Certainly, there are many temp agencies up here, but as was said above, they won't be filling UAW jobs. Things called "work rules" where each job is specialized and only certain people can fill it, are becoming much more relaxed however. Just a couple of years ago it was a huge deal when Chrysler won concessions from the UAW for a new plant in Michigan and were thus able to move workers around from job to job as needed much more efficiently. In the past, if a worker was supposed to put a door on a vehicle, and you shut down that part of the line for some reason, you couldn't just move them to another component without jumping through a lot of union hoops. Some of that is still there, but at least it's getting better for what I hear.

Still, in a dyno facility I frequent, we had an issue with a fuel injector on the engine and as soon as I determined it was likely in the harness, the technician said he had to call an electrician. I found a voltmeter and some leads and started working on it myself with his permission. He just didn't feel qualified so he used the excuse that electrical work wasn't his job. We're talking just checking for short and open circuits here. It was depressing. He didn't even come in the cell and try to learn the basics of electrical fault finding. Of course, if I hadn't been able to work on it, it would have waited until morning since the electrician leaves at 3:30 in the afternoon. If we had an antagonistic relationship he would have been within his union rights to refuse me to work on the engine and we would have missed our 2nd shift of work.

I'm curious. Have any of you started seeing some GM ads on the TV that are at least a start at doing some positive PR for GM? They usually end with something like, "And they're built by GM, surprised?" Ads that talk about CTS quality awards and the like, . . .

What surprises me is I haven't seen any such ads by Ford or Chrysler in the past 2 months. From the boards I've been reading during my vacation, and shows like Garage419 podcasts, etc. the misconceptions about the Detroit 3 show that many of the people just haven't bought or even driven a Detroit 3 product in years, and have also heard nothing good about them from friends.

Heck, the Ford Fusion hybrid is coming out this spring or so, and the official mileage ratings are 41/36 City/Hwy. That's 8 MPG better in the city than the Camry hybrid. I've seen no mention of this in any ads other than on sites where automotive devoted people hang out. Concerning Ford quality, even Consumer Reports has said Ford has pulled even with the Japanese carmakers. The message just isn't sinking in.

I was watching a computer podcast video last week and they were reviewing the LA Auto Show. The guy showed some concepts Toyota and Mitsubishi had for fuel cell vehicles and touted how the Detroit 3 had nothing to show in this area at the show. That may have been correct, but what he didn't say is GM has had test fleets of fuel cell powered Chevy Equinoxes in Chicago, NY and DC for about 2 years now IIRC. That's more advanced than any of the competition in the US that I've seen. I think they didn't have it at the LA Auto Show because it's old news to GM. Perhaps it's another PR mistake, since it appears much of the public just doesn't know these things.

There's a long road ahead I think.

The latest version of Car and Driver has a comparison of the Ford Fusion Hybrid with the Malibu, Camry and one other that I can't remember (Nissan I think). The Ford won the comparison by a pretty healthy margin. The Malibu was the only car in the test that was a "mild hybrid" meaning it can not move on electric power only. It came in last and they made it look like old tech compared to the other three cars. Plus they said it had cheap plastic interior. This is odd because the previous reviews of the non-hybrid Malibu models were glowing. Does the hybrid Malibu have a different level of interior than the other versions?

My brother-in-law from New York was in town for Christmas. We were discussing cars in general and American vs foreign cars. He is dead set against American cars. The only American car he likes is the Corvette. Even though he likes the 'vette, he is willing to spend several times the price for a Porche turbo 911 rather than get the 'vette. I told him a few things about the 'vettes and I think I may have at least made him think a bit. I suggested that he at least go drive a 'vette before dropping the cash on the 911. As for more basic cars, his opinion is that all American cars are inferior to Japanese and German cars. I tried to explain that, in my opinion, over the last 10-15 years that gap has been closing and that today, the American are just as good. But for him to start thinking about buying American, the American cars will have to become significantly better than the foreign competition. Unfortunately, I think there are too many people that think similarly.

The trade rags are as corrupt, if not more so, than the news media.

Did Ford have more advertisements in that issue, if not exclusive, than the other auto makers? My guess is yes ...

