Obama Abuses Power Attacking His Nemesis, Toyota?

February 4, 2010

By JLancaster

If we own banks and car companies, why can’t we get jobs?

"And The Other Reason We Are Still Without Jobs.."

(TTfD) The American financial crisis is a complex issue, or so we are told. But are we told it is too complex to keep the government from having to explain why our tax dollars were used to virtually buy-out the troubled General Motors company? This is certainly a topic the President left out of the State of the Union address.

“Smart” and “Intelligent” are words often used by President Obama and his supporters. Those terms are used to shut us up and keep us out of “government affairs” with the hope that Americans will be good little sheep. But, since we are paying the bills (and interest on Obama-raised debt) it seems appropriate to ask if the government is now trying to kill off GM competitors like Toyota in order to show they were finally right about something.

Just yesterday, Secretary of Transportation LaHood advised people who owned Toyota vehicles not to drive them. He later took that back. This served to drive Toyota stocks downward, and in turn, a part of today’s overall dip below the 10,000 mark on Wall Street.

Today, he wants more answers on some possible problems with the beloved Prius. Of course, as a political hack from Illinois, he has Obama’s support and confidence. From Reuters, reporting on mouthpiece Robert Gibbs:

“Gibbs said Obama is “absolutely satisfied with the job he is doing” and after making his misstatement, “he did what’s not done a lot in this town,” correcting himself.”

So, as is common in Obama’s Washington — now known as Chicago on the Potomac — today followed with yet another attack on Toyota. But how fair is the complaint? It may be completely legitimate that a real problem does exist with the Prius, over and above its silly price tag.

Now, those who were wooed by the government program to trade in their cars in the name of “Green Living” are in for another surprise as they find the promised tax credits — in particularly with the Prius — were mostly used up in 2006. Thus, as tax time approaches many are finding the government wasn’t completely straight with them.

Yet, the appearance is that the government itself has more to gain by going after the world’s leading auto manufacturer — which employs a great deal of Americans — in efforts to lessen the failures of General Motors. The reality is that you can’t own a car company (GM) and still show fairness across the board to others. It is impossible to do this, and unlikely that they would even try.

The lifeline thrown to GM meant that the government was able to replace its top executives, yet left the Union (UAW) leadership in place. It is not hard to argue that the union had pushed the company from profit to failure through its demands and underhanded tactics. It also helped Obama get elected, so like his attachment to SEIU — which he served as a union organizer — he owes some favors.

GM is a loosing proposition. Even with Cash for Clunkers it was unable to beat Toyota. It has been loosing for years and will continue to, unlike Ford which did not accept government control. With autonomy in place, Ford has actually posted a profit in an otherwise dismal economy.

Of course, it goes further. Obama sees himself as the owner of both Chrysler and GM, which both combined are still struggling under government authority. When the term greed is used by a politician they are typically pointing at a guy wearing a tie. Greed can also refer to the way union leaders systematically take all they can from an area, destroy its economy and move on to the next town.

I once lived near the birthplace of the UAW, Flint MI. I never once saw Michael Moore there, nor did I see anyone raising rabbits for food. I did see, however, the abandoned north side and sad, knocked down homes everywhere. Workers who once made good livings from GM apparently thought the gravy train would last forever, and lived check to check on frills rather than paying off their homes.

What The UAW left behind

Flint in its heyday was the home of auto industry. And the auto industry was not always fair to its workers. That said, times certainly changed and from the birth of the UAW and its strong handing of the corporation the workers got paid by, little was eventually left.

Liberals who think coal mining operations unfairly strip an area of its beauty and future usefulness need to take a good look at what the UAW did to Flint. They laid it to waste and never thought twice what they could do to help people, but like Obama, simply pointed fingers at others.

Now that the government in essence owns GM — as it freely fires and hires whomever they please — is the chance the liberal Democrats have to actually show that they know best. This is Obama’s chance to show that the “government is the only answer” to America’s financial woes.

But that won’t happen as his allegiance is to the UAW, and like his administration, the Union is riddled with double-talk, money grabs, extortion and corruption.

In a fascinating article from 2001, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy published the following:

“… more disturbing are reports that some local officials of the UAW are allegedly beginning to collaborate with the automobile manufacturers, lining their own pockets in the process. A Detroit Free Press series in May of this year described rank-and-file worker suspicion that union officers had been paid off by General Motors and Daimler/Chrysler. Workers claim that the automakers had paid UAW leaders for hours they did not work, or hired relatives and friends of UAW officers. In exchange, it is alleged, the UAW agreed that it would not follow up on worker grievances. At one point, UAW members allege, officers of Local 594 in Pontiac extended a strike in order to secure GM jobs for their relatives. [25] A spokesman for GM declined to comment on the allegations for purposes of this Mackinac Center for Public Policy report.”

Nepotism and extortion are commonplace in the operation of the UAW. Here, the UAW bosses were reported not to be working with the workers for the workers, but in collusion with both Chrysler and GM in order to line their pockets. Can a government which prides itself to be so closely aligned to the unions of America handle this or make it worse?

“Meanwhile, press reports indicate that workers who raise questions about relationships between UAW officers and the auto companies have received threats and been ostracized by coworkers.[27] The UAW once had a reputation for policing itself reasonably well: “Those gripes stayed in the family and the offenders got slapped hard by the international,” according to Bob King, a former UAW official. But an apathetic response to the latest round of accusations has forced workers to take their suspicions to federal investigators. “

Of course, in the end, both workers and shareholders are the losers. As of 2009, so are the American people who without a vote saw their own Republic take a step closer to Fascism by taking over the companies with our tax dollars.

The situation will not improve now, mainly for the simple reason that since the government started this new “program” in taking over private business it will only spend more money. President Obama was wrong. Sometimes, in a Capitalist system, failure is an option.

Without risk of failure, ideas are stifled and quality wanes. Without the prospect of failure, success means very little if anything at all.

Toyota may well have made a mistake. But, is that mistake worthy of the government to now two days in a row go into war mode against them? Time will tell, but either way, no matter how bad Toyota looks it will never be surpassed by the horrendous way our President looks with his sleazy union ties.