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CNBC: Debating Larry Kudlow and Wall Street Journal Reporter on Tax Compromise

January 20, 2011

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  • AMegill December 30, 2010 3:03 pm

    Mark you get some right and some wrong in this answer.
    What is to be done when a company or municipality can no longer stay in business because of Union demands. What is to be done when the union instructs the members to not change things the Company can not afford to lose, like good quality. Ford Motor Co Plant in Mahwah NJ. Closed because the union told the workers that they didn’t have to listen to to management about improving quality. Gave them a year and the union bosses said go to hell. Was there heard every word. Cost 5000 jobs. Typical Union arrogance. Want to check on how many trucking companies closed because of the same arrogance. A Union is nothing more than a having to pay some one to have a job. They create Jobs for the union boss and his underlings and do so off the backs of the members. Much like those white slave holders you spoke of, They produce no product or service for the company or Municipality. Now days anyone can go into the boss’s office and negotiate their salary or benefits. Usually it’s called a contract and most companies today hire by them. And not have to threaten them with strikes etc. to get it. This is the same as extortion in many ways. Bargained in good faith? When someone walks into a store and demands payment for protection is that bargained in good faith. Same as the unions give us what we want or we will shut you down. Now Obama wants to make sure the union’s have the upper hand with card check, no more secret ballots. But of course you only mention going after “non-union contractors” who have ripped off the people and Govt.
    The bad CEO’s should and usually are punished, by the stockholders. do I wish more were? Yes. But I also think if the Govt. is stupid enough to bail them out then the Govt. should shut up and quit whinning about how they spend the money. If they didn’t negotiate a contract saying where the money went, then don’t cry about how it’s used. Thats one of the first rules of business. Yellow Frt. bought a company and never put a noncompetition clause in it. Guess what the Guy they just paid $250 million to went out and started another trucking Company and took most of his customers back and guess which previously owned Yellow company is out of business now. To make a hammer for the Feds you have a 2000 page contract. Why didn’t Obama and the Dems(they were in control) have a plan to cover these bounes before not after?
    Explain to me in your math how the unions and the Govt can keep receiving raises and not drive the cost of living up. The bread makers demand another .25 cents an hour and bread goes up, along with the flour, milk, and wrappers as all those workers demanded more to pay for the now higher priced bread. the cost of a subway ride goes up to pay for the new union contract. All the riders demand raises and so the circle goes on. Obama and Biden want a higher minimum wage and the Golden Arches raise the price of their food or lay off someone. Facts. Now show me different.
    The only ones oppressing me are the Liberals who want to take away all the American initiative and give away everything for nothing. Don’t work we’ll pay you to stay home(Welfare). There are people who make a living for generations by staying on welfare. Is that grabbing Tiny Tims crutch wanting these people to have to work for that money? It’s another form of fraud, but the Democrats don’t want to shake that tree. Most of those receiving it vote Democrat.
    So don’t blame those who want people to take responibilty for themselves as to busy grabbing any crutches. You seem to miss the fact that those who took the economy down had help from just as many Democrats as Republicans. Do you really think all those CEO’s are Repubs. Then you really are looking through blinders.

  • Mark December 21, 2010 12:44 pm

    Wow. What do you really think?

    I’m not sure whether you’re referring to the exchange above or the one done last night (the 20th) where my opponent was unfortunately too rude to let me get a word in edgewise. (That’s rare but it happens.)

    It is scandalous when any employer — including a municipal employer — refuses to fund its pensions, but it’s hard to blame people who bargained for a deal and want to keep their contract instead of those that, after the work is done, want to break that contract. Sounds to me like San Diego is entirely at fault.

    It’s also mistaken to generalize. Enron and many other companies on Wall Street didn’t fund their pensions either. But I don’t claim that all of Wall Street is breaking their contracts or the law.

    Now that the CEOs of various banks have violated their agreements and made hundreds of billions of dollars running their companies and our economy into the dust, do you think they should pay this money back? Are you OK if we defund their pensions? Or do you only want to punish hard-working lower-wage Americans who did nothing wrong?

    In sum, why do you want to deny the pensions to people who bargained for them and did nothing wrong while rewarding the people who destroyed the free market by making bad gambling bets and got bailed out? Can we agree, at least, on a 90% tax for bonuses handed out to the self-proclaimed geniuses at AIG’s Financial Group?

    Have you ever considered going after Government Contractors, non-unionized high-paid charlatans who ripped us off under Bush in no-bid contracts to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars? I doubt it, because, in your mind, rich people who defraud the Government deserve every penny they get, right? The unions defrauded no one. They bargained for their contracts, which are far far worse than the CEOs who don’t have to bargain for theirs. They just get their friends on the Board of Directors to lavish shareholder multi-millions on their head, often with golden parachutes they get while looting companies and destroying the economy.

    If a rich man knocked you over and robbed you blind, no doubt you would blame the ten-year-old boy who grabbed a runaway quarter.

    I will never understand the people who, when the king’s carriage rolls over their foot get so angry they beat their slaves. But it sure sounds like you’re one of those people.

    Please open your eyes. The States were fine financially prior to Great Recession. Their deficits are the result of the Great Recession. And the Unions did not cause the Great Recession. If only some of your insults and anger were directed at the people who truly caused this misery instead of being misdirected into hating people far worse off than you….

    But then again, white non-slaveholders formed the backbone of the Confederate Army, while Polish peasants turned on Jews rather than the noblemen who oppressed them. I guess I can’t expect conservative Americans to fight back against those oppressing them. They’re too busy grabbing Tiny Tim’s crutches away because Uncle Scrooge needs more gold. And blaming Tiny Tim!

    Merry Christmas

  • Richard L. December 21, 2010 8:57 am

    I saw that interchange. Mr. Levine was the biggest horse’s ass I’ve ever seen on Kudlow. Every word from his lips was totally wrong.

    One example you loud mouth jerk is my home town, San Diego CA. This city and this whole state was literally broke over ten years ago if you included unfunded pension liabilities. The taxpayers across this country have been robbed by a criminal conspiracy of public employee unions and liberal Democrat politicians. The unions pay for the pols campaigns; the pols vote them ludicrous benefits that in San Diego ran up billions of impossible debt. The pension scandal garnered the SEC’s attention years before the current financial crisis began.

    Mark Levine is either too stupid to check the facts or a simple liar.

  • Mark T. December 12, 2010 3:40 pm

    Greetings Mark,
    The gap between the rich and poor continues to grow. Google “gap between rich and poor in america” and see for yourself. And if you suggest ending the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthiest they scream “class warfare”. It is class warfare and it has been waging for more than 30 years. The middle class aren’t looking to win the war, we just need to survive. You can call it what you will, but I call it “stop raping the middle class”.
    Thanks, Mark T.