FWIW, my wife's cousin is married to a UAW worker at local Ford truck plant. He's been sitting at home for 2 months or so and all we heard on Christmas was how much it sucked sitting at home for weeks at a time making 95%. Some people just don't get it. They were actually upset that he couldn't go get another job during the downtime since he didn't know when he'd return.

I don't think the interior is different between models, but level of trim, for instance going with leather interior and a more upscaled V6 engine, may change some of the trim.

Yes, a stop-start hybrid is a very cheap way to go. It won't get as good of fuel mileage as a full hybrid, but it's a lot cheaper. You get what you pay for. The nice thing is last I heard the Camry hybrid doesn't get the government rebate anymore, since Toyota has sold it's limit. Thus, the Malibu gets the full credit. Put this credit, and a lower purchase price for the Malibu up against the Camry hybrid, and I don't think you ever make your money back on the Camry. Of course, financial sensibility isn't on the table anymore. It's all about the image a car company gets from having the best fuel economy. In that respect, GM is losing.

Since the new Malibu hasn't been out for very long, this survey is the only one I can find on it by what should be a nonbiased source:

JD Power Malibu Review

At least with JD Power, it came in first place overall for midsize sedans. I also saw that Car and Driver had it in 3rd place, even with it's 4 cylinder version in a recent shootout. The Honda Accord and Nissan Altima beat it, but the Toyota Camry was behind it.

No ruffeling here Stan. You verbalized better than what I was trying to point out. It is both colored "collars".
Not all "salaried" are arrogant, and not all Union workers are the duragatory donkey.
I will agree with you about the Union protecting the Bad Apples.
I use to be a Union Steward at Alcoa for the UAW. I hated it. The complaints for the good honest workers usually did not get passed the Committee level. And it was just not in my department, it was that way in every department.
But somebody that kept screwing up time and time again, the Committee would be all over it saving that person's backside.
I do apologize if I did piss someone off. I think it is unfair to blame one group when in this case the problems are everywhere. Especially the Banks and the credit freeze they have.

Overtime pay is not a reward. Overtime pay is a compensation your employer has to pay for keeping you at work longer then the standard 40 hour work week.

I don't know about you, but the last thing I want a part-time employee working on is my body, let alone anything else. Besides, if they want me to be on-call, there better be some better compensation then part-time for less money. How do they become more experienced if you only work them part-time?

You may call it smart business, I call it shitting on your employees. It's all about conditions. Ever since the 40-hour work week became common, people have been trading it back and if people don't put their foot down, we'll be back to the days of robber barons before we know it. Some people don't give away everything that was negotiated and you call them assholes. There are lazy, stupid, and unreasonable people in every job and they either get weeded out or become management.

People can keep their salary, paid time off, and bending to the whim. I'll take my hourly rate, unpaid time off, and ability to stick to my contract. Unpaid time off makes it real expensive to race, but at least I don't have to blow someone to take a day off or schedule it 6 months in advance.

LOL ... I had to quote that. That is classic!

howdy,



Some of us have never had a (real) job eligible for overtime. Excuse me if my heart doesn't bleed if someone shorts an hourly guy five minutes on a break, particularly when that hourly guy is protected by his union, makes twice what I do, and I'm the one designing / installing the equipment his entire job is maintaining. Not that I'm bitter.

:-)



Most hourly folks I know still need to schedule their time off like anyone else.

Here's what I'd like to see with the UAW _and_ Wagoner and his cronies. Tie 25% of the UAW worker pay and 75% of senior management pay to company performance (a mixture of JD Power reviews, CR reviews, and profits). And yes, UAW management folks count as "and his cronies".

Mark

Perhaps instead of hiring them "part-time" some of the employees could be re-hired as contractors. That way you retain the experience without the overhead, and they can work as many or as little hours are required/desired.

As for the rest of that post, well, IMHO...that's the reason unions exist, and that's the reason they are despised. Nothing like having an argumentative union employee telling you "it's not in my contract" when you're trying to get product out the door to beat the competition. It really shows where the true loyalty lies.

Nape, please don't take any of this personally. As other's have said, no one group is to blame, especially the factory workers who are actually "turning wrenches". That said, I do want to tackle a few of your points (again, not trying to attack you, just some things that you brought up, which I have heard elsewhere, also).

