Unions and their mouthpieces continually bombard us with the catch phrases about standing for “working people,” “working families,” and the poor, oppressed and exploited “working” classes. Truth is, unions represent a privileged minority, a politically connected class, the aristocrats of middle-class workers. And the mainstream of American workers, the real working people agree; it’s why only 6.9% of private sector workers are in unions and union membership overall has decreased from nearly one-third of all workers in the 1940s.

People understand that unions are about everything but work, because unions generally mean less work for everybody else. When unions go on strike, work stops, even for non-union workers. By demanding higher wages for less work they drive down productivity and the possibility of business growth and more jobs for everyone. Companies move to get out from under union pay scales that kill business – look at Detroit, the scene of Mr. Hoffa’s Labor Day rant and sadly, also the scene of the union movement’s greatest catastrophe, the dismantling of the American auto industry. Unions’ proclivities for killing jobs are illustrated their “concerns” that are holding up free trade agreements and could add 250,000 jobs to the economy. Additionally, Unions and their accomplices at the National Labor Relations Board are trying to kill thousands of  jobs under the dubious charges that Boeing broken the law by building non-union production lines in South Carolina.

Unions’ comfortable pay, sweet pensions, and gold-plated health plans are paid for by people – taxpayers in the case of public sector unions and consumers in the case of private sector unions – who in many cases do not enjoy the same pay and benefits that the union workers receive. Many true “working people” labor at two or sometimes three jobs, pay their own benefits, and get no pay for taking days off to protest or demonstrate.

Union members are in conflict with everyone and represent a narrow special interest that flourishes at the expenses of other workers and the economy at large. They are a monopolistic enterprise. They are adversaries to business-owners, other workers, consumers and taxpayers. Look at what has happened in states with traditions of strong unions and union support – Wisconsin voters have said enough to funding public-sector union workers who have better pay and benefits than their employers. Voters intuitively understand that unions are a drag on the economy and taxes; they benefit only themselves at everyone else’s expense.

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From National Journal:

As lawmakers continue to joust over how to accelerate growth and unleash job creation, the Census numbers are a timely reminder of how mightily the U.S. economy struggled over the last decade — and particularly over the last few years, during and after the Great Recession.

Consider:

• Last year, real median income dipped below $50,000 a year for the first time since 1996.
• By that measure — median income — this is the worst post-recession economy ever recorded by the Census Bureau (which began compiling this data in 1967). From 2009 to 2010, real median income fell by 2.3 percent, a steeper drop than the years that followed the end of recessions in the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s, and early 2000s.

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The question needs to be asked: Is it ignorance or malice? There was a time after the subprime mortgage meltdown when, if sound decisions on policy and financial initiatives had occurred, the American economy may not have been hobbled as badly, its credit rating might not have been downgraded, the recession might have been curtailed and so many Americans might not have been so negatively affected. However, rather than helping a recovery by letting the quasi-free market adjust, contract and expand again, at almost every turn, Barack Obama and the union appointees and crony capitalists within his administration are, whether out of malice or ignorance, seemingly doing everything they can to destroy an already fragile economy. It’s really no longer a question of  ”if,” but “why.”

In 2008, Barack Obama was caught on camera explaining his redistributionist desire to spread the wealth around. At the time, in classic Saul Alinsky fashion, Obama’s union pushers tried deflecting the issue by the stomping on the reputation of ‘Joe the Plumber,’ the man who asked Obama an innocent question.

Now, 18 months after his first stimulus failed, Barack Obama has cynically proposed spending another one-half a trillion dollars (paid for by redistributing the wealth of the not-so -wealthy. Even pundits realize it is a “nakedly political” plan to paint his political opponents as ‘radical.’ However, even with the politicization apparent, policies of Obama and his union cronies go beyond the typical ‘tax and spend’ stereotype afforded to Keynesian liberals.

Unfortunately, from coast to coast, the Obama Misery Index (OMI) is leaving almost no sector untouched. From the seemingly politically-motivated raid in Nashville on legendary (and non-union) guitar-maker Gibson to the EPA killing 500 jobs in Texas, the attacks on America’s job creators are not only disturbing, they are alarming. Is it ignorance or malice? (more…)

GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) — Police say union supporters have directed racial slurs and racist symbols at replacement workers and security personnel outside an American Crystal Sugar plant in North Dakota.

