A bizarre confrontation in Hradcany Castle confirms the inablilty of the Euro-elite to accept anyone else's opinions, writes Christopher Booker.
Imagine that a Franco-German MEP, invited to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace, plonked down in front of her an EU "ring of stars" flag, insisting that she hoist it over the palace alongside the Royal Standard, and then proceeded to address her in a deliberately insulting way. The British people, if news of the incident leaked out, might not be too pleased.
Something not dissimilar took place at a remarkable recent meeting between the heads of the groups in the European Parliament and Vaclav Klaus, the Czech head of state, in his palace in Hradcany Castle, on a hill overlooking Prague. The aim was to discuss how the Czechs should handle the EU's rotating six-monthly presidency when they take over from France on January 1.
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Posted by: Steve White ||
12/14/2008 14:33 ||
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I believe the relevant phrase is "liberal fascism".
#2
so Euro leftists have the same poor manners and stupid rhetoric? surprised?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/14/2008 15:49 Comments ||
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#3
What a bunch of a-holes. Especially that Irish MEP "I know whats best" -- I hope they play that one over and over, what a jerkoff.
These people are trying to turn Europe into East Germany. Of course there is a whole generation over there that has no real idea of what that was all about, so they are following the other lemmings.
Thank God for the Irish people still having a bit of common sense left, and the Czechs being stubborn and informed.
#4
Rampaging monkeys have no place in civilized society. Why do we continue to allow these unhinged, impulse-uncontrolled wack-jobs to soil our carpets?
#6
"Captain!"
"Yes, Mr. President?"
"You know that antique Colt .45 Peacemaker I'm so fond of? The one with the beautiful engraving and gold inlay?"
"Of course, Mr. President."
"Fetch it for me, will you? And be sure it's loaded."
"At once, Mr. President!"
#8
The Czech President should have noted that "the ungentlemanly are not part of the European elite." And thus, they could be crude boors, or they could be elites, but they cannot be both.
#9
Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Danny the Red. Now there's a blast from the past. An unconvicted pedophiliac blow-hard terrorist. just think of Obama's buddy, Bill Ayres.
#10
I'm beginning to think we need to ARCLIGHT Brussels more than Islamabad or Somalia. The Scheise is getting terribly deep in Belgium, and the threat of contamination of the rest of the world is too high to tolerate.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/14/2008 19:56 Comments ||
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drink up, dammit!
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/14/2008 20:36 Comments ||
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#12
"The EU's ruling elite assholes view President Klaus ... with a mixture of bewilderment, hatred and contempt."
There - fixed.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/14/2008 21:35 Comments ||
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#1
Mr. Clarke could not have written this piece a year ago? The identity of the new president is immaterial to the realities of the situation out there.
#2
Obama will give up Afghanistan like a bad glass of merlot.
Obama didn't get elected to manage Afghanistan. He intends to transform America. And he has the money, the mandate and the moxie to go for it.By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Dec. 13, 2008, 9:06AM
THIS is the article I never intended to write. For former C.I.A. officers, the tipping point between debate-generating critique and "if they had only listened to me" pontification is easy to cross, and I had hoped to avoid the latter by simply refraining from attempts at the former. So let's be clear, I am not claiming to have been prescient. It took more than three years outside the agency for me to truly understand its problems and to see a possible solution.
To start with the bottom line, the C.I.A.'s human spy business is not answering the hardest questions. How can I know this, three years out of touch with the secret stuff? The answer is rather simple: because Osama bin Laden is still the head of Al Qaeda. And no one has been held accountable for failing to catch him.
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Posted by: john frum ||
12/14/2008 00:00 ||
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bureaucratic knife-fighting by employees who would rather see the quest fail than give credit to "amateur" operators
Been a pox on this outfit for years. Ask anyone in the DoD who has every worked in the community. Farm grad or not, anyone outside the Klingons .... cooties, bad juju.
#3
And he's just talking about operations. An admittedly limited sample of analytical work over the years yields a very mixed and overall unimpressive assessment of that business. The craptacular, poltiically motivated b.s. we know about (ridiculous "NIEs" on Iraq, Iran, etc., all designed to back equally dumb talking points of the Beltway media and political class) through the press. Worse news is, lots of the other stuff is just as sophomoric. Problem is, much as when dealing with most State folks, one rarely gets the feeling you're talking with an intellectual or real-world common sense peer. Mostly mediocre public employment shlubs. Some with goofy establsishment ideological blinders installed.
