It must be the holiday season

Everyone is getting a billion or so.

Maybe it will really trickle down this time.

Hope springs eternal.

Big 3

If it weren't for the fact that they kept saying that the American Public demanded SUV that sucked a gallon of gas with every inch, I would be more inclined to be kinder, but the fact is that the American Public has never been given a chance or choice by the automakers.

When an electric car cost more than a downpayment on a house, it makes people opt for a lower priced alternative and keep polluting the air with "cheap" gas.

My guess is that when they all figure a way to charge $3.00 per Kilowatt, we will have our choice of electric cars and available in every color.

If it weren't for the fact that not rescuing these companies would cost millions in unemployment benefits and send the supporting industries into a tailspin, I would not be so incline to loan them the money (not that anyone asked me, but just in case my opinion is required at some point).

I am still rankled by the opening of a GM Russian plant, here is why:

"By Paul Abelsky
Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp., the world's biggest carmaker, opened a $300 million factory in Russia as it looks to compensate for slumping sales in western Europe and North America.
The plant in the Shushary district on the outskirts of St. Petersburg will produce 70,000 Chevrolet Captiva sport-utility vehicles and the Opel Astra, with plans to manufacture the Chevrolet Cruze compact car next year.
``Our strategy is to become the leading manufacturer in Russia,'' Carl-Peter Forster, GM's chief for Europe, told reporters during the plant opening today. ``For us Russia is not an emerging market. Russia emerged long ago.''
The new plant ``is an example of a good investment project that's oriented toward the future,'' Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told reporters. He called on GM to boost output at the plant.
Forster said the production schedule won't be revised now as the car market has soured. The new plant will employ 981 people, and that may increase to 1,700 next year. .... " This is an excerp from Bloomberg.com and many thanks to Paul Albelsky for the detailed report.

Based on this article, I am of the opinion that GM already has factories here and people who know how to build cars. Therefore, logic follows that instead of spending $300 million over there, they could have SAVED it here. Also, producing over 70,000 cars MADE IN AMERICA would go a long way to boost our sagging economy, furthermore, we would actually be EXPORTING something.

Some of us are willing to settle for American lapel pins made in America instead of China. (less lead is always a good thing)

The second part of this story is the continued lying about being years away from producing a fuel effecient car, since FORD already makes a car in Europe that gives 65 mpg and according to them, they can't afford to sell it here.

Here is the linky with a lovely picture of a car (Ford Fiesta ECOnetic) I would love to own (in that same color is fine).

Let's say they are right as rain (just go along with it for a minute) and they really cannot afford to sell it here. How about BUILDING it here? is that also a far reach for them?, Once again, we would be EXPORTING something and all dependent industries would benefit greatly. More production, more jobs, better economy.

If all of this does not smack of bringing our country to a screeching halt and reversing our economy, education and citizens towards the 19th century.... Oh, wait! it has to be further back than that, that was the era of industrialization....

..My bad!

What Congress needs to do

In my not so humble opinion is beat the crap out of Paulson and demand a cohesive plan from him. They obviously know how to do this since they have requested the same from the Auto Makers.

On the financial bailout, we are all just wondering how long is it going to take before our collective heads explode.

First off, Citi Group was bailed out in the middle of the night to the tune of over 300 BILLION dollars. No problem. We can print more money, we still have trees left and when those are gone, they'll start a collection in our neighborhoods while taxing us for having one too many.

In case we are loosing track of how much money has gone out, let me refresh your memory by simply stating that to date, it has been almost 8 TRILLION dollars (7.8 or something like that).

I don't know if you can stomach this or not, but here it goes:

As soon as Wells Fargo gets sold, the big wigs will receive a compensation package deemed to be earmarked as severance pay, of over 28 BILLION dollars, a large (enormous, actually) portion will go to the largest shareholder at Citibank. If this guy was poor before, he would not be after that.

The kicker is that this particular shareholder is the richest man in the world and he is still entitled to the 98 million dollars. His name is Prince Alwaleed (Saudi Arabia, of course) and he needs this money, let alone deserve it, like the middle class deserves to be homeless and unemployed.