You say you don't want a PT person working on your car. Are you more comfortable with them administering your medications in a hospital? What about preparing your food? PT workers are all over the place. I went and looked at a Dodge Challenger the other day (those things are TALL!). It said that the engine is from Mexico. Are you happier with a FT Mexican building your car or a PT American? My point is that PT workers can be just as competent as FT ones. If you have proper quality control measures in place, then it should not matter.

The incentive to work PT is because that's where people start out. When you start working, there are no FT positions available. You gain experience working PT, while learning many different jobs. Then, once a FT position becomes available, you already have experience. I realize that you may not want to do this, but think back to when you were 18 and looking for a job. If you were offered $25 per hour, but only 20 hours of work, would you take that over a 40-hour job making $11 at some shade-tree mechanic place?

The last thing is "contract". I feel that there should not be contracts for workers. I live in an "at will" state. This means that I may be let go for any reason whatsoever. In fact, my employer does not need to even give a reason - they just tell me not to come in tomorrow. This sounds horrible for me, until you figure that I can do the same thing. At any point, if I find a better job, I can walk out.

This is actually a very fascinating system. The reason it works so well is because of what it requires me to do to ensure that I keep my job. It's not good enough for me to show up, turn out average work, and go home. I have to be better than the next guy. If layoffs come, I have to make sure that I am the last person on the list. Because everyone in the company is doing (or should be doing) the same thing, it means that my company is in a better competitive position than other companies. This, in turn, means that my company is less likely to need to lay anyone off.

To contrast, let's look at what happens when you bring contracts into the workplace. People are guaranteed a job, unless they sexually assault the bosses wife (hahaha - just joking). This means that only their personal pride is driving them to do their best work (Nape, you strike me as this type of guy). However, you get the other guys on the line who are just going to go through the motions to collect a paycheck. While they may be protected by their contract from layoffs, it is bad for the company. Then, in bad economic times, the company is unable to cope and has to make some hard decisions.

Then, you get what we have now with companies having to either take handouts or go bankrupt becasue they cannot compete with those other "at will" comapnies.

Oh, and I'm not taking this personally, but I'm also not going to apologize to anyone for wanting to get ahead in life. If I have a chance to move up in my company and become a member of upper management, and I can do it legally and ethically, then I'm going to take it. In fact, I did just that not 3 weeks ago. Yeah, I hurt some feelings, but I did what is best for myself, my family and my company.

Who do you work for Mark? Just curious.

Matt, just to eliminate confusion, "contract" in most instances refers to a worker that does not work directly for GM. I don't know if that's what TJ means. For instance, most of our technicians at our proving grounds are contract. GM goes to an outside agency that hires and sometimes trains mechanics and tells the agency they need a certain number of mechanics that are proficient in a certain discipline or with certain certifications. The agency then provides those employees. There is no certain length of time for which the employee is needed and the contract employees can be let go with no real notice. GM will pay the contract agency a certain hourly rate, and the contract agency is responsible for the benefits, etc. of the employees. BTW, many of the designers who work with CAD are also contract. This eliminates the benefits and cost of training from GM. Some of you may know how much training classes cost for newer CAD software, like CATIA, Unigraphics or ProE. It's not cheap. Sometimes, a contract employee may be hired by GM to be a "direct" employee after a certain period of time if the employee's performance is very good. It can therefore become a kind of "try it before you buy it" program.

Also, in regards to paying for performance, I think that's already done at most companies. Raises and bonuses are given based off of performance. Granted, it's not 25% or anything, but the principle is there. To dock a UAW employee 25% of his salary based on his or her company not performing well would be very unfair I think. I think a fair way is to give a 5% bonus or so each year, on top of a potential raise, if the employee goes above and beyond his or her job requirements and a promotion opportunity is not available. If the employee does not perform, you don't give a bonus and at best only give a cost of living raise, and then you go through the warning and documentation process, and fire the employee if the behavior continues. An additional carrot would be to give overtime preference to the employees that demonstrate the best performance. Put all of those things together and that's big financial leverage on the employee to perform. Of course with unions, most of this leverage can not be used.

