Category Archives: Labor

It’s Not Just About The 47 Percenters.

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The video of Mitt Romney’s speech to a Florida gathering of the wealthy shows his utter contempt for much of America.

Who are those he considers to be “freeloaders?”  They are not the “welfare queens” and lazy louts you might expect.  The 47 percent who have not paid federal income taxes in the past few years include the working poor, the elderly, veterans, military who are serving in a combat zone, even the wealthy who have enough tax write-offs to zero out their federal income taxes.

But Mitt didn’t limit his disparaging comments to the 47 percent.   He also went out of his way to insult Latinos and other minorities.  And he again inserted his highly polished loafers in his mouth with regard to foreign policy.

He said that Palestinians do not want peace, so as president, he would just kick the issue down the road.  After all, by Mitt’s standards, the Palestinians trapped in Israeli-controlled ghettos don’t earn enough money to be of consequence.

None of this should come as any surprise to those who have followed Romney’s career. 

As a vulture capitalist, he showed complete disdain for those who lost their jobs as the result of his hostile takeovers and business conquests.  His tax-evading investments in offshore accounts display a lack of patriotism for the country that allowed him to accumulate wealth.  And his trip to Europe during the Olympics showed his incompetence and lack of tact with regard to foreign policy, leading European media to label him “Mitt the Twit” and the “American Borat.”

So let’s review: Contempt for nearly half of our voters, dismantling American companies and shipping jobs overseas, legalized tax evasion, and arrogance in dealing with foreign leaders.

Exactly why should anyone other than the very wealthy vote for you, Mitt?

Why You Should Hate Teapublicans. Let Me Count The Reasons.

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1 – Richard Nixon’s Watergate break-in intended to literally steal an election. 

2 – The “Southern strategy” in which the GOP embraced racists. 

3 – The “Moral Majority” in which the Party embraced “social” issues. 

4 – Reagan’s union-busting. 

5 – Elimination of loan interest deductions resulting in huge tax increases for the middle class.

6 – Cuts to capital gains taxes and estate taxes on the wealthy. 

7 – Reagan’s Iran-Contra plan which financed Central American death squads.

8 – Deregulation of Savings and Loan institutions resulting in the loss of billions.  

9 – Gun laws putting military-style weapons in the hands of millions. 

10 – $60 million witch hunt and impeachment of President Clinton. 

11 – Massive voter suppression giving the 2000 election to George W. Bush. 

12 – Bush’s failure to act on warnings of a 2001 terrorist attack. 

13 – The Bush tax cuts.

14 – The unnecessary and completely unfunded war in Iraq. 

15 – “Swift-boating” of Vietnam War Hero, Sen. John Kerry. 

16 – Richard “The Dick” Cheney. 

17 – The outsourcing of our military to corporations. 

18 – Awarding government contracts to corporations with offshore “headquarters.” 

19 – Deregulation of banks resulting in mortgage fraud.

20 – The Great Recession.

21 – Subsidies and tax breaks for corporations that send jobs offshore.

22 – Fox News Channel and right-wing hate radio. 

23 – Unsubstantiated claims about President Obama’s birthplace and religion. 

24 – The Tea Party.

25 – Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, Steve King and Paul Ryan. 

26 – Attacks on women’s rights. 

27 – Attacks on the LGBT community. 

28 – Plans to repeal The Affordable Care Act. 

29 – Assaults on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. 

30 – Obstruction of hundreds of President Obama’s appointments. 

31 – Filibusters. 

32 – Buckley v. Valeo resulting in a ruling that money is free speech.

33 – Citizen’s United which gave corporations the same rights as people.  

34 – Voter ID laws intended to steal the coming election.

35 – Attacks on Public Broadcasting, education and the environment.

36 – Blaming the poor and the unemployed for our deficit.

37 – Blaming teachers and first responders for our deficit.

38 – Trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor.

39 – Vilifying immigrants to get votes.

40 – The debt ceiling debate.

