How to talk to Fox News anchors

[Xyun]

Fox News Embarrassed by Lansing Mayor

This guy pretty much captured my sentiments exactly, including tone and fervor. This is how you battle moronic republican talking points. Kick ass!

Also, the $70/hr. quote is bullshit. They are calculating in health care costs to their hourly wage. That number they are quoting is from the NY Post, which is part of their own company. NewsCorp quotes itself to make a point, SHOCKER! It's not like they spin the numbers to fool imbeciles or anything.

[miir]

That dude sounds like a fucking union shill.
I don't think he embarrased that Fox news guy at all, he only embarrased himself.

[Xyun]

Oh really. Which part of his argument do you disagree with?

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

Well...all of it. First, the nutjob went off screaming about shit after being asked a question that had nothing to do with what the moron perceived it to be. Second, the autoworkers and their union are WAY overboard on their pay scale and the requirements set in place by the union. There is so much waste there that they need to be cutting back substantially. Just because Wall St also needs an ass kicking means jack and shit when we are talking about the mismanagement of the auto industry to the point that the taxpayers have to bail them out.

Bottom line, if *I* have to help pay those fucking clowns, then you are goddamn right they need to be taking pay cuts and losing some fucking benefits. I sure as hell don't make what those auto workers do.

[Gzette]

I gotta agree with Kilmoll here. It is what it is. The Union has done a wonderful job for the employees, and I wish they could all make disgusting wages and reap enormous benefits. But when it causes costs to soar to the point that it amkes the business model unsustainable, workers and the union need to make concessions.

Though I smirk at a mayor pulling a Bill O-Reilly on the anchor, I cannot commend him for staying off topic and preaching his agenda. Obviously he is biased, since it appears the auto industry made his family thrive in the past. Maybe it's time for him to let it go. The big three are not so big and will not survive under their current models.

GM just asked for like 14 billion more. It's sounding like they need to go bankrupt.

[Spang]

The bailouts never should have happened. If you suck at running a business, you need not be rewarded with billions of taxpayer dollars. And you sure as hell shouldn't still be in charge of the fucking thing.

[Xatrei]

I think that when someone flips out like this, regardless of which side of the argument they're on, it diminishes their credibility and hurts their argument. To be fair, though, his initial response was to a comment made before this clip begins during the lead-in to the piece when the anchor asked if unions have given up enough. It's not clear from the linked clip, so it might sound like he's just going off the rails on a completely unrelated topic, when he is not.

The numbers game regarding the 70 bucks an hour is ridiculous, though. They're not just comparing the fully loaded costs of employing an union member to the base pay of a non-union employee (apples to oranges). They're counting ALL of the fully loaded cost of all current employees PLUS the pension and healthcare costs of retired workers and their families (apples to koalas). It's a convenient number intended to get lower-middle to upper-lower class working people outraged. Judging by Kilmoll's reaction, it works!

[pyrella]

Holy shit, someone in Michigan's government worried about their gravy train? Impossible.

Where have I heard this shit before again? Oh yeah - some other bought politician worried about their meal ticket disappearing.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/13/ ... index.html

As I said in the bailout thread before - fuck them. Let the industry die (oh wait, it wouldn't, just the people who fucking failed), rebuild, and move on. Sorry Mich. you get to join the growing list of states that receives more in Federal aid than they pay in taxes. Bitches.

Also as a devils advocate aside: The money they are getting now isn't 'new' money per se - when they got their money at the end of last year, they did say they'd need to get more in Feb/March. So I'm not pissed about them getting *more* money, I'm still pissed about them being approved for it in the first place.

[Xyun]

The double standard is alive and well...

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

Not sure where your double standard is coming from. It looks to me like you just hate Fox so much that any asshat that rips someone from there for any reason looks like a hero. It reminds me of the general attitude the VV left takes anytime one of their hated conservative counterparts speaks. You are becoming one of them.

[miir]

What double standard?
I see righties and lefties calling you out on your stupidity.

I can't fathom how this guy could 'capture your sentiments' on the bailout.
He's the mayor of a city that would turn into a ghost town if GM was to go under...
He's obviously a union shill.
The vast majority of his constituents are in the employ (directly and indirectly) of General Motors.


He's blowing his top at 'Wall Street', essentially blaming them for the fact that the Big 3 are on the verge of bankruptcy.
The reality is that the UAW, not 'Wall Street' are probably most responsible for this situation.

But you'll never hear Virg badmouthing the unions... In his world, the unions can do no wrong.


You don't bite the hand that feeds you.