In his defense (ha!) he made the supreme effort of injecting a large amount of money to increase his stake in the bank AFTER the government agreed to shower CitiBank with our tax dollars. You can read about here.

But hey! as long as the tax payers have a pint of blood left, we are doing our patriotic duty.

Or are we? ~ Maybe we are just too tired to print out all this stuff and shove it down Congress throats.

All I can see is the current administration making sure that there is not a single penny left before they leave office. Time is running out and drastic measures need to take place. Paulson is moving as quickly as he can.... Gosh Darn it! there is some loose change left in couch, Paulson is not doing his job!

Laugh if you can, it seems that is all we got left ... for now. That pint of blood will be gone shortly if this current administration has its way. They have sough to undermine work that took over 20 yrs to protect our lands and maintaining our National Treasures free from greed. In the middle of the night (do you see a pattern here? Just like thieves) during the busiest political day (November 4th, the day we revolted and chose to elect someone who gave us hope for the future and a departure from the hell the past 8 yrs have been for middle America) they truly have it in for our Country, its land and its people, here is an excerpt from the Huffinton Post that preceded an interview with Robert Redford by Rachel Maddow:

"The Bureau of Land Management cynically chose November 4 to announce a last-minute plan to lease huge swaths of majestic wilderness in eastern Utah for oil and gas extraction one month before President-elect Obama takes office.
As its clock runs out, the Bush administration also is trying to open-up drilling all over the Rockies and Alaska, to green-light oil shale leasing, and to weaken the Endangered Species Act. Though sad, it's no surprise, coming as it does from the same crowd that designed a misguided national energy policy in secret meetings with the oil, gas and coal industries."

You can read the full article at the huffington post website. (nicely linked for your convenience)

But if land and our environment are not of interest to you, don't worry, they have more up their collective sleeves and they are far from done, no, not yet. The highlighted link will take you tog to Bill Moyer's Journal and it explains quite well how other things you may consider hard fought for and now permanent are not so permanent and we must fight even harder.

I hope we are not too tired because until these thieves leave office, we need to be extra vigilant. For instance; your medical leave, your work safety regulations are all at risk of going Buh-bye and the citizen surveillance would increase by allowing the locals to do what the Feds are doing.

Whoa! I guess George Orwell was not that far off the mark, was he?

And I hate conspiracy theories because I like to have cold hard facts to base my opinions on, but when the hard cold facts are in front of us and the conspiracy no longer feels like a bunch of renagades cooked this up in a collaborative effort of midnight talks while "spacing out" on home grown "herbal remedies".... well, ... it is downright frightening to have elected officials have such disregard for the law and so blatant in their efforts to undermine a government that is "for the people" and has now become their playground.

So, before Bush and his band of crooks leaves office we are going to be in worse shape than we have been so far. If you did not think it was possible because there is not enough time, you have understimated their determination and the lure of greed that awaits them once they leave public office.

Or maybe... there is really a true conspiracy and the whole effort to "divide and conquer" is not a bad dream but a nighmare that even Russians think is going to happen. According to Mr Paranin, a political Russian Analyst, the United States will split up into several parts.

You can read about it all here and even though, I was going to dismiss this bit of news as some ideological nonsense, after reading his reasoning for making this prediction more than once, I am not so sure that this could not happen.

For years, it has been politically necessary to pit citizens agains each other based on inconsequential things, but by repeating the mantra long and hard, it became news and hatred and prejudiced abounded against one another.

The perpetuation of stereotypes just added fuel to the flames and now we have people in this country believing that we have elected a muslim (so what? there is freedom of Religion right? Not so, apparently, we are all free to be Cristian and nothing else). Personally, I like freedom from Religion a lot better, but to each its own.

We have others who believe that everyone in the South and Central part of the country is uneducated, unsophisticated and completely arrogant in their missinformed ways.

We have those in the middle and south thinking that those in the East and West have no moral values and no God.

Let's hope these, and other, attitudes will go by the wayside and we can come together as a Nation and work towards the common good, because I still have faith and hope that we can acommplish this.

No, I am not naive, I do remember Katrina and its aftermath, I do remember 9/11 and its horrific set backs, but what I remember most was the entire country helping one another. And that my friends, is AMERICA.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

PEACE to all.