gunnut69

wow what a post. interstates were built and are maintained to mobilize armed forces should that become necessary. other uses,while important, are secondary to that.they do fall properly under federal funding,for obvious reasons. usage taxes such as tolls would be insufficient.any increase in gas taxes would lead to less usage and further reduce usage revenue. national and state parks: really? lumping all this together?there are several designations under each heading but ok. ill address national parks. national parks are meant to be set aside and kept pristine for generations of americans to come,and to preserve the splendor found in our beautiful nation. theres no way to accomplish that and make them totally self sufficient unless your idea of beauty is billboards for miles and hundreds of tacky shops in roadside trailers. dont know if you ever drove through the smoky mountains when it used to be run like that but its much nicer now. education???? yeah good idea lets let the already struggling states handle education on their own.we should be setting higher standards nationally if we want to continue to at least compete in development of technology globally. there are changes that need to be made but no rational person can really believe this is one of them,imo. federal and state cops lumped together with the army???REALLY????????? the armed forces protect the nation,the cops enforce the law. these are two very,very different functions. it is in fact illegal for the army to be used for law enforcement,although the nat. guard has been used in the past.privatizing the cops? its been done man. it was done long ago and was such a failure that it led to the current system. once again no rational person...... drug laws do need to be reformed. drug use should be treated as the medical problem it really is and not a criminal act. theres no rerason for any drug to be illegal for a medical doctor to prescribe should he choose to. it should also be legal for a doctor to maintain a drug addict. these would be good steps in addressing the ever growing and incredibly expensive so called "war on drugs" .prostitution and gambling already are legal on the national level.

this is the guy obama shook hands with that time remember? they even did the "friendship" handshake and chaves said he had extended that same friendship to bush but was rejected. then chavez gave obama a book on how terrible the u.s. was and obama sat down and started looking at it. remember that? remember how everyone said "whats the big deal? thats what world leaders do when they meet,they shake hands" if bush had done that it would have been a different story."bush is sucking up to this horrible dictator because he has oil". to answer your question,yes i can believe it. its par for the course for him.he starves his own people. they only grow to about 5 feet tall because they are undernourished. but hey gas is 25cents a gallon and its a socialist utopia lol.

the decline in manufacturing in the us has been going on for decades now and presided over by all presidents of both parties. i know many would love to think bush did all this but that just isnt the case. it really started about the time of the end of the vietnam war.not one president has done anything but accelerate it.obama will be no different.for years candidates on both sides(obama included) have said that small businesses are the driver of the economy,and it is true. its also very unfortunate. small businesses are growing as a percentage of the gdp because large manufacturing companies are leaving in bunches.it is the absence of these manufacturing jobs which provided pensions,insurance etc. that small companies ,as a rule, dont provide that has caused the so called health care crisis and most of the other problems we face today,domestically anyway. the auto bailouts were a mistake as were the bank bailouts. that has been my opinion since day one. reason being they are a temporary respite,not a solution to our problems. your dad having a job has nothing to do with pres. obama. that is,unless he works for the govt.

so what you are saying is basically "dont hate the player,hate the game". lol such a cop out,from you i expected better. pattern bargaining was a great tool when all the players were unionized.i cant see how it will help us compete with toyota and honda though. keeping costs high for the big three just helps the imports maximize profits. we are indeed in a very difficult situation. the only solution i see is to build quality cars and trucks in the us at a profit.not equal(or hopefully superior) to the quality of the unionized big three competitors,but the imports. if we dont do that nothing else matters.the last round of mods. to the contract would have done nothing towards that end, we probably agree on that much.

whats the point here brother? you bought a car with a good title,right? the guy you bought it from acted in good faith i assume. proving this car stolen will only cause you to be out the car and the money you spent on it,unless you prove it stolen and then keep it at which point you commit a crime. some things are better left alone.

we export technology among other things. they do build cars in china. why not make our trade policies on imports the same as our trading partners? in other words we levy the same 100% tariff on japanese cars as they do on our cars. why not require wages and benefits for foreign workers producing goods for sale in the u.s. to be equal to the market where the goods are sold instead of where the labor is bought? then maybe foreign laborers could afford to buy some of our goods. you know, the way its supposed to work.

it is my understanding that our health insurance is funded by ford. in other words humana or bcbs just administers the plan. ford doesnt actually buy a policy,they just pay the bills and the insurance companies administrate it .ford doesnt pay premiums,in other words,they pay the dr. bills and pay the insurance company a fee for handling the paperwork basically. if i am wrong on this i am sure someone else will point that out lol.