Ahhhh - gotcha. I thought we were talking about an employee who has signed a document to work for x-many years, at x-hourly rate, and in exchange can only be fired for cause.

Howdy,



Me? I work for an insurance company these days as a programmer.

Back when I dealt with unions, I worked for a furnace controls company that supplied controls for annealing furnaces that US Steel used.

Mark

Howdy,



As one of the people now footing part of the bill for workers (including management) not to perform, I'm about done with the carrot approach.

Mark

Mark, you pay your taxes and provide a salary to the congress members, and they aren't performing. Is there any difference?

Howdy,



Theoretically, yes. I can vote them out of office.

Also... In this particular case, congress did indeed perform. Its my buddy GW that screwed the pooch.

Again.

Even if you ignore all that, two wrongs (or 900 wrongs) still don't make a right.

Mark

Unfortunately, congressmen still get a pretty fat pension deal after they are "fired" by the voters (though they can lose it if they are formally "fired" for certain types of misconduct).

I don't take any of it personally, other then when union bashing happens. 94bird is close in his interpretation of "contract". I'm an Electrician and when I refer to contract, I'm talking about my Local's Principal Agreement. The main thing it entitles me to is a certain hourly wage, benefits, and working conditions. There are other things in there about start time, how many tools I need to bring to the job, etc, but I won't go into the whole agreement.

One thing it doesn't entitle me to is a job. That's on me to perform and make the shop want to keep me around. You're right about personal pride making me do my best work and about the slugs who go through the motions to collect a paycheck. But where you're wrong is that our contract doesn't protect them. The shop can decide that the wind blew the wrong way today and to write you a field check, as long as they pay you all the money they owe you, you walk off the job and back to the referal line. That's another area that people don't understand. There is a list that contractors hire from. Your position on the list is determined by when you signed and how long you've been out of work. Right now in my Local, there are 1500+ guys out of work. That means that if you got on the list right now you probably won't work again until May or June, and that's if work picks up like it usually does in the spring. Two years ago, some guys were out of work for 15 months. So, that was long winded but I just wanted to express that just because people are in a union, that it protects them from being laid off or keeps them working.

The problem I have with PT employment is that employers start getting the Wal-mart syndrome. Employers with high PT/FT ratios are saving themselves money at the cost of the tax payers. Working someone just under 32 hours for years on end to keep them from obtaining full-time status is horse shit. I work hard for my money and don't like to have to pay higher taxes to finance health care that an employer doesn't want to pay for because their stock might drop half a point. One employer does it, then the next one has to do it to be able to match the overhead of the first. All the sudden we're in a huge Race to the Bottom. BUT, that's a discussion for another thread and we'll drop it.

Your "fascinating system" sounds like every construction job. Produce or get the axe. It's a fact of life, the people who get a stay of execution are the ones who get shit done.

Finally, I don't blame anyone for elevating themselves or their financial status in an ethical way. The issue I have is that a lot of people climb the ladder and forget that they once started at the bottom and that shit rolls downhill. I hope to be running a crew in a few years and hopefully running my own jobs in 10-20, but I honestly think that I'll be a better foreman for starting at the bottom and asking for the shit work so I know that the world isn't all rainbows and rays of sunshine like some of the supervision I've had.

I still see no big difference. Consumers vote for companies or against them with their dollars. You may say that this method isn't working with domestic auto companies since American consumers have obviously been trying to vote them out of existence and they're still around, and now even getting money from the government to survive. Ever heard of a politician getting voted out of office but then getting an appointed position or becoming a lobbyist? Seems pretty similar to me. Heck, many times a lobbyist is more powerful than a politician anyway.

BTW, I don't think the Senate did their job this time. Corker made a valiant attempt, but the other main Republicans that road blocked the bill, like Shelby, did not listen to reason and let their stubborness ruin a lot of good work.

Howdy,



This sounds good in some ways, but if I understand what you're saying correctly (mainly that you have to be in the union to legally do electrical work in your area and we're talking about a municipality of some sort with lots of jobs, vs. one particular company/contract), it sounds a lot like price fixing to me.