Pretty stupid about the focus on getting OBL, however. Obviously defeating AQ in the real world, thwarting their attacks, is vastly more important than bringing anyone in particular "to justice".
#4
Been preaching to the choir here about CIA for years. Insular, ignorant and politically focused on internal empire building instead of lateral working with other departments and agencies...
Silos.
FYI, the "No Blackberries" doesn't come as a surprise, but not because the employees "leave them in the car". They are FORCED to leave them outside the SCIF, and if they have a camera on them, up until a couple years ago, you couldn't even bring the cellphone with a camera into the parking lot. Now they at least allow you to bring it into the secured area parking lot, as long as it is pwoered off the entire time its there.
So no Blackberries in the office = Security regs prevent them. You cannot bring in MP3 players either -- they are memory devices. Cell phones in a SCIF will cost you your job.
#5
OS - Amen, brother! As one SCIF-rat to another, I know exactly what you're talking about. I've worked with various branches of the CIA at a number of assignments. There are good people, and there are political people. You very seldom find one kind among the others. What's killed the CIA is too many Ivy-League "miracle workers" and too few intelligent, capable recruits from reality. Most of the photo people are ok, but then two-thirds of them are ex-military! I also think NSA has a grip on reality, but again, there's a lot of military "leavening" among the squirrels there.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/14/2008 19:53 Comments ||
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OP:
There used to be an old codger shuffling around G group at NSA in house slippers. You could hear him coming three offices away. I wonder if he's still there.
The British Broadcasting Corporation, a state-sponsored but independently run, media organization has attracted sharp criticism for having "double-standards" in its coverage of the Mumbai terror attacks. Most times the BBC reporters referred to the terrorists who attacked Mumbai as "gunmen" or "militants".
Well-known thinker and editor-in-chief of Covert magazine, MJ Akbar has taken up the issue seriously. Since November 27, Akbar has refused to appear on BBC to speak about the Mumbai attacks.
Many British politicians have also taken up the issue with the BBC management. Steve Pound, a British Parliamentarian who represents North Ealing, has issued a strong statement against BBC's biased policy by saying that it was "the worst sort of mealy-mouthed posturing."
Akbar, had gone a step ahead and has written a strongly-worded e-mail to Richard Porter, head of Content, BBC World News. On December 6, Akbar wrote to Porter that, "I just want to let you know that after decades of friendship and association with the BBC, I refused to give an interview to the BBC over the terrorist outrage in Mumbai. The reason is simple: I am appalled, astonished, livid at your inability to describe the events in Mumbai as the work of terrorists. You have called them 'gunmen' as if they were hired security guards on a night out."
Akbar further argued that, "When Britain finds a group of men plotting in a home laboratory your government has no hesitation in creating an international storm, and the BBC has no hesitation in calling them terrorists. When nearly two hundred Indian lives are lost, you cannot find a word in your dictionary more persuasive than 'gunmen'.
Akbar articulated many Indian fans of the BBC when he said," You are not only pathetic, but you have become utterly biased in your reporting. Since we in India believe in freedom of the press, we can do no more than protest, but let me tell you that your credibility, created over long years by fearless and independent journalists like Mark Tully (I am privileged to describe him as a friend), is in tatters and those tatters will not be patched as long as biased non-journalists like you and your superiors are in charge of decisions. Shame on you and your kind."
Akbar's e-mail was not ignored by BBC. A courteous and very British response did arrive in his mailbox on December 11. Porter had argued that, "The guidelines we issue to staff are very clear-we do not ban the use of the word terrorist, but our preference is to use an alternative form of words. There is a judgement inherent in the use of the word, which is not there when we are more precise with our language. "Gunman", or "killer", or "bomber", is an accurate description which does not come with any form of judgement. However, the word is not banned, and is frequently used on our output-usually when attributed to people. I heard it being used on numerous occasions during our coverage from Mumbai." BBC staffers have guidelines which are a public document
Without going into specifics Porter claimed, "There is no inconsistency in the way the BBC has reported the attacks in Mumbai, compared to what we have done with events in the UK. If we are to be serious about upholding our policy, then we cannot make a distinction between events in any country."
In India most critics have pointed out that how BBC termed the July 7, 2005 attackers in London [Images] as "terrorists" without hesitation. While in case of Mumbai they used "gunmen" and at odd places "suspected terrorist."