Traill County Sheriff Mike Crocker says there have been racial statements made to security people outside of the company’s Hillsboro facility. He says he recently saw a monkey-like figure hanging from a noose attached to a large inflatable rat outside the plant. He says it was removed the next day.

The Grand Forks Herald reported Tuesday that many of the replacement workers are from Southern states, and some are minorities.

Union representative Mark Froemke calls the behavior “totally unacceptable” and says the union will not tolerate racism. (more…)

From Bloomberg:

Solyndra LLC’s workers making solar-power panels in a California factory subsidized by U.S. taxpayers showed “the promise of clean energy isn’t just an article of faith,” President Barack Obama said on a visit to the company in May 2010.

Two months before Obama’s visit, accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP warned that Solyndra, the recipient of $535 million in federal loan guarantees, had financial troubles deep enough to “raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.”

The Obama administration stood by Solyndra through the auditor’s warning, the abandonment of a planned initial public offering and a last-ditch refinancing where taxpayers took a back seat to new investors. That unwavering commitment has come under increasing scrutiny since the company’s travails culminated in its filing for bankruptcy protection on Sept. 6 and a raid on its headquarters by the Federal Bureau of Investigation two days later.

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The Census Bureau has just released the 2010 poverty numbers, and the new data is terrible.

There are now a record number of poor people in America, and the poverty rate has jumped to 15.1 percent.

But I don’t really blame President Obama for these grim numbers. Yes, he’s increased the burden of government, which doubtlessly has hindered the economy’s performance and made things worse, but the White House crowd legitimately can argue that they inherited a crummy situation.

What’s really striking, if we look at the chart, is that the poverty rate in America was steadily declining. But then, once President Lyndon Johnson started a “War on Poverty,” that progress came to a halt.

As I’ve explained before, the so-called War on Poverty has undermined economic progress by trapping people in lives of dependency. And this certainly is consistent with the data in the chart, which show that the poverty rate no longer is falling and instead bumps around between 12 percent and 15 percent.

This is bad news for poor people, of course, but it’s also bad news for taxpayers. The federal government, which shouldn’t have any role in the field of income redistribution, has squandered trillions of dollars on dozens of means-tested programs. And they’ve arguably made matters worse.

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We’ve all seen the staggeringly horrific sales figures for the Chevy Volt. In any other market for any other consumer good, this hunk of junk would’ve been left in the dustbin of historic manufacturing failures, like the Apple II. Just ask Steve Jobs.

Under no coherent, rational interpretation of “market efficiency” should the Chevy Volt even be a production consideration for a private firm. Not only does sticker shock prevent most people from buying the Volt, but for those misguided few who do, costs to fix them are more than those of a less expensive Chevy Malibu.

Curious onlookers must be all the more flummoxed, then, after the recent announcement that GM and electronics manufacturing giant LG have teamed up to continue development of the Volt:

Under the agreement signed on Wednesday by GM Chief Executive Daniel Akerson and LG President Juno Cho, the two companies said they would design a range of electric vehicles that would be sold in markets around the world… “This is a strategic development for LG and we fully support GM’s goal to lead the industry in the electrification of the automobile,” LG’s Cho said in a statement.

Supporting GM’s goal to bend to the will of progressive environmentalists in the Obama administration shouldn’t be surprising, since LG is itself a healthy recipient of so-called “stimulus” funding:

President Obama visited Holland Michigan on Thursday to participate in the groundbreaking ceremony of the new LG Chem battery plant. This plant was funded in part by a DOE stimulus grant of $151 million with a matching $151 million provided by LG Chem. Once fully operational in 2012, the plant will be capable of producing enough cells for 200,000 hybrids and electric cars, and will specifically be making the cells both for the Chevrolet Volt and the upcoming Ford Focus Electric, expected to go on sale in 2011.

“This is about more than just building a new factory,” said Obama. “It’s about building a better future for this city, for this state, and for this country.”