[Xyun]

The double standard is for white collar and blue collar workers, not for righties or lefties, you fucking nitwit. Every industry in this country is getting massacred, but for the blue collar industries the unions are always blamed by virtue of their existence. What then of the white collar industries where there are no unions? What about the banks that have received literally 20 to 30 times the bailout of the auto industry? Goldman Sachs converted from an investment firm to a bank last year just so they could get their grubby hands on some of that money. Yet the top 600 execs at that company make more than $1 million a year. There is no union there to blame, yet they are showered with government money. Bank of America alone has received more than all the auto companies combined.

Those unions exist for reasons, not the least of which is to protect workers from the kind of working conditions that are prevalent in Mexico or China. So those same corporate bosses that unions are formed against take the jobs to those countries where they can pay slave wages and continue to destroy our economy and our country so they can line their pockets.

How many people on this message board belong to a union? I'm willing to bet less than 10% of the people here do.

The question of whether unions do more harm than good was answered for me in fucking junior high, but I guess if you grab yourself a white collar job it's not such a big deal. Until they start shipping your fucking job to India. Maybe then you will get a fucking clue.

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

Those unions exist for reasons, not the least of which is to protect workers from the kind of working conditions that are prevalent in Mexico or China. So those same corporate bosses that unions are formed against take the jobs to those countries where they can pay slave wages and continue to destroy our economy and our country so they can line their pockets.

Correction: those unions USED to exist for a reason. Now said unions are part of the problem and they share an equal blame with the management in many of the problems we have now. To do a simple task in some of these plants now, it requries 4 times the manpower as what you could in a non-union plant.

As an example, a light bulb burns out on a parts stamping machine. UAW worker cannot toiuch it because it is contracted to another union for repairs. That crew comes down to replace the bulb, but can only take the cover off before they have to call the electrical union folks over to pull the bulb out. The replace it, the repair people put the cover on, then the auto workers start the machine back up. You set the entire assembly line down while all those people stand around getting paid $25 an hour waiting for all these other people to get this light bulb replaced. This is not exactly an exaggeration...this shit happens in the auto industry.

I personally know a guy whose job was to run a forklift for Ford. His entire job was to pick up one skid every hour with a lift and move it to another place in the plant. They had a second guy on the staff that backed him up in case he was off that day or on break when that skid came out. The unions guarantee these types of waste.

[miir]

Why don't you take a look at the salaries of the top executives at the big 3?

Also, do you think that white collar workers have been unaffected by all of this?
People who have been laid off or forced to take pay cuts?

Those unions exist for reasons, not the least of which is to protect workers from the kind of working conditions that are prevalent in Mexico or China.

That's maybe why they existed in the US and Canada 60-70 years ago.

My father worked for GM... I grew up in a big house with a swimming pool... we had 3+ cars, a couple of snowmobiles, our own motorcycles and we took family vacations every year to places like Europe, the Caribbean, etc.
All that on the salary of a man that never even graduated high school.

Now he's comfortably retired in a 4k square foot house with a 3 car garage and two cottages where they live in the summer.


Thank god for the unions to fight for the rights of a highschool dropout to make 6 figures.





Don't try to fucking tell me what unions are good for.

[Fash]

Great post, miir.

[Xyun]

Great post, miir.

Rofl. Yeah, great post. There's no resentment there at all. Paging Dr. Freud... We got a schizo with a weird father syndrome on the loose in current events.

Dude, way to stick it to your dad. That loser got way more than he deserved. Kill the unions I say!

[miir]

Paging Dr. Freud

I said my father, not my morther.. moron.

And by the way, I have a great relationship with my father, thanks.




Now let's get back to laughing at your pitiful liberal-talking point spewing stupidity.
You're seriously turning into a lefty version of Midnyte...
Ever since you got fired you've been getting progressively more annoying.

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

Great post, miir.

Rofl. Yeah, great post. There's no resentment there at all. Paging Dr. Freud... We got a schizo with a weird father syndrome on the loose in current events.

Dude, way to stick it to your dad. That loser got way more than he deserved. Kill the unions I say!

His point was (and good Christ I feel dirty for siding with and arguing a point for Miir) that they were WAY more comfortable than one could reasonably expect with a non-degreed provider. My dad was a union leader...I grew up with seeing a lot of the shit on both sides since he ended up in management with the same company. Fighting for what is fair and needed is one thing, but what unions like the UAW fight for is just the other side of extreme. When you force a company to pay and provide for too much, cuts will be made or your company is going to collapse. Their choices ultimately screwed the company and in this case, the country has to pay for it. There is plenty of blame ot go around...the executives being way overpaid is in there as well.....but these unions are not fighting to keep their people from being abused...they are fighting to drain every ounce of cash they can squeeze out of companies.