However, Porter, journalist of 27 years standing, argues, "This policy is the opposite of bias...but it is a difficult one to uphold and is the subject of many discussions within BBC headquarters. Clearly we had the discussion once again in the wake of the Mumbai attacks--and comments like yours are taken very seriously by my editorial colleagues."
In short, the BBC wants its viewers and readers to use their own brains. Porter wrote, ' I believe those audiences can make their own mind up about the people who carried out the attacks in Mumbai and don't need us to give them any label to reach that judgement."
Obviously, Akbar has not accepted these arguments. After thanking "courteousness" of Porter's e-mail to him Akbar asked, " But your response does not answer my question: how does the BBC find it easy to define a terrorist when trains and buses in London are attacked, but must slide towards "non-judgmental" definitions when there is a blatant and murderous display of terrorism in Mumbai? Are you serious when you say that you leave it to audiences to make up their own minds? Then why did you not leave it to audiences to make up their own minds after 9/11? "
Akbar, wrote, "I assume the makers of BBC policies, such as they are, understand English. There is a clear distinction between gunmen and terrorists. Criminals use guns, and can be called gunmen; criminals use guns in the service of crime. Terrorists use guns and worse in the random killing of innocents in pursuit of a political agenda or personal agenda. The killers who came to Taj and Oberoi and the Chatrapati Shivaji railway station and a home where Jewish people lived, did not come to steal art, or railway property or money. They came with the declared purpose of murder and mayhem."
When Akbar was in London, the tabloids were full of headlines about young people being knifed. Akbar says , " that was crime committed by "knifemen". Al Capone was a "gunman" and I am sure the East End of your city once used to produce "gunmen" who committed crimes.
Akbar told Porter, " It is a shame that the BBC cannot see the difference between a criminal and a terrorist, and chooses in fact to protect the terrorist by giving him the camouflage of a criminal. This is not a matter of semantics. Terrorists are always happy to fudge the definition."
Posted by: john frum ||
12/14/2008 09:43 ||
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I'm glad to see Mr. Akbar's justifiable anger about BBC bias with regard to India. I would respect his position more, however, had he been similarly angered over the BBC's long-standing bias with regard to Israel and other unfavoured countries.
US President-elect Barack Obama has shown he has the power to change hearts and minds. Soon he'll also have the power to render the planet dead and uninhabitable for the rest of time with just the press of a button.
Despite the end of the Cold War, the United States still maintains a supersized arsenal of 10,000 nuclear warheads, more than half of them deployed, and about a quarter of them on hair-trigger alert.
And yet strangely, we've only used two of them in all our history. Neither Helen nor Tim were born yet when we did so, but they might ask Grandpa, the quiet, quaint fellow with the limp and the scar, as to why we did ...
They come at a whopping cost of $US50 billion ($A76 billion) a year, roughly the amount needed to pay for universal health care for every US citizen.
Oh yeah, right. $50 billion is a pittance as to health care needs if we sign up for Obama-care.
Most of America's nuclear weapons are hundreds of times more powerful than the two atom bombs that obliterated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Each of them directly threatens global security and human survival.
As opposed to the Iranian nukes? Or the Russian nukes? No doubt Rantburgers can see who and what Helen and Tim are at this point.
No doubt Barack Obama will find it more than a tad discomforting when, come January, he's granted this incredible power. Unlike the last three Oval Office occupants, he believes that the world would be better off without nuclear weapons.
This is, of course, rubbish. We'd all like a world without nukes, except that we wouldn't like very much the world that would come about without nukes.
In his race for the top job, he told a crowd of adoring fans that the elimination of nuclear weapons ''is profoundly in America's interest and the world's interest'', and he committed to make abolition a ''central element of US nuclear policy'' which has generated great hope among anti-nuclear campaigners everywhere.
Hope to be dashed real soon now, just ask the Kos Kiddies ...
But words must be met with action.
Not true, ask any UN diplomat ...
And it's too soon to know if Obama has it in him to steer the world towards sanity and survival.
He has hopes and good wishes. Whether he has anything else we'll see, but I personally doubt it ...
Will he be courageous enough to take on the military-industrial complex which stands solidly in his way? And does he have the knack to persuade other countries, in particular Russia, to jump aboard the disarmament bandwagon?
He'll just look into Putin's eyes, won't he ...