The Obama administration has pledged a goal of putting 1 million electric cars on US roads by 2015. So far the Recovery Act has contributed $2.5 billion towards United States electric car battery and component plants, 26 of which are already in some stage of construction. Nine of these are battery plants, including ones from A123 Systems and Johnson Controls. These facilities can collectively expect to produce 500,000 electric cars annually, and are expected to help transform Michigan into the electric car battery capital of the country.

The 650,000 square foot LG Chem plant is expected to produce 300 jobs.

Wow – a $151 million win-the-future “investment” will create a whopping 300 jobs? At $500k per job, I’m clearly in the wrong business.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Bruce Walker talks about the government’s attempt to stop the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, and Elizabeth Blackney and Benjamin Domenech walk through the HPV vaccine issue in response to Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Bachmann on Today Show: mental retardation “very real concern” for HPV vaccine
Bachmann: Crying mother shared HPV story
Heartlander: Vaccine Fearmongers Exposed
Heartlander: Customers, Not Government, Determine Competitiveness
AT&T: T-Mobile is Awful, Please Let Us Buy Them

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From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

Wisconsin’s largest teachers union has a problem.

A union problem.

This week, National Support Organization, which bills itself as the world’s largest union of union staffers, posted an online notice discouraging its members from seeking work with the Wisconsin Education Association Council.

“Don’t apply for WEAC vacancies!” screams the headline.

The reason for the boycott?

Chuck Agerstrand, president of the National Support Organization, is accusing WEAC officials of “breaching staff contracts and destroying any working relationship with its employees.”

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From the Associated Press:

Greece is relying on rescue loans to remain solvent. But lagging efforts to tame a bloated budget deficit and enforce reforms are threatening that lifeline, which is conditional on fiscal progress.

Athens is trying to convince international creditors that it deserves to get the next, sixth tranche of money due from a bailout fund. Government spokesman Elias Mossialos said late Monday that Greece will get the bailout money.

Despite over 20 months of austerity and two international bailouts each worth about euro110 billion ($150 billion), Greece’s finances remain in a parlous state.

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The fireworks finally started to go off in last night’s GOP debate and, yes, Perry was the man in the cross-fire. There was plenty of give and take,  if you want to let people know what you think, feel free to  use the comments area. With the various contenders stepping up their games out of necessity, the next debate may be even more contentious.

An early note from Afghanistan, reports claim insurgents are firing rockets at the U.S. Embassy.

Obama is heading to Speaker Boehner’s district to  pitch his jobs program. Obama looks to remain a tax and spend  liberal right to the very end. Let’s hope it ends next year in November.

The prospects for President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan grew dimmer Monday as he unveiled the fine print of how it would be paid for—primarily through tax increases that Republicans said would destroy jobs, not create them.

Mr. Obama proposed limiting itemized deductions for families with taxable income of $250,000 or more a year, ending tax breaks for oil companies and corporate jet owners, and cutting out a tax break for investment-fund managers. The White House says the tax changes would take effect in 2013 and estimates they would raise $467 billion in additional revenue over 10 years.

Republicans in Congress, who had been striking a more conciliatory tone about backing at least parts of the proposal the president unveiled last Thursday, disputed the White House contention that the plan would cause no additional job losses for the struggling economy.
“It would be fair to say this tax increase on job creators is the kind of proposal both parties have opposed in the past,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio). “We remain eager to work together on ways to support job growth, but this proposal doesn’t appear to have been offered in that bipartisan spirit.”

Megan McArdle looks at the jobs plan and realizes its all a bit of political theater. With almost $1 in tax hikes for every $1 in new spending, it certainly doesn’t look like a serious proposal. Robert Samuelson, meanwhile, thinks we all need a refresher course in how jobs are created.

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Recently, Obama called a joint session of Congress and on September 8 he stood before it to introduce his new jobs bill. At that time, he didn’t actually have a jobs bill, but promised he would soon. Then yesterday, on the White House lawn, he basically gave a condensed version of the same speech and he was grinning from ear to ear because he actually had a bill with him this time.

The bill was the American Jobs Act of 2011. And the catch is it’s really just Stimulus Part Two: its focus isn’t creating jobs but raising taxes.

In all honesty, Obama’s job bill is basically a promise to cut taxes by raising them.