well of course ford makes money. of course they make money "off of us" as you put it,just like every other company profits from the labor of the people they employ.its a good thing too because thats the only reason why they operate. everyone should know where i stand when it comes to concessions etc so i hope noone misunderstands when i say this. to me this as obvious as saying "ford makes money",maybe because ive worked in two union shops in the past that both made money and also closed. anyway sometimes whether or not the company makes money isnt as important as if the company can make more money somewhere else. i do agree that now is not the time to be afraid.thats obvious as well because its never a time to be afraid. as bad as it is to act out of anger,its worse to act out of fear.what is there to fear anyway? hard times? if you hired into the auto industry thinking there would never be hard times,well,you should have been paying better attention i guess,because you got fooled.

you bring up some interesting ideas.it seems to make sense.i dont know if its all true but it doesnt really matter. what we need to do is build quality cars and trucks that people actually want to buy.none of these other things mean dick if we dont get to selling some cars. some of it is beyond our control but in spite of all the bullshit thats going on we all need to keep our eyes on the prize so to speak and build the best vehicle we can every day. when ford can make some money again all these other issues will sort themselves out. kinda like the so called health care crisis. if we still had or are able to somehow bring a healthy manufacturing base back to our country and our economy that problem would wither away and die.

people buy cars that they like and that they believe are reliable. PERIOD. do you think that all those god damn kias are selling because people just love korean auto workers???no way.

more accurate to say that we arent being asked to give up any MORE pay and benefit cuts at this time. we are being asked to agree that next contract wages are maintained at a equal level to all competition. i guess though if you believe that wall street responds somehow to "pr" or that anything we could ever give up would earn union auto workers good press on any large scale, i guess im just wasting my breath.

pattern bargaining was really useful to us in the past. what it really does is insure that all the uaw auto companies operate under the same rules and wages so none has a competitive advantage over the other in areas of wages or other compensation. now non-uaw companies arent just bit players in this game anymore. we dont have to worry about competing against anyone more than toyota,honda etc. with more players entering the game all the time.short of getting them organized pattern bargaining wont help us against them. what role do you see it playing in this unfortunate relatively new environment?

glad you brought the job bank up.the job bank was the only job security we ever had. the auto market is volatile as hell we all know that. now they claim these new concessions will bring security. we just gave our security away. the company and union think we are all dumb as hell!!!!!theyre right about some of us. vote your conscience

you have to read that whole paragraph, brother and take the sentence that says what you want to hear in the full context of the paragraph. basically all nonstrikable items will have to be settled before we can even think of a strike.this will surely complicate the negotiating process. i imagine they will attempt to settle items subject to binding arbitration before items subject to strike are even brought up. i could be wrong but this sounds like a nightmare to me. also they are just bound to keep wages comparable to all competitors. if you want to work for what they pay at toyota go work there. they hire all the fucking time.they fire all the time too. job security is an illusion in the auto industry anymore. its a dangling carrot that can never be reached. the new auto market is the most volatile in the country with more and more competition everyday.they cannot honestly promise security because it depends on factors largely beyond control of any of us.never mind the fact that we did just recently give up the job bank and everything else that did provide at least something. i would still LOVE to see a cost benefit analysis on the wages that were given up to get that job bank versus the actual cost of the benefits actually paid to it.as soon as any number of people needed it we gave it up!!!!!!

wait,what??????what i read does say you cant strike while an issue is in arbitration. that is pretty clear or someone made a big typo.so there we are in contract talks with an issue bogged down in arbitration rendering us unable to strike over anything but it doesnt matter cuz we can just strike later??really???

there is truth in what youre saying but what do you propose we do? it is also true that autoworker jobs havent always really been that much better than other manufacturing jobs. here in louisville there used to be tobacco companies,distilleries,and many,many manufacturing companies whose pay and benefits were equivalent to, if not better than what the union autoworkers had. the vast majority of those jobs are either gone or have already succumbed to concessions to the point they dont even remember what they gave up anymore.should we go down that same path to make the so called public happy?? we are the last light in the darkness of what remains of the middle class. we made the middle class in this country,we being the uaw,teamsters, mine workers etc. we cant blow out the lamp just because a few vocal people would be happier knowing everyone was in the dark, so to speak. we should stand ready to give concessions when they are necessary to maintain the viability of the company. we should and we have followed through on this. having said that we should only give concessions when we are assured that we will receive our fair share of the first dollar of profit in the companies rebound. our right to strike is our only assurance towards that end. give that up and all we have conceded and all we concede in the future will be gone forever.that is a fact.