Clearly, the two Cold War foes have a special responsibility to lead the charge on eliminating nuclear weapons because together they possess 95 per cent of global stockpiles. As a first step, they need to end the lunacy of keeping their weapons on high-alert status, followed immediately by deep and irreversible cuts in the size of their arsenals.
Attention, Helen and Tim: we've already cut our stocks substantially. We're still working to dispose of the fissible material generated from the last round of decommissioning, especially in Russia. Why don't you do something useful like persuade Iran to stop their head-long rush to get a bomb?
At the earliest opportunity, all countries should come together to negotiate a new multilateral treaty to outlaw nuclear weapons, as proposed by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. It would be similar in form to laws already banning biological weapons, chemical weapons, landmines and cluster bombs. Obama could make this happen.
No he couldn't. We haven't foresworn landmines and cluster bombs ourselves.
Unlike the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the new protocol would include mechanisms to verify compliance.
Like those we currently use for Iran and North Korea ...
Importantly, it would also require the same of all nuclear-armed states meaning there's no good reason why countries like Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea shouldn't join.
Of course there's good reason! What idiots.
We don't have tension because we have nuclear weapons. We have nuclear weapons because we have tension. Pakistan and India developed nukes because they each wanted the ultimate counter to the other. North Korea wants nukes because it allows them to extend their national policy of threats and altercations. Iran wants nukes because it wants to be the undisputed leader of the Islamic world -- and because it wants to nuke Israel. Israel, in turn, has nukes to ensure that none of its neighbors get too frisky.
Those are all good reasons why these countries won't join -- good reasons as far as THEY are concerned.
Commendably, the Australian Labor Party promised before last year's federal election that in government it would ''drive the international agenda for a nuclear weapons convention''. But it hasn't followed through, choosing instead to continue the usual mantra of countries with powerful nuclear-armed allies like the US: it's too soon to be thinking about an abolition treaty.
Many pundits resolutely disagree.
If only we had a world run by pundits ...
The influential Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, which was headed by former UN weapons inspector Dr Hans Blix, argued in its 2006 report: ''A key challenge is to dispel the perception that outlawing nuclear weapons is a utopian goal. A nuclear disarmament treaty is achievable and can be reached through careful, sensible and practical measures.''
If only we had a world run by Mr. Magoo ...
This October, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon lauded the idea of a new treaty in his UN Day speech, and the Dalai Lama had earlier said that a nuclear weapons convention is ''feasible, necessary and increasingly urgent''. Indeed, if we're to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and avert nuclear catastrophe elimination through a binding treaty is our only option. Now is the time to pursue it.
The big issue, of course, is how you ensure that no one cheats. If there is a 'ban' on nuclear weapons, and everyone else complies, and you keep ten locked away in a cellar, you have a substantial advantage you can then use. And the fear of that keeps all the other nuclear powers from disarming. So good luck ...
All countries have a legal obligation, under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law, to achieve nuclear disarmament. It cannot be postponed indefinitely. This is the ruling of the world's highest court, the International Court of Justice.
There is no 'customary international law'. And the ICJ is a joke, invented by Europeans and leftists to perpetuate their colonial rule on the rest of the world.
The global environment is right for change. Opinion polls in Europe and the US show that the overwhelming majority of people want nuclear weapons abolished, once and for all.
We also want a chicken in every pot. That doesn't mean it's going to happen. We had nuclear weapons in the Cold War to ensure that the Soviets would not invade Europe. We have nuclear weapons today because, in the end, it's in our best interests to have the ultimate counter.
And hard-hitting military honchos have started questioning the usefulness of these weapons in an age of terrorism.
Said honchos aren't named, but most military people aren't a fan of nuclear weapons. That doesn't mean we should eliminate them, even as we recognize that we won't nuke terrorists.
History will judge Barack Obama, the next American leader, by his success or failure on this crucial issue. Ridding the planet of nuclear weapons the ultimate instruments of terror could be his single most important legacy.
If that's what his legacy depends on, he's in trouble. He might wish to settle for George Bush's legacy: freeing 50 million people from tyranny.
Dr Helen Caldicott is president of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute in Washington. Tim Wright is president of the Peace Organisation of Australia.
And both are useless idiots ...
Posted by: john frum ||
12/14/2008 12:18 ||
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Dr Helen Caldicott is president of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute in Washington. Tim Wright is president of the Peace Organisation of Australia.
Have they approached the Russians or Chinese with this idea?
#2
The man isn't even inaugurated but they are talking about his legacy.