It will increase taxes on corporate jet owners by a total of $3 billion, on capital gains by $18 billion, on oil and gas companies by $40 billion, and on individuals making over $200,000 a year by a total of $400 billion (over 10 years).

This is a mess folks. The tax on corporate jet owners is class warfare plain and simple. It’s one of the taxes that Obama tries to justify with his one-size-fits-all-mantra: “Time for the wealthy to pay their fair share.”And the tax on capital gains is nothing less than highway robbery. It will be done by categorizing some capital gains from hedge funds as income, thus allowing them to be taxed (in upper tax brackets) at more than twice the normal 15% tax currently in place for capital gains.

Does it still sound like the American Jobs Act of 2011 is about cutting taxes and creating jobs to you?

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When the White House released its latest plan to stimulate – er, improve – the economy, everybody knew there would be a fresh round of spending to bail out government schools.

But there’s another motive too: dues for the teachers unions.

By my estimates, about three quarters of unionized teachers are represented by the National Education Association.  Every member pays dues, including $166 per year that goes to the national union, according to a secret union document posted on PublicSchoolSpending.com.  The White House says up to 285,000 teaching jobs – that is, dues payers – could be saved.

Given these facts, the NEA would be looking at about $35.4 million in “saved” dues.

Similarly, the American Federation of Teachers, which has annual dues of $184.20, according to financial statements found at AFTexposed.com, would have about 71,250 jobs saved.  The dues ramifications?  A little over $13 million.

It pays to have friends in high places.

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In a stunning reversal of voter opinions since the first weekend in August; the Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey reveals that “Likely U.S. Voters” has flipped from 75% feeling it is at least somewhat important for the government to launch a new stimulus program to create jobs (57% saying “it is Very Important”), to just 38% now supporting the President’s $447 billion jobs plan presented to the Joint Session of Congress. This nose-dive in support for a bold new government spending initiative to fight unemployment is directly tied to the violent plunge in the U.S. stock prices caused by the credit rating downgrade of the United States of America.

Likely voters have good reason to be concerned about the negative consequences of another round of big government spending. U.S. stock prices of the 500 large largest American companies in the S&P 500 Index made all-time highs just prior to the real estate and banking 2008 Credit Crisis. Over the next seven months, the stock prices of these conservative companies fell by 50% and heralded the start of the worst economic decline in America history since the Great Depression.

Here are a few statistics that demonstrate just how historic last month’s response has been to the downgrade of America’s credit rating by the S&P 500 Stock Index:

• The index was down whapping 5.7% for the month;
• The sum total of the violent up and down moves during the month was equal to 47%;
• Volatility was in the 98th percent highest level of any month since 1928;
• Investment return was in the bottom 10% of monthly returns since 1928;
• If September shows a loss, it will be only the 9th consecutive 5 month loss since 1928;
• The last 5 months of continuous stock losses before the Credit Crisis of 2008, was 1974.

The stock market is predicting that the United States reliance on big government initiatives funded by deficit spending is over. Next year, the recent deal to increase the debt ceiling requires $71 billion spending cuts. Furthermore, on December 31, 2011 the 100% depreciation of corporate capital purchases for 2011 will expire. The net effect of these cutbacks will result in approximately a 2% reduction in GDP. This will be the largest reduction in government activity since WWII.

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Today, voters in New York City and Nevada go to the polls to fill two vacancies in Congress. It is expected that the GOP will win both seats. Did we mention one of the special elections is in midnight-blue New York City?

Tonight, at 8pm EDT, the GOP candidates for President will meet in a debate sponsored by CNN and Tea Party Express. Check back throughout the night for feedback from Breitbart-opolis.

Andrew Breitbart: Whatever Wolf Blitzer took to make it tolerable for him to be around so many flyover-country Tea Party rubes, he should distribute it to his peers in the mainstream media for the coming election year. CNN put on the show that MSNBC was government-subsidized not to. What was conspicuously missing–and thus making it journalistically fair–was the usual framing of Tea Party concerns as inherently racist. So CNN, especially with its exciting intro package that felt like an ESPN playoff game intro, gets high grades. Maybe I was so appalled by MSNBC’s lower-than-low performance that CNN comes out the winner this evening, simply by behaving professionally.

