bob Woodward, Katty Kay, Andrea Mitchell and Rick Stengel; Topics: Will Afghanistan and Pakistan become a death trap for President Obama? Should sex, race and sexual orientation matter for the Supreme Court pick? Meter Questions: Can Obama keep Pakistan's government in power? YES: 2 NO: 10; Will Republicans genuinely reevaluate? YES: 4 NO: 8

CNN's "State of the Union" — Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command; Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Bob Casey, D-Pa.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - Fareed sits down with the Dalai Lama. His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso speaks out about his struggle with China for the freedom of the Tibetan people. He talks to Fareed about oppression in the region and maintains that brutality is not engrained in humanity. The Dalai Lama also discusses his own succession and whether or not this spiritual institution will continue after his death.

"Fox News Sunday" — Petraeus; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.

Okay, while I run back into bed, so my kids can serve me breakfast, tell us what's catching your eye this morning.

Oh yeah, and Happy Mother's Day to all my fellow mommies. Hope you are getting your fill of sticky pancake kisses and crayoned and glittered cards. I know I am.

It's all so damned incestuous, isn't it?

The man leading the Obama administration’s efforts to restructure the auto industry has been described in Securities and Exchange Commission documents as having arranged for his investment firm to pay more than $1 million to obtain New York State pension business.

Although he is not named in the documents, a person with knowledge of the inquiry said the investment executive is Steven Rattner, co-founder of the Quadrangle Group, the prominent private equity firm.

The S.E.C. complaint, filed as part of an expansive state and federal investigation into corruption at the state pension fund, details the efforts of Quadrangle to gain business from the pension fund beginning in 2004.

The person who received most of the $1 million-plus payment has been indicted, accused of selling access to the fund.

There is no indication in the complaint that Mr. Rattner faces criminal or civil charges in connection with the inquiry.

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(H/t Heather at VideoCafe)

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

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

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

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

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

Wallace: How do you view that the UAW talks collapsed?

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

How interesting since the negotiations aren't dead in the water after all.

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

I'm sure the Richard Shelby's of Congress will be getting a ton of media attention very soon as the 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 these words.

From the world where all things old are new again and all things new have that ring of eerie familiarity, I dug these news items up from the deep-dark past of 1979. Gas rationing, looming recession, the Carter Malaise speech and Chrysler! In 1979 it was Lee Iacocca and the great national nose-turn at the Gas Guzzler. In 2008 it was endless wars, looming recession, Bush cluelessness and the great national nose-turn at really ugly, mundane, rubber-stamped cars.

Strangely, 30 years later not a whole lot has changed. The names and faces have, the cars have (and not in a good way). But Detroit is still pretty clueless.

Oh . . .and they can still use a spare Billion or two.

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

He said:

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

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

And wages and benefits. You said yourself that they're about 10 percent -- 10 percent of the budget? You would think listening to some of the people talk out there, some of the so-called experts, that wages and benefits were 70 percent of the cost. So there's a lot of mythology, a lot of myth generally that has been put on the record.

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

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

The representatives of the Big Three came back to Congress with tin cups in hand today, and you can watch them on most of the news channels today.

Humbled U.S. automakers pleaded with Congress Thursday for an expanded $34 billion rescue package, but heard fresh skepticism in a bumpy encore appearance.

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

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

As Chuck Schumer observed, the problem is that they seem to want their bailout without setting the conditions first. Ain't gonna fly that way, fellas.

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

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

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

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

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On Late Edition, host Wolf Blitzer asks UAW President Ron Gettlefinger for his take on Mitt Romney's heartless and callously Republican "solution" to the auto industry crisis: take away health benefits and pensions for the laborers, otherwise known as "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

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

Gettlefinger deftly charges that it's not surprising that the Republican would point the finger at workers, and 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 the lending arms of these automakers do have tentacles all over the globe), and it bears little difference from the financial bailout for which the Republicans were only too happy to pony up funds, Blitzer interrupts him to bring up yet another inane and irrelevant talking point: whether the CEOs will arrive in Washington DC via personal jet again.

I forget, was this an issue for BearStearns and AIG when they put their hand out? Way to get to the heart of such a critical issue for so many Americans, Wolfie.

Full transcripts below the fold

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As the American economy plunges deeper into crisis, the conservative chattering classes are hoping for a replay of their 2001 blame game. Having successfully perpetuated the myth that President Bush "inherited a recession" from Bill Clinton, right-wing mouthpieces from Rush Limbaugh to Fred Barnes began blaming Barack Obama for the Bush recession literally within hours of his election. But as a quick glance at the data shows, across virtually economic indicator from GDP, unemployment and consumer confidence to home prices, foreclosures and 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 the third quarter (July through September), a decline which followed the downward revision of the 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), the quarterly Survey of Professional Forecasters by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia concluded that the United States entered a recession in April.

Recession at the State and Local Level. While there is debate as to whether or not the United States has technically slipped into a recession, at the state and local level there is no doubt at all. According to Moody's Economy, by the 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 the downward spiral of home prices, these regional economic contractions are having a devastating impact on state and local tax revenue - and government services.

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

Jobless Claims. Of course, the corollary to skyrocketing unemployment is an explosion of new jobless claims. The 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 the 400,000 for 17 straight weeks.

Continue reading »

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

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:

We all can throw all the barbs we want at the three people who fly down here on their corporate jets. But we're concerned not about them, we're concerned about the hundreds of thousands and millions of people who are involved in the automobile industry who want these jobs and who need these jobs, we want them to have the jobs. We want them to work and 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 the corporate leadership of these firms be summarily fired (sans golden parachutes) and replaced? That would be my first recommendation.

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I guess Lou Dobbs and Co. are giving up their populist "we're for the working class" pose, because yesterday Republican Rep. Darrell Issa appeared on the Dobbs program (with Kitty Pilgrim sitting in) to pile on after Mitt Romney's NYT op-ed telling Detroit to Suck. On. This.

ISSA: I think Mitt's right on. And you know, being the son of a man who turned Rambler/AMC around, he knows how hard it is to reinvent a company from one that isn't making good cars and not making competitive cars to one that can, in fact, survive.

Sure. Maybe that would explain why, as Jon Perr points out, Mitt Romney was all for doing whatever it takes to save Detroit back when he was running against John McCain in the Republican primary:

"I want to bring Michigan back. I am not willing to sit back and say 'too bad for Michigan, too bad for the car industry, too bad for the people who lost their jobs, they are gone forever.' I will not rest when I am president of the United States until Michigan is brought back."

He also told Michiganders:

"This state needs someone who cares about this state more than one day a year."

And as Perr points out:

Not once does Romney quantify the impact of his recommendation that "without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself." There is no estimate of the devastating job losses Big Three bankruptcies would produce or the estimated $200 billion impact in unemployment insurance and other government safety net payments which would result from the collapse of GM alone. And Romney is silent on the national security implications as the builders of Abrams battle tanks, Humvees and armored fighting vehicles face halting production during wartime.

No, as John Amato has been saying, when Republicans talk about "restructuring" the auto industry, they're not talking about reordering the corporate order of things, where CEOs and other executives reel in massive salaries and even more massive bonuses in spite of their shockingly lousy performances, while shipping thousands of U.S. jobs overseas.

They're talking about destroying the autoworkers' unions. Bankrupting the corporations would nullify all the existing union contracts. Whoever bought the companies (likely the Chinese) would be free to negotiate with whoever they like -- or, potentially, simply set up shop with no unions at all.

The auto industry is in dire need of a makeover. But allowing it to collapse isn't going to achieve that. That's like trying to put lipstick on a corpse.