It is fascinating to see the amount of emotional capital these people have invested in the Obamessiah. The levels of expectation are mind boggling. He is now to bring peace on earth?
What will they do when reality hits? The backlash, like the wrath of a spurned lover, will be breathtaking.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/14/2008 14:28 Comments ||
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#3
No doubt Barack Obama will find it more than a tad discomforting when, come January, he's granted this incredible power.
I'd wager he's not as nearly "discomforted" as I and many others are about it.
#4
Helen Caldicott is the definition of alarmist moonbat and the butt of many of Tim Blair's jokes. Wikipedia: While touring with that book, she founded the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, headquartered in Washington, DC. Another basement-based vanity "Research Intitute". Must be DC's largest home-based industry.
Her media presence sparked in 1982, when she was featured in the Canadian Oscar-winning documentary If You Love This Planet. Caldicott claimed that the Hershey Foods Corporation produced chocolate carrying strontium 90 because of the proximity of the Three Mile Island accident to Hershey's Pennsylvania factory. According to Caldicott, strontium 90 that fell on the Pennsylvania grass found its way into the milk of the local dairy cows. Contrary to this claim, official reports[1] conclude that Strontium 90 was not one of the radionuclides released during the Three Mile Island disaster. Caldicott disputes these reports in her book, Nuclear Power is Not the Answer. So instead of having 200 clean nuclear plants generating 50% of US ePower, we have 50% of power from burning coal, including the radioactive elements that were concentrated by prehistoric plant life. Thanks Helen!
Citing the research of Soviet scientists Valery Burdakov and Vyacheslav Fiin, Caldicott argued that NASAs Space Shuttle program was destroying the Earths ozone and that 300 total shuttle flights would be enough to "completely destroy the Earth's protective ozone shield," although there is no scientific evidence to back up this claim.
Evidence? Who needs any steenking evidence or science when you have voices on your head? Pity the children under here care.
Posted by: ed ||
12/14/2008 14:55 Comments ||
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We don't have tension because we have nuclear weapons. We have nuclear weapons because we have tension.
Yep, Dr. Steve. But it is a distinction lost on so many.
Reporting from Parowan, Utah -- Our trip to the Parowan Prophet began with a letter to the St. George Spectrum.
This particular letter to the editor in the St. George, Utah, newspaper carried the headline " 'Prophet' shares grim forecast," and it was signed by one Leland Freeborn of Parowan, who wrote that he was known to many as the Parowan Prophet. After establishing his bona fides as an international talk radio guest and proprietor of a survivalist website that has "passed more than 100,000 hits," Freeborn wrote: None of which mean anything about being a 'Prophet'. I doubt Elija was on the radio or had a website.
"I think that you should hear what my opinion about the Obama election is: that he will not be the next president. I said on my home page in August that if he lost to expect to see the 'riots' that 2 Peter 2:13 tells us about. He didn't lose. But the story is not finished yet. I still think they may begin the riots before Christmas 2008, as I said."
These riots, according to his prophecy, will encourage the "old, hard-line Soviet guard" to seize the moment and rain down nukes on the United States, killing at least 100 million of us.
"Prepare now," Freeborn's letter concluded. "We are downwind from Las Vegas. I hope you can survive."
It was enough time to sketch out his history -- a Mormon of substance, a father of 12, he had crashed his airplane in 1975 and fallen into a three-week coma, during which he went through "to the other side" and emerged a prophet. Did his name used to be 'John Smith' too? Because I read this plot about 20 year ago in a Stephen King novel. I think they also made a movie and TV series about it. The main character's name was John Smith.
Freeborn, now 66, took "a plural wife," as he put it, and parted ways with the church. He forfeited his wealth, spreading word of his prophecies. He appears to live now mainly on sales of newsletters and survival information packets advertised on his website.
Asked for examples of successful prophecies, he offered O.J. Simpson's murder acquittal and Al Gore's winning of the popular vote in 2000. But his core insight has been a repeated dream of seeing nuclear flashes to the west while shopping at a Wal-Mart during Christmas season. You know that happens to me every time I visit Wall-Mart. I used to think it was the lighting and noise but now I'm not quite sure...
And then there's that time I predicted a coin toss would come up heads three times in a row! Why I must be a Prophet too! Does that mean I can kill, rape and plunder like Mo did? (Personally I'd rather pass on the killing, raping and pedophilia parts. Plundering might be fun for a few years then it'll get boring. Maybe I'm not Prophet material after all since I am perfectly happy with one wife. *sigh* Another career path down the tube...)