But that wasn't the point I was trying to make. I don't have a problem with unions when they coexist with a successful company and together produce something and everyone makes money. I think its a bit of a shame that you need to have the union overhead to make that happen, but whatever.

I _do_ have a problem with a UAW worker at GM making more money than a non-union worker at Honda or Toyota while at the same time GM is less profitable than Honda or Toyota, to the point that they need tax money to stay afloat another couple months so that they can ask for more money to stay afloat, etc. etc.

I also have a problem with excessively compensated top management, middle management, or whatever else in that scenario.

To me, a reorganization under chapter 11 is _exactly_ what a company should have to go through when they are no longer able to sustain themselves. While I can completely appreciate that a company the size of GM going into chapter 11 at this time is something you want to be darn careful with, the fact that the government has tried to shortcut the process like this just opens the entire thing up to the maximum of the political bullshit that's possible. There were other choices, such as the treasury agreeing to be a creditor if none could be found in chapter 11, tax incentives, etc. But by bypassing a chapter 11 entirely, none of the restructuring that I think needs to occur has the legal foundation to work from.

Mark

Howdy,

And since we're talking about politics.... Would your objections to part time work go away if there was health coverage provided for every american?

Mark

Sorta off topic ... sorta on topic ....

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html

MOSCOW -- For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument -- that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. -- very seriously. Now he's found an eager audience: Russian state media.

In recent weeks, he's been interviewed as much as twice a day about his predictions. "It's a record," says Prof. Panarin. "But I think the attention is going to grow even stronger."

Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

But it's his bleak forecast for the U.S. that is music to the ears of the Kremlin, which in recent years has blamed Washington for everything from instability in the Middle East to the global financial crisis. Mr. Panarin's views also fit neatly with the Kremlin's narrative that Russia is returning to its rightful place on the world stage after the weakness of the 1990s, when many feared that the country would go economically and politically bankrupt and break into separate territories.

A polite and cheerful man with a buzz cut, Mr. Panarin insists he does not dislike Americans. But he warns that the outlook for them is dire.

"There's a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur," he says. "One could rejoice in that process," he adds, poker-faced. "But if we're talking reasonably, it's not the best scenario -- for Russia." Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

In addition to increasing coverage in state media, which are tightly controlled by the Kremlin, Mr. Panarin's ideas are now being widely discussed among local experts. He presented his theory at a recent roundtable discussion at the Foreign Ministry. The country's top international relations school has hosted him as a keynote speaker. During an appearance on the state TV channel Rossiya, the station cut between his comments and TV footage of lines at soup kitchens and crowds of homeless people in the U.S. The professor has also been featured on the Kremlin's English-language propaganda channel, Russia Today.

Mr. Panarin's apocalyptic vision "reflects a very pronounced degree of anti-Americanism in Russia today," says Vladimir Pozner, a prominent TV journalist in Russia. "It's much stronger than it was in the Soviet Union."

Mr. Pozner and other Russian commentators and experts on the U.S. dismiss Mr. Panarin's predictions. "Crazy ideas are not usually discussed by serious people," says Sergei Rogov, director of the government-run Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, who thinks Mr. Panarin's theories don't hold water.

Mr. Panarin's résumé includes many years in the Soviet KGB, an experience shared by other top Russian officials. His office, in downtown Moscow, shows his national pride, with pennants on the wall bearing the emblem of the FSB, the KGB's successor agency. It is also full of statuettes of eagles; a double-headed eagle was the symbol of czarist Russia.

The professor says he began his career in the KGB in 1976. In post-Soviet Russia, he got a doctorate in political science, studied U.S. economics, and worked for FAPSI, then the Russian equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency. He says he did strategy forecasts for then-President Boris Yeltsin, adding that the details are "classified."

In September 1998, he attended a conference in Linz, Austria, devoted to information warfare, the use of data to get an edge over a rival. It was there, in front of 400 fellow delegates, that he first presented his theory about the collapse of the U.S. in 2010.

"When I pushed the button on my computer and the map of the United States disintegrated, hundreds of people cried out in surprise," he remembers. He says most in the audience were skeptical. "They didn't believe me."