[Nick]

That dude sounds like a fucking union shill.
I don't think he embarrased that Fox news guy at all, he only embarrased himself.

What? Cmon Miir. As if Fox doesn't deserve some people shouting their heads off back at them. Poetic justice. This is actually a pretty tame rant, and it's not like any legitimate political, social or economic discourse is ever going to take place on that shithole of a network.

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

and to prove our point that you are wrong Xyun, you have Nick siding with you....

[Gzette]

and to prove our point that you are wrong Xyun, you have Nick siding with you....

[Nick]

You fuckwits could do with shutting the fuck up and learning something for once. No wonder your country is a joke.

[Canelek]

You fuckwits could do with shutting the fuck up and learning something for once. No wonder your country is a joke.

How so?

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

The only thing I could learn from you is how satisfying it would be to actually knock someone's teeth throught the back of their head.

[Tristinn]

You fuckwits could do with shutting the fuck up and learning something for once. No wonder your country is a joke.

Seriously, these idiots let the Republicans convince them to hate the American worker. Its pretty outstanding.

[masteen]

Having worked with and managed Americans and several flavors of immigrants, let me tell you with 100% certainty that it was not the Republicans that made me hate American workers.

[Nick]

I thought Faggots like Kilmoll always hid behind their gun. A rare display of phsyical courage, perhaps this could be a duel to the dealth!!11

Fucking yokel.

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

I really would not need anything for a little scrawny punk ass like you.

[Boogahz]

I thought Faggots like Kilmoll always hid behind their gun. A rare display of phsyical courage, perhaps this could be a duel to the dealth!!11

Fucking yokel.

hai mr asshole bigot

[Keverian FireCry]

The mayor definitely didn't control his emotions there, but to say that he was not addressing the questions asked is absurd. The Fox news anchor framed the question in a way that assumed it was the union's fault. The mayor was expressing that the question itself was unfair and that the focus needs to be on the fat cats on wall street who are looking to buy their fifth home, not the blue-collar workers who are getting health insurance for life.

[miir]

the focus needs to be on the fat cats on wall street who are looking to buy their fifth home

What about the fucking fat cats in the auto industy who are looking to buy their 5th home?
Last time I checked, G Richard Wagoner was pulling in over 6 million dollars a year in salary alone.
Three years ago, Alan Mulally made $28 million for four months of work.

Trying to pin the woes of the auto industry on 'wall street' is about as asinine as trying to blame the sub prime mortgage crash on the UAW.

not the blue-collar workers who are getting health insurance for life.

And what about the 'wall street' workers who have lost their jobs and homes?
In what fucking reality is every person working in the financial industry getting 7 figure bonuses and flying around the country in their own private jet?

[Nick]

I really would not need anything for a little scrawny punk ass like you.

A deluded American. What a surprise!

[Aslanna]

I really would not need anything for a little scrawny punk ass like you.

A deluded American. What a surprise!

Not really. We're all deluded!

[Bubba Grizz]

It's true. I'm totally out of ludes.

[Keverian FireCry]

Hmmm I guess misunderstood what this whole argument was about?

I'm not talking about auto industry vs wall street. I'm talking about blue-collar workers vs selfish rich executives who would rather lay off workers than take a pay cut. Those execs could be on wall street or auto industry...either way, the gap between those at the top and their average employees is sickening and I thought that's what the mayor was going on about, but maybe I misunderstood.

[Xyun]

Hmmm I guess misunderstood what this whole argument was about?

I'm not talking about auto industry vs wall street. I'm talking about blue-collar workers vs selfish rich executives who would rather lay off workers than take a pay cut. Those execs could be on wall street or auto industry...either way, the gap between those at the top and their average employees is sickening and I thought that's what the mayor was going on about, but maybe I misunderstood.

No Kev, you are absolutely right. But because that mayor supports and defends the right of blue collar middle class workers to organize and unionize, anything coming out of his mouth is null and void, according to... well, according to people whose lives have actually been enriched by those very unions. Go figure...

[Keverian FireCry]

Well either way, it seems like ppl on this thread are looking at this issue from two very different angles and/or interpreted the video clip very differently.

What about the fucking fat cats in the auto industy who are looking to buy their 5th home?
Last time I checked, G Richard Wagoner was pulling in over 6 million dollars a year in salary alone.
Three years ago, Alan Mulally made $28 million for four months of work.

Those people are part of the problem I'm addressing. I consider the greed that has corrupted unions to be the very same greed that runs rampant on wall-street. By framing it as auto industry vs wall-street it seems like we skip right over the shared elements of corporate greed hurting the avg middle-class worker.