And this, he warned, appears to be the year.
As Freeborn rose to leave, he said he would be hosting a weekly religious meeting that night. He urged us to come. "If you can write a story," Freeborn said, "you can save a lot of lives in L.A."
As the night wound down, Freeborn returned to his core prophecy. "I really believe we are out of time," he said. "I really do."
Freeborn conceded that he'd issued similar warnings many times before, and still the world kept spinning. Prophecy, he said, is not an exact science.
So we've been told ...
"I've been at it for 30 years, and I have always really believed it," he said. "Now, if we go on, that's great. Maybe we can get some more people to repent." Because, you know, on the 15'th toss the coin might just come up on its edge....
He seemed weary, referring to himself as a "gimpy old crippled guy from Parowan." He described going on radio and, mocked by the host, receiving not a single request from the audience for survival information. He said he has been shunned in town, his property vandalized. He recited from memory a scriptural passage about "scoffers." Someone once told me that back in 'biblical' times Prophets had to be 100% accurate or they would be stoned. And all this guy has to worry about is a few 'scoffers'.
#2
There's an inherent contradiction here. Until Obama takes office, the US still has high quality missile defenses, courtesy of W. Bush, who insisted on them. Now, if it had been one year from now, there's no saying.
The auto production numbers in the South are staggering. A dozen years ago, Alabama produced zero cars. Now it turns out 750,000 annually at Mercedes, Honda, and Hyundai plants. Three years after Mercedes opened its SUV factory near Tuscaloosa in 1996, it doubled the size and output. A Honda plant halfway between Birmingham and Atlanta went on line in 2001, and the next year the company spent $450 million to expand it, adding 2,000 more workers.
#5
This was a very helpful article for me in a, er, discussion, yeah, that's it, discussion with a friend last night at a dinner party. Americans can build fine cars, we do it every day in these transplant factories in the South. We could do at the Big 3 as well if only the work rules and the antagonism were fixed.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/14/2008 11:02 Comments ||
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The main problems the Big 3 have is :
1) Damn retirees won't die. They have more retirees than workers. The cost of these retirees is extremely high.
2)Overhead costs. That's the cost of state/federal taxes, salaries of executives, cost of existing facilities and their upkeep. If you look at the labor costs being tossed around, the $73/hr cost is the burdened cost. Only $28/hr is direct labor cost. The remainder is overhead costs. The majority, obviously.
3) Union labor rules. Lack of flexibility. The learned rule that one should only do the minimum that the job rules require.
The quality of domestic producers is on par or exceeding, excepting Chrysler, anything built by the others, either here or overseas. That's also another issue. A vehicle, with any care and regular maintenance, can easily last 20 years. So it is primarily the desire to have a different vehicle that generates sales of factory new vehicles. The extremely high cost of new vehicles vs. average annual earnings dampens or extinguishes that desire.
#8
Comparing a Mercedes to an explorer is apples to oranges. My explorer ran 200k with only oil and tire changes, oh and a battery. The cost to operate was minimal compared to a Mercedes. It never broke down on me. As a utility vehicle it outperformed Mercedes in cost and maintenance, hands down. Was it cool or classy? Nope,but it was dependable, and served its purpose.
I had a chance to view the Toyota factory in Lexington. It was a non-union shop. It was profitable. The UAW was constantly in the area trying to get them to go union. What I took away from the experience was that we "Americans" build great automobiles. Be it a GM, Ford, Toyota, or BMW, our workers can make a fine auto. The issue I came away was the unions have the industry so divided that until both, union and industry are allowed to fail and restart under new rules the big three will never stand in the market.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
12/14/2008 13:10 Comments ||
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I can't speak authoritatively, but from what I recall of German labour regulations, I am quite sure that the burdened labour costs for Mercedes and BMW are at least as high as for the Big 3. When we were over there, Mr. Wife received a letter one day, warning that if he did not immediately stop going in to the office on weekends and staying late during the week, he would be called up before the labour council.
#11
We all know why the big three have failed, and Woozle Elmeter has restated it well today. The problem at the core is the big three would tell the UAW "if we don't do things differently we will fail" and the UAW said "we don't care so long as we a paid." Now the taxpayers will be the enablers of this extraordinary moral hazard: we will pay even though they should fail.