41 – Embrace of Ayn Rand’s self-centered philosophy.

42 – Lies, lies and more lies.

Learn more in The Teapublican Book of Lies available from Amazon.com and other on-line bookstores

When Did It Become Patriotic To Avoid Paying Income Taxes?

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Mitt Romney has been smart and very lucky.  The son of a famous father, he has used his privileged childhood and education to make millions – often by bankrupting companies and offshoring American jobs.  To make himself even wealthier, he also offshored his money in Switzerland, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg.

That allowed Romney to pay income taxes at a rate of less than 15 percent in 2010. Now insiders from Bain Capital claim that Romney didn’t pay any income taxes at all for at least 10 years before that!

No wonder he doesn’t want to release those tax forms.

But Teapublicans don’t see anything wrong with such behavior.  Many even claim that it’s patriotic to avoid paying taxes.  Seriously?  That’s your definition of patriotism?

You can ignore the sacrifice of soldiers who have served 5, 6 or more tours of duty in a war zone?  You can ignore those who take less than they deserve to serve soldiers in Veteran’s hospitals?  You can diminish those who work long hours for little money to teach children?  You can ignore those who risk their lives to save others as first responders?

None of that is patriotic according to Romney’s supporters.

According to them, true patriotism is squeezing every possible dime from your tax form.  It’s cutting food stamps for the poor.  It’s turning your back on homeless veterans and homeless children.  It’s allowing thousands to die each year for lack of access to healthcare so you can buy another vacation home or a bigger yacht.

If this is the Republican definition of American patriotism, it’s time for the party to crawl into the deepest recesses of history.

Mitt Also Outsourced The Olympics.

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Last week, Congress was in an uproar upon finding out that the uniforms for the US Olympic team were made in China.  As it turns out, this is not the first time.

Mitt Romney, who counts his experience as “savior” of the 2002 Winter Olympics among his qualifications to become president, outsourced the uniforms for the US Olympic team to Burma (AKA Mynamar).

But that should come as no surprise to anyone.  After all, Mitt outsourced jobs from numerous companies to other countries, just as he outsourced his money to Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg and Switzerland in order to avoid paying US taxes.

The Freedom To Fail On Your Own.

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There’s a long-standing attitude of individualism in the US that causes people to inherently dislike any form of collectivism, such as collective bargaining through labor unions.  As I wrote in a previous post, we come from a long line of independent-minded people; people who were pushed out of Europe by dictators of all ilks, from royalty to the Roman Catholic Church.

Unfortunately, corporations and their lackeys on the right have been able to exploit this inborn streak of independence to extract money from us.  They have used a combination of lobbyists, campaign contributions, exportation of jobs, and right wing media megaphones to undermine labor unions and pit workers against one another in order to maximize profits while minimizing wages and benefits.

As a result of the propaganda, far too many Americans equate labor unions with socialism or communism.  Many poor and middle class workers vote for candidates that will continue the pattern of withdrawing employee benefits, eliminating pensions, depressing wages and foreclosing on homes.  Now they are turning their attention to the “entitlements” – Social Security and Medicare.

Yet many of us will continue to support corporations out of the fear of losing our jobs, misplaced loyalty, or the determination to “make it on our own.”  What these people don’t understand is that any individual’s disagreement with a large, heavily capitalized corporation is not a fair fight.  A retail clerk cannot fairly negotiate with a big box retailer.  An assembly line worker cannot win against a large manufacturer.  A maid cannot fight a large hotel chain.

The only chance they have to improve their position and their wages is to band together.  Individuals, no matter how hard they work, are far more likely to fail on their own than to make it on their own.

Greedy Bastards!

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Lately, I’ve been reading Dylan Ratigan’s book, Greedy Bastard$.  This is an even-handed account of how corporations and banks are sucking America dry.  I recommend it to everyone – Democrats, Independents and Teapublicans alike.  I warn you:  It will not only educate you about the state of our nation and how we got here.  It will infuriate you by showing you how corporations and politicians are destroying the nation while, at the same time, wrapping themselves in the American flag (which by the way is now made in China).

