Well general Motors has announced that they will lay off 25,000 workers by 2008, and that they will close an unspecified number of their plants in order to avoid going bankrupt. Does anyone out there think that this will improve the quality or availability of GM vehicles?
One of the main reasons GM is giving for the current mess that they are in is the skyrocketing cost of healthcare and pensions.GM said that healthcare costs for their retired workers add $1500 to the price of every new GM vehicle. Basically, they can no longer afford to keep paying benefits to people who no longer generate any money for the company.
It has occured to me that we spend an awful lot of time in America talking about ways to give money and services to people who don't produce anything. We worry about the poor, the homeless, retirees, Socialist Security recipients, the unemployed, etc, etc, etc... All of these people (with some exceptions) have one thing in common. They don't produce anything. They make no contribution to society.(I am in no way trying to slam the people who recieve pensions from GM. The only thing they are guilty of is buying into a bad deal.)
We live in a society where, for some reason, uselessness and worthlessness must be protected and preserved at all costs.
We abort innocent babies in wholesale numbers (one of which, by the way,could have grown up to figure out the solutions to these very problems) and at the same time support convicted murderers for years and years before we put them to death.(tangient...this is a subject for another posting. Stay tuned...)
Socialist Security is one of my biggest gripes. There is no constitutional provision for it. I never voted for such a thing. I don't want it, I never plan to need it, and if i could opt completely out of it, they could keep the money that I have already paid in to it. It won't be there for me anyway.
President Bush has proposed a plan to privatize a portion of the Socialist Security program. The private accounts would be totally voluntary, and would not affect anyone over 55 years old. Do you know who the loudest opponents of this plan are? They are people over 55, who don't even have a dog in this fight.
They won't be affected in any way, they just don't want ME to have a choice in the matter. Some of them are the very people who voted the stupid thing in to begin with. It drives me crazy. These are the same people who took GI bill money and built their houses, then took the money they should have saved for their retirement and bought land for nearly nothing, so that later they could sell it to one another's grandchildren for ten times (or more) what they paid for it.
Conduct a little experiment on your own. Ask any Socialist Security recipient that you know if they get enough money to live on. Ask them if they would be any better off if they had the money they paid in to the system in a money market account, or stocks and bonds, or ANYWHERE ELSE besides the Socialist Security system. Every last one of them will tell you that it's a bad deal. For some reason though, we can't get rid of it, or improve it, or change it in any way, because all the people on "fixed incomes" will suffer.
The real kicker is that for the most part, it is a REGRESSIVE transfer of wealth. They take money directly from the paychecks of young working people who are trying to get started in life, and give it to retirees who have already made their fortunes (big or small.) Think about the retired people you know. Are they destitute, or do they have savings, land, houses, investment properties, things like that? At the very least, they have children who would not let them starve to death. Would they still take their check if they realized that they are using the power of government to steal it from their grandchildren?
"But they paid that money in for years!!" you scream."They are just getting their own money back!!" you cry. Well, not exactly. Most Socialist Security recipients draw out the money that they paid in within the first five years. After that it's welfare. Plain and simple. I know it's harsh, but it's true.
If something isn't done about this trend, Hillary-care, welfare, Socialist security, et al, will eat up the entire domestic gross product before it is over. The fate of GM will befall the federal government, but not before every working American runs completely out of money. We can't afford any more help from the government.
It's time for EVERYONE to start taking responsibility for their own butt. Save for your own retirement. Provide your own healthcare insurance. Pay your own way. Don't depend on anyone or anything besides yourself for your subsistence. Stop looking for the easy way out. There ain't one.
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Thanks to our government, there is no way in my budget to save for retirement at this time. If my employer didn't contribute 3% of my salary to a retirement plan on my behalf (and I do contribute to this on my own a little), I would have no retirement plan at all.
I remember a couple of years ago, when my grandmother told me that she received more in social security than she ever made while working. There's the crux of the problem right there. Try to put $100 in the bank and then withdraw $150. See what happens. I am mathematically challenged and I can see the flaw in that plan.
That's not counting for the fact that my grandmother had EIGHT children of her own. Her second husband had EIGHT children of his own. Between the SIXTEEN working adults they raised don't you think there was enough money to support them? I know not everyone has that luxury, but in their case, wouldn't the money they were getting in Social Security have been better spent elsewhere?
I've said for years that if the government is going to require you to give this money for retirement, then they ought to give you some choices about it. Why am I forced to take care of someone else's old person? If I have to do that, I want some the benefits that children and grandchildren get from these people. They should send me socks at Christmas, or something.
you know i have managed so far to not pay any taxes- but i have like $3 in savings cause i have no will power to save. In fact the only reason there is money in my savings at all is that you can't take out anything less than $10 from an atm and i refuse to walk up to the counter and get my three dollars out. Anyway, i have decided as the next generation to be coming into the workforce- i am going to live my life, serve my God, and spend my money, saving as much as i can- so that when i am 65 i can hire a hitman to sind me strait to heaven and my family wont be left in debt. That is if i dont die on some freak rollarcoaster accident. Truly there is way too much fun to be had to live life safley. So instead of waiting for Bush or anyone else to "fix" or "solve" I am just gonna live- and hope to heaven i dont live too long. ps.. i will give ya three guesses who this is and the second two dont count :)
Hey,whassup T.C.?!?!
Check your comments on your blog.(I left you a present!!)
That was a lucid and well thought out comment. I will be coming back to read more of your blog. great job!
You’re right, someone who worked 30 years for a company to earn a top pay of 45,000 a year should suffer the consequences when they turn 65 and are too lazy to fend for themselves. What we need to do is pay the CEO of GM another 45 million dollars a year, I am sure that will help their situation.
So why is it that Toyota and Honda are able to remain competitive with GM and Ford when all their plants are in Japan and the USA paying living wages and GM and Fords plants are all in Mexico, China and Brazil paying $12 a day, have yet to develop a hybrid car and still go bankrupt?
You need to redirect your anger elsewhere, not at the guy who made $20 an hour for 30 years making 25,000 dollar cars.
And by the way, the stock holders of GM don't work either, so why should they make any money from this, after all that's what this is really about. So are you saying that you would rather give the money to someone who didn't work at all or would you rather give it to someone who worked for it for 25 years?
I thought Republicans had a stronger work ethic than that?
I guess all the Republicans have been replaced by the Fristians.
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