Going forward why would any union ever make a concession if they know they will be paid regardless? What management team would reform if they know they can't fail?
In very short order every U.S. business may operate at the same level as your local DMV.
Posted by: regular joe ||
12/14/2008 15:08 Comments ||
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Chevy quality cannot touch Honda or Toyota. And the plants at Honda can change over to different models "on a dime", because of better processes, robotics and the workers themselves.
Nothey they are doign that Detroit coudlnt do, if they coudl bust the loaded cost of the unions, and break loose from the wwork rules, giving engineers a free hand in setting up the factories (free from management foot-dragging as well).
Chevy needs to restructure - and Chapter 11 is the way to go to get a truly clean slate. The feds rols should be to provide DIP financing durign the BK.
The airlines all do it, and have come out of CH 11 as functioning entities.
Or how about this: Have Honda buy Chevy out of CH 11.
#14
I drive a Saturn Outlook, and I love it. And I work in an ancillary industry to the auto industry...racing ya'll (a Toyota team). Haha. OS hit the nail on the head, and no it wasn't the quality remark, quality is surprising close. But don't confuse build quality with building ugly shit! No the big difference is how their processes and plants are engineered to allow changing of production at much lower cost. It costs GM a boatload of $$ and time to switch production lines. Plus they don't have those insane legacy costs. If the UAW doesn't go the Big 3 will never be able to compete. Another thing that Congress doesn't realize, it takes a long time to develop a new automobile. Outside of the straight up engineering and design, you have a battery of government regulations/testing to meet.
#15
Bankruptcy and restructuring is the only way out for the Big 3. The UAW has finally killed the goose that laid the golden egg. It will be reborn, but not the way it once was. The labor agreements will be rationalized, the dealer network will be cut by at least 35%, and the shareholders will lose everything. After restructuring, however, GM and Ford will be back as real competitors to the transplants.
The big questions are who is going to pay for the retirees, widows and orphans of the UAW? I suspect it's going to be a shared expense: we taxpayers will pay what is going to be paid of a much-diminished payout to those retirees, widows and orphans.
Moral of the story? There are two of them. First, trees don't grow to the sky. The UAW lost sight of that in the 60's and never regained perspective. Their insane labor agreements killed the Big 3. Second, if you are in some place other than government (and probably there if you have the chance) and have the option to take a lump-sum pension, GRAB IT AND RUN LIKE A SCALDED DOG! Put it in FDIC-insured CDs. It may not make as much of a return but twenty years from now you'll still have it, as opposed to what poor bastards like the United Airlines and Big 3 workers got for their retirements from the Pension Guarantee folks.
For a 14th consecutive year, Lexus ranks highest in vehicle dependability, improving by 25 problems per 100 vehicles since 2007 to achieve a score of 120 PP100. Following in the top five rankings are Mercury, Cadillac, Toyota and Acura, respectively.
You may not like the design, fit and finish may not be as good as the best, and they don't score as high on the 90 day initial quality measure. But 3 years in, they are dependable vehicles. Mercedes? Below average. But you deal with whatever reality suits you.
#18
Among other mistakes, the UAW and assorted supporters are blowing it with the north/south-anti-Corker comments. Honda is all over Ohio, and just opened a big plant in Indiana. Subaru is also in Indiana, and Toyota is in KY. There are a lot of well-employed, productive and profitable voters amongst them who will question why the govt. is biased toward their competition.
Millions have lost their houses. Millions more have lost their retirement savings. Tens of millions have had their portfolios smashed. And the carnage in the real economy has only just begun.
This paragraph, from a "former Wall Street insider" shows why I believe the current financial crisis is primarily moral. And perhaps the author agrees. I only read page one.
But have "millions lost their house"? How many people do you know who have? I suspect more people have lost their second home than have lost their first. And a lot more speculators are stuck with empty condos than are residents being thrown out of them.
And how many have "lost their life savings"? Aside from those who gave their entire life savings to Madoff? Sure we've taken big hits to our 401(k)s, but while some may be gone for our lifetimes, some will come back.
And the "carnage in the 'real economy'"? Well, it's only begun, but were all going to think real hard to make it happen. These negative waves are going to sink us.
#5
Nimble has a point. We're being told that we're entering 'Great Depression II'.
In the real Great Depression, unemployment hit 25% and industrial output fell by a third.
So far in our recession, unemployment has hit 6.5% and output has fallen by 0.2%.