What Democrats and leftists want is that artificial injection of race. But those who will bring it up in desperation after this Tampa tea party debate will have exposed one of the Democratic Party’s greatest weaknesses: concern over the plight of real minority oppression. None of the Tea Party’s critics will recognize that one of tonight’s questioners was a Tea Party member who happened to be a Muslim woman from Afghanistan. To the modern leftist, this woman is invisible. Her question mark spurring cognitive dissonance across the Daily Kos-Huffington Post-MSNBC bizarro world spectrum.

As for the candidates, there was one moment where Chuck Barris should have gonged Jon Huntsman: his humorously prepared, yet clunkily delivered “no apology” reference to Kurt Cobain. He’s providing no value to the debates, and has no constituency. Tonight should be his last debate. If MSNBC tried to bury Bachmann in the previous debate at the Reagan library, she resurrected herself on CNN tonight. The predictable governor-à-governor sparring of Romney and Perry is already becoming tedious.

Mike Flynn: Now we know why CNN has the brand it does. Hopefully, John Harris, Brian Williams, Politico and MSNBC were taking notes. Wolf certainly got his liberal biases in, from time to time, but not at the expense of a free-wheeling and interesting GOP debate.  Newt had the best lines in the debate, but he’s Newt and isn’t going anywhere. Everyone else had some good lines. Rick Perry, yet again, was the subject of attacks from all sides. He was much steadier than in the first debate. He stood his ground, so I score him with the win.

Joel Pollack, EIC Breitbart: The big winner tonight was the Tea Party. If the Tea Party is racist, then so is CNN. The big loser was Ron Paul, who got booed by the Tea Party when he tried to blame 9/11 on American foreign policy and U.S. support for Israel in particular. One question that remains is why the Tea Party allowed CNN to control the debate being held in its name–especially since CNN seemed to target frontrunner Rick Perry, who is popular among Tea Party supporters.

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I have a deathly fear of water.

I’ve always been kinda shy around it – even as a kid. But this turned into a full-blown fright fest when I was working at my first newspaper as an obituary clerk.

In my first few weeks at The Farmington Daily Times (Farmington, NM), I wrote the obituary of my high school friend, Chelly, who drowned in Navajo Lake near my hometown, while trying to save a little girl’s life. So, that, coupled with an already slightly ridiculous inability to back float, spiraled into me spending more time tanning on the side of the pool while my friends played Marco Polo and water volleyball. Such is the life of a land-bound girl with tan lines …

I talk about fears today because I am seeing fear throughout our Conservative ranks right now. We are a group who is more prepared for the upcoming Barackolypse (“If Obama is elected again inflation will make food and energy prices so high we won’t be able to buy bread!”) than we are in actually trying to mount an offensive and defeat him.

We have respected leaders in our own movement, telling us to head for the hills and store up food in order to take care of you and your own should the worst happen and Obama become reelected as president. I am reminded of the mania surrounding New Years Eve 2000 when everyone thought the new millennium might bring earthquake, death, destruction and a need to retreat to the caves and caverns of the Midwest. Have we already succumbed to the fear of fears here? Are we not even willing to see what we can do as a group large enough in number to actually make a difference?

As a group, it seems we have let our fears consume us. We have decided we don’t have a voice big enough to beat the bias of the media, take down the liberal mob or counter-act the power of the current government.

In watching the Republican debate earlier this week, I was yearning for a message of hope – a message OBAMA seemed to give so many people in 2008 – that actually made them vote for him. But I was left with nothing. All I heard were the problems this country had – not the potential. ‘ObamaCare will ruin the economy,’ ‘Withdrawl of troops jeopardizes our safety,’ ‘Our borders aren’t safe despite what Obama says ..’

Let’s face it. There’s not a person reading this who is involved in our Conservative circles who thinks President Obama has done a good job. We all know he’s sucked horrendously as Commander in Chief and we would like nothing better than to run him out of Washington on a rail … But I don’t need our Republican candidates to remind me of this time and time again. Tell me the problem. Tell me your solution. And lastly, tell me what we have to look forward to.

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