we will never ever strike for a raise anyway. that will never happen. as far as the company opening their books, ford is a publicly traded company.their books arent really a secret they can hide in the same way a privately held company can. if the union and company are at an impasse the union can ask to see the books of even a private company. that is if the company is pleading poverty. you dont need a no strike or binding arbitration clause for that. we went down that road back in 1998 at uaw 791 so im not making this shit up.ive seen it.read the language on page 3 of the handout on proposed modifications. specifically the three paragraphs under "binding arbitration". if you are comfortable with what that says then vote for it. personally im not. no spin necessary.

i liked the part about how we cant strike even on a strikable issue while a non strikable issue is in binding arbitration.without the threat of a strike we have no chips to put on the table. btw can you give me miss representation's phone number? i hear shes hot!!

they wont stop because it pays well.it has nothing to do with "not liking" someone. to think so is just so naive. lets face it love him or hate him rush has gotten very wealthy doing what he does. he is trying to buy a nfl team now for gods sake. so much talk about fox news, talk radio bias etc. there is no bias. all there is are targeted demographics.each network gives a little different spin to attract a little different audience to more effectively sell advertising. thats all. i was glad to hear obama say he didnt think he deserved the prize. he didnt. he doesnt. he knows it,he said it.its a joke anyway.

ever wake up short of breath and heart pounding,then you will get to a doctor asap. even libertarianism requires acceptance of a certain paradigm. try telling a theosophist he can only accept one religion.

i think he is referring to the fact that canada is protected by norad,for free. to think that this is done for reasons other than the protection of the us itself is an example of his ignorance.having said that,it is a fair question to ask,were the us not providing this protection,how much would it cost canada? would it be enough to impact that health coverage we hear so much about??? lol

maybe you dont belong on a ford employee only message board?? maybe you work for toyota and love to hug asian nuts??noone asked for your advice.

youre exactly right,except maybe not mexico.maybe,india,indonesia maybe even vietnam.wonder how long before cars are made in afghanistan and shipped here? did you know that even the next generation u.s. army carbine was designed and built by the germans??????of course when its put into production each part will be built by the lowest bidder lol. what the fuck are we letting happen???? i read in the paper a day or two ago that we need to revive the expired assault weapon ban because of all the violence in mexico. what?? then the article listed the weapons being used in mexico:machine guns,grenades,etc. all of which have been banned for years or were never legal at all and would be in no way affected by the so called assault rifle ban. oh shit,i forgot for a minute that obama the great protector of freedom is in control,theres nothing to worry or think about at all. wonder whats on tv???

youre absolutely right. what is happening now isnt socialist at all. there are a lot of socialist aspects to our democratic republic.things like ssi,medicare,etc. things that most of us would say are good. over the years we have managed to operate a capitalist system all the while maintaining,if you will,the best parts of socialism. what is happening now with the banks,with g.m. and chrysler,is actually,at least by benito mussolini's definition(and he was a man who would know!!!!) fascism.marriage of corporation and government.i bet a dollar against a dime you dont even know who i am talking about. anyone else see humor in the fact that so many called bush a fascist,and now with actual fascism getting started,noone seems to notice?? as a sidenote: the patriot act did nothing that changed my day to day life,although i was,and am against it. a democrat signed into law a gun ban that even though it expired in 2003 still impacts the gun market til this day. well at least until obama got elected and people started buying guns like there is no tomorrow.the reason why is because that "freedom loving leftist" as a senator voted for every single piece of gun control legislation introduced during his short time in the senate. none of the famous"present" votes on that issue.are you aware that now even in states that issue ccdw permits ,even if you have the permit,its not valid in a national park?? its an executive order,by obama. what fucking sense does that make? are ccdw holders commiting crimes in nat. parks? has anyone anywhere been shot by a ccdw holder in a nat. park ever????sure a guardian of freedom like obama wouldnt have done this for no reason???lol lmao. im gonna go puke now.

i watched it. i saw him say that there needed to be limits on executive salaries not just in bailed out firms but at all companies. i heard him say that people in new york who dont want to work for $250000 should go to arkansas where people wish they could make $75000.......... umm i thought america was the land of opportunity not the land of govt mandated limits on wages. i thought america was a place where success was unlimited to those who chose to work for it. i guess i was wrong. make excuses for him all you want,the guy is a fucking joke. you thought the world thought bush was a joke?? stay tuned!!!!!!!!!