-By Thierry Godard
Detroit in 2010 is unlike any other American city. Once a bastion of American industrial might, Detroit was not only home to the Big Three, but a thriving community of small business owners who supported the automotive industry. In a sad twist of fate, Detroit has come to symbolize the crippled state of the American economy.
Foreclosure has rendered the city nearly vacant. Detroit is a modern-day ghost town. The infamous bailout of GM and Chrysler came about largely because of the massive obligations these automotive companies had to pay to their labor unions. The Democratic Congress, left with the option of propping up failing companies or risking a complete breakdown of mid-western society, chose the bailout instead of confronting the true problem—unions—head on.
It’s no secret to industry insiders that the United Auto Workers’ unreasonable demands played a large role in the collapse of the auto industry in 2008. The irony, of course, is that the UAW’s rampant waste prompted the downfall of the very industry it not only claims to serve, but wholly relies on for the employment of its members.
Continue reading “
Unions: Who Needs ‘Em?”
In but a few hours I’ll be headed to Chicago’s O’Hare airport to wing my way to sunny Cancun to do a few days reporting on the U.N. Climate Change Summit. As is my luck in life, sunny Cancun will be rainy Cancun if the weatherman is to be believed. Of course, weather reports aren’t the only thing going on down there that isn’t to be believed.
Unions in America really are under assault from every direction. Certainly they are still powerful and not to be under estimated, but unions really have lost much of the power they once had. At less than 20 percent of the work force these days, the unions that are left have been finding themselves being forced to make the sort of concessions that they once would never even consider.
What is it called when a government creates a state-sponsored “news” agency, again? Ah yes, it’s called government propaganda. And that is what the Obama administration seems interested in creating if the words of Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis’s senior advisor 
This is a story that warms the anti-union cockles of my free-market heart. At the recent meeting of the Republican Governors Association in San Diego those governors gathered made a point to discuss angles of attack to 
With the recent midterm election and the resulting GOP tidal wave that is about to inundate Congress, many people have wondered aloud if net neutrality was dead? Well if FCC Chief Julius Genachowski has his way, net neutrality will be implemented by fiat when he has his agency simply change rules without involving congress at all.
The 2010 elections are now history. If there was any lesson from this Republican tidal wave that swept across the country it is that the vast majority of Americans are furious at the overspending and flawed leadership of our politicians. Voters are no longer so easily fooled by claims that wild spending sprees are beneficial. California was spared the GOP tidal wave but California voters of all stripes voted in droves to impose a high threshold on imposing any new taxes (what was LA turnout). In the City of Los Angeles real pain is being felt as libraries are shut down due to budgetary cuts with police and firefighters next on the chopping block. Yet even with all these cuts in services, politicians in the City of Los Angeles are still considering a multi-million dollar subsidy — using taxpayer dollars – for the 
111 companies and organizations were granted waivers by Obama’s Dept. of Health and Human Services so that they could get out of having to comply with Obamacare and unions were particularly well rewarded by the HHS with these waivers.
Officials of Northumberland County, Pennsylvania may be about to 
Hypocrisy, they name is Democrat. Michigan’s Mackinac Center for Public Policy has laid bare another 
President Barack Obama’s now concluding trip to India seems to have turned out to be a failed or at the very least unhelpful effort. His false starts, unhelpful comments and bad policy moves mark this visit as a bit of a mess.
Al Gore’s much ballyhooed Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) has recently announced that it will no longer be engaging in carbon trading, an activity that was the sole purpose that it was created. This is an utter failure of purpose in global warming hysteria yet the Old Media is almost completely silent on this colossal failure.