At the end of the presentation, he says many delegates asked him to autograph copies of the map showing a dismembered U.S.

He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

"It would be reasonable for Russia to lay claim to Alaska; it was part of the Russian Empire for a long time." A framed satellite image of the Bering Strait that separates Alaska from Russia like a thread hangs from his office wall. "It's not there for no reason," he says with a sly grin.

Interest in his forecast revived this fall when he published an article in Izvestia, one of Russia's biggest national dailies. In it, he reiterated his theory, called U.S. foreign debt "a pyramid scheme," and predicted China and Russia would usurp Washington's role as a global financial regulator.

Americans hope President-elect Barack Obama "can work miracles," he wrote. "But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

The article prompted a question about the White House's reaction to Prof. Panarin's forecast at a December news conference. "I'll have to decline to comment," spokeswoman Dana Perino said amid much laughter.

For Prof. Panarin, Ms. Perino's response was significant. "The way the answer was phrased was an indication that my views are being listened to very carefully," he says.

The professor says he's convinced that people are taking his theory more seriously. People like him have forecast similar cataclysms before, he says, and been right. He cites French political scientist Emmanuel Todd. Mr. Todd is famous for having rightly forecast the demise of the Soviet Union -- 15 years beforehand. "When he forecast the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1976, people laughed at him," says Prof. Panarin.

I have no desire to drop to part time employment, but I am concerned by the current tendency to villify healthcare as excess overhead. Ultimately, corporations will probably be forced to shed that burden to be more competitive, so I think socialized medicine is inevitable. Of course, that only transfers the expense to the taxpayers, and the transition will be ugly.

I'm biased, though. Cancer is very expensive. Pensions are obsolete, and my wife's treatment expenses would burn through my retirement savings in no time and drive me into bankruptcy. It's still a substantial hit to the budget even after insurance.

Typical Russian stupidity....

Going off topic and returning - one of the reasons the Russians lost the Cold war was (and still is) their peoples' inability to survive economically. The US has invested more in its people than any other country due to our basic freedoms. Russian leadership cannot see the big picture, IMO. Case in point - in spite of the US submarine force's communication system being compromised by the Walker spyring from the late 60s to the mid-80s, Russian sub commanders and their command and control heirarchy remained wholly frustrated at our tactics. They (the Russians) knew our tactical manuals, yet we tended to violate them (their words) when we had to "deal" with Russian sub confrontations. In other words, the Russian leaders have not, do not, and will not, know how to adapt, overcome, and improvise when faced with unfamiliar situations, because the phrases "all men are created equal," and "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are incomprehensible to them.

Now - are we, the US, perfect? No. Do we have serious issues ahead? Yes. It can be dealt with. What we need to do collectively as a nation, is adapt, overcome, and improvise. This will mean that everyone must give up something in order to survive, that credit cards no longer mean "free money," that you actually have to have a budget and stick to it. We also need to reshape our politics back to a more limited government, hold lawbreakers accountable - not increase oversight on the law-abiding, and that bailouts are nothing more than corporate welfare. We have congressional leadership that doesn't have to live with a balanced budget, because they look at the taxpayer as "Joe the Subsidizer," i.e., an endless supply of money. The sooner we vote out these fiscally ignorant individuals, the better the country will be. The next six months will be very telling.

Well, Dammmn! Sarah get your guns!

Mr. Panarin's theory sounds like a grade school thesis. Having grown up in the 60's, I see the current level of civil unrest paltry in comparison. IMO, most Americans' world view is driven by economics, and I don't see any indication of emigration towards any of his conquering 'republics'. The beauty of the American system is its checks and balances: politics and economics will swing fairly wildly, but always around a center. Transitions are painful, maybe ugly, but we'll be OK. Russia didn't 'quite' make the break from the old guard.

Somebody ask Mr Panarin what car he would drive, given a choice.

WOW! I just checked this thread after staying away awhile.

Who does Florida belong to? Cuba I guess.

It certainly has evolved........my guns are loaded.

Bock

Wow, if WSJ printed a story like that, it must be good news for our economy. The story is so much rubbish it could have only been meant as filler, meaning there wasn't enough serious stuff to write about that day.

I think it will be abandoned in place ...