Not saying things won't get worse: they will. But we have a long, long ways to go before we hit a depression. That's something we'd better remember when Bambi and the Dhimmicrats try to take over our economy to save us from 'Great Depression II'.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/14/2008 11:04 Comments ||
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#6
Exactly, Steve. While I've been to lazy to track things closely, seem to recall that there were decent-sized majorities surveyed against many of the recent bail-outs. I'm expecting (and of course hoping) that Bambi & Co. will find the politics of effing up the economy, er, "change," rather more sticky and complicated than the delusional media-sphere would lead one to believe.
#7
Starting on the day after The One is sworn in, the exact same economic data (or worse) will be reported in a much more positive light. By June, we'll be seeing MSM articles about how the new administration's deft maneuvers prevented Great Depression II, cured cancer, and restored Madonna's virginity.
Posted by: Matt ||
12/14/2008 13:06 Comments ||
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#8
The economy will continue to deteriorate for the forseeable future. We are a long way from the bottom of the housing bust and non-U.S. demand is collapsing. The remaining strong sectors in the U.S. are defense and energy, and both are targets for the new administration. The unfortunate reality is that the layoffs have just begun.
State and local governments have stopped hiring and will also step up layoffs next year as revenues have plunged. I predict a big part of the trillion dollar "stimulus" will take the form of grants to blue states to help maintain their workforces. I say blue states because that's where the major problems are, particularly New York, California, New Jersey and Michigan.
I believe you are all correct about reporting, but the MSM's most important role will be to hide the actual use of the money being spent and to help minimze the impact of government corruption on the ruling party.
If you'd like another serving of misery, try living in a once quiet, bedroom community, in a county where the Community Reivestment Act (CRA) has resulted in a demographic migration from the metro. Couple that with a neighboring county which has lost it's State educational accredidation (read that no more college HOPE GRANT money) due to poor schools and they too are migrating your way. Now builders and construction are dead in their tracks, and foreclosures abound as people take one look at the high school football team and run the other direction.
#10
Price floors may have caused the Great Depression by making it impossible for people to afford a lot of goods. The resulting collapse in demand, followed by a collapse in supply resulted in a depression that gave Democrats huge majorities in both houses, as the 70+% with jobs thanked them for letting them keep their jobs, and the 20+% without jobs thanked them for not letting them starve. Why did the Great Depression end? The beginning of WWII meant the sweeping away of price floors - the goal now became making stuff at the lowest possible cost, i.e. the partial restoration of free markets. It wasn't the war that got us out of the depression - it was the repeal of anti-free market legislation instituted by Hoover and Roosevelt (that caused the depression in the first place).
#11
One thing to consider - a very large portion of those "millions" of defaults in the Mortgage industry are by illegals, not by "normal" workers. they are loans that should never have been made.
That in itself is a pointer toward an argument that the bottom is near, or at least that the deltas are going to get smaller from here out.
#12
Here in Colorado Springs, the foreclosures are growing in numbers. Most of the people who are facing foreclosures are NOT "illegals", but people who either started their own consulting businesses when there was plenty of money, or mid-managers that used to run departments that were merged or eliminated. Most of the houses foreclosed upon are in the $200K and up range, not cheapies. Local government is doing its best to raise taxes and further make life miserable for citizens. In the meantime, the county is threatening to stop plowing roads and the city says it will no longer plow residential streets (not that they did a very good job of it before). "New Deal II" will be DOA. Nobody will be willing to give up anything to allow things to be done that need to be done. We haven't hit bottom yet, although both Bush and the Democrats are working hard at it. There are still plenty of "corrections" that need to take place, in all manner of industries. The next four years are going to be "interesting". After that, there needs to be a monstrous house-cleaning take place, both in elected and appointed officials and bureaucrats. We may be able to actually do that, if our "government" remains as clueless as it is today. Keep track, make notes, and be "ready to rumble" when the time comes.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/14/2008 19:44 Comments ||
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#13
"restored Madonna's virginity"
I call bullshit on that one, #7 Matt.
Even The Lightworker™ isn't that good.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/14/2008 21:27 Comments ||
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#14
LOL Barbara
Posted by: Matt ||
12/14/2008 22:47 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A bizarre confrontation in Hradcany Castle confirms the inablilty of the Euro-elite to accept anyone else's opinions, writes Christopher Booker.
Reporting from Parowan, Utah -- Our trip to the Parowan Prophet began with a letter to the St. George Spectrum. 