If you read it, you will get angry.  But that’s exactly what we need.  Check it out at: http://greedybastards.com/

President Obama Can Recapture His Popularity With Men.

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Recent polls have shown that President Obama’s popularity with white men has declined.  As a result, some Democratic “strategists” have suggested that the president should focus his attention on minorities, women and educated, successful men.  They reason that trying to reach blue collar white men would be a waste of time and money.

That only shows how little these overpaid “strategists” really know.  Dismissing the committed Teapublicans and racists, President Obama has a strong record to sell to men.  His American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and loans to the American auto industry saved millions of construction and factory jobs.  If the president’s case is properly stated, many of these men will understand that they owe their jobs to him.

Moreover, the “strategists” miss what is probably the real reason that the president’s popularity among male voters has declined.  Until recently, he has shown a lack of cajones.  Men – all men – respect another man who stands up for what he believes in.  They need to be reminded that President Obama ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden.  And they need to see the president continue to stand up and speak out strongly against the obstructionist Teapublicans.

How Performance-Based Compensation Is Killing America.

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Sometime in the late 70s, I met with a client to discuss his marketing plans for the year.  When I asked about the company’s long-term plans, the client said that his Fortune 500 Company no longer does long-term planning.  When the client noticed my obvious surprise, he told me that things were changing too quickly.  He went on to explain that the company’s CEO is now compensated with a base salary and performance-based stock options.  The higher the stock price, the more the CEO would be paid.

Now more than 30 years later, the effects of performance-based compensation are obvious.

CEOs now base their companies’ success on the share price of securities.  Not on brand value, number of offices and employees, company holdings and investments, or sales.  As a result, many CEOs are now willing to mortgage the future of their companies in order to maximize share price.  Of course, one way to accomplish their short-sighted goal is to increase productivity, aka employee layoffs.  Another popular method is to cut or eliminate employee benefits.  Yet another method is to export jobs to countries that have a plentiful supply of low-cost workers, no labor unions and few regulations.

There is no loyalty to long-time employees, vendors, communities, the nation or the environment.  The only thing that matters is the stock value and how that translates into executive compensation.  The average tenure of a CEO with any one company is slightly more than 8 years.  As a result, they often don’t care about what happens to that company 10, 20 or 30 years from now as long as they have time to cash in their stock.  If the company is aquired or merged, that only means the stock price is likely to go up.

If we want to take back our country from these greedy few, we have to change the way performance is measured.  The price of a share of stock is not enough.  We must also measure the value of corporations to our nation – the number of jobs provided, impact on our environment, contributions to communities, value of natural resources consumed, and taxes paid.

Until that happens, you will continue to see CEOs lead our nation in a race to the bottom.

The Teapublican Book of Lies.

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You know those things Teapublicans present as facts that just never quite make sense?  The ones that are repeated day after day on Fox News Channel and right wing radio?  The conservative ideas that have been tried and failed, but keep coming back?

I’ve taken 50 of those so-called “facts,” researched them, and presented my findings in a new book:  The Teapublican Book of Lies.  It’s a sort of handbook for debates with your conservative friends and family members.

Pardon the shameless self-promotion, but you can buy the book from Amazon.

This Is A Reason To Vote For Romney?

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Teapublican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, has said that anything more than 4 percent unemployment is a failure for the Obama administration.  (It should be noted that the US has rarely achieved such a low unemployment figure.)  Now Mitt says that by the end of the first term of a Romney presidency, unemployment should be somewhere around 6 percent!

Hmmm…so Romney is already predicting that his first term will be a failure?

Even more puzzling is the fact that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that continuing the policies of President Obama will result in an unemployment rate of 6 percent by 2015 – a year before the end of President Obama’s second term!  So, if this election is all about jobs as Mitt Romney has said, tell us again Mitt:  Why is it we should vote for you?