Obama Billionaire Backers Nix EFCA--Surprised?

Warren Buffett, the sage of Omaha, was the first Obama-aire to come out against the EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act) and its card-check unionization. Now he's been joined by three other Obama-backing billionaires (did you realize that the Democratic Party has a much higher concentration of voters who make more than $100,000 a year than the GOP has?). The three nay-sayers all hail from Chicago.

One, Penny Pritzker, a Hyatt zillionaire, actually ran Obama's campaign finance committee, the one that racked up about $750 million (with nine-figure contributions from unions) for the presidential campaign and another $53 million just for the inauguration.

Neil Bluhm, founder of the private equity firm Walton Street Capital and gatherer of $160,000 for the Obama campaign, just says no as well, and is joined by another billionaire, Lester Crown, who runs an eponymous investment firm. Crown gave the max personal contribution allowable under the law to Obama.

What took them so long, or did they just notice Obama's true stripes?

EFCA Sponsor Says Card Check May Go Bye-Bye

Senator Tom Harkin, D.-Iowa, says compromise is in order to save the Employee Free Choice Act, specifying that the card check provision will no doubt have to be dropped.

“Compromises are going to be made,” said Harkin, 69. “It probably won’t be card check [as part of the final law], because too many people are opposed to it now.”

Card check allows organizers to unionize a company by merely getting 50-percent-plus-one of the employees to sign off on the idea. No election need be held, but the union (har de har har) could still ask for one. Business is unilaterally opposed to it, with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce calling the EFCA "Armageddon."

(New York Governor David Paterson has already created card check in his state by fiat--executive order. Henceforth, all businesses receiving government assistance in just about any form in his state will be subject to card check unionization.)

Harkin said he's hoping that the compromise bill he's negotiating with fellow senators will win the "grudging support" of both labor and "some business."

For its part, labor says card check is non-negotiable and absolutely essential, and from the business side comes the stance that, even with card check gone, the EFCA is still Armageddonish with its binding arbitration provision.

The proposed law mandates a two-year binding contract be imposed if the company and union fail to agree upon a contract after 90 days of direct negotiations and another 30 days of mediation.

In the words of Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?"

Evidently not.

Peering Through the DoubleSpeak to Clarity

Here's a piece on Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and his "principles" on health care reform:

Rockefeller's principles. On April 21, 2009, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Health Care, outlined his principles for a 21st century health care delivery system as the Finance Committee unveiled a series of roundtables leading up to health care reform legislation. Sen. Rockefeller’s principles for reforming the health care delivery system are: (1) create a National Director for Health Care Quality; (2) strengthen the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) and provide expedited implementation of its recommendations; (3) provide the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality with greater authority to coordinate public and private quality improvement; and (4) require health information technology as a “condition of participation” in Medicare by 2015.

Translation: We're gonna ration it, baby. You'll have access to health care (for an unspecified yearly and per-visit price), but you'll get nothing in return if it's too expensive. However, those of us in government--and our cronies--will have taxpayer-funded, gold plate, everything-is-available-and-free health care. These are my principles, sucka.

So, Which Swine Invented the H1N1 Flu?

I'm referring to human swine, of course. I've read all kinds of conspiracy theories about the current flu "pandemic," which, for a pandemic, seems to have panned at the box office. Let's see--100 "confirmed" cases in the United States, 10 or so in Europe, and that's a pandemic?

Worse, there is only one lab in the United States that can even test patients to see if they actually have the swine, oops, H1N1 flu, and that's the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Mexico has no lab that can test for it and relies also on the CDC.

Very interesting, isn't it, all these dire warnings? I betcha of the 100 U.S. victims, most don't have the H1N1 virus, and probably a lot of them don't even have the flu. Many probably developed sympathy symptoms when they heard of the flu's going round.

Now, for those conspiracy theories, here goes: 1) Baxter Laboratories developed the strain and tested it out in Mexico in anticipation of the day when the world's population needs to be reduced drastically; 2) Obama owns stock in Tamiflu; 3) The scare was fabricated to take the heat off governments as their citizens go broke, homeless and hungry; 5) The pandemic was engineered to coincide with the sale of U.S. Treasuries to create a flight to the safety of the almighty dollar during a global crisis. Got more?

I think there's a bit of truth in all these assertions, but it all brings me back to my original assertion--someone(s) invented all this--so the question remains:

Which swine invented the H1N1 flu?

It's Your Money (Debt), But Biden Takes Credit

The story at Chicago's Republic Windows and Doors actually is a good one, a victory for the workers that is all too rare in these days of massive layoffs and job destruction.

However, it sticks in my craw when someone as blatantly disingenuous as our Veep, Joe Biden, manages to take credit for saving the plant. He showed up there on Monday to boast about the admin's stimulus plan.

In fact, funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) are behind the resurrection of the factory. New owner Kevin Surace of Serious Materials eyed $8 billion in ARRA for weatherization and energy efficiency, hoping for a slice of the action, when he purchased Republic this year. Surace now intends to use the plant on Goose Island and another in Pittsburgh to churn out energy-efficient doors and windows and other weatherization products using ARRA bucks.

It's great news for the laid-off employees, who are now returning to work:

"We would have liked to run the factory ourselves, but things don't really work that way in this country," said Vicente Rangel, 35, who worked at the factory for 15 years. Since the factory closing he looked for work with little luck and took classes in computer skills. "There are not too many jobs out there," he said. "I'm a little bit surprised and glad to be back here. The workers stayed united and we were able to do this."

A good story, but Biden should butt out and go study the Constitution for the first time in his life.

Merging and Purging Their Way to Billions

I'm no fan of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), but the principle of organizing for better wages and benefits is a sound one--until it's abused. And union abuse is largely what doomed (along with better products from foreign competition) the so-called Big Three automakers in Detroit.

So, in unions you have a good thing in principle, and a bad thing in practice. Look at the routine corruption and power hunger at just about every union in America, and you'll see that the free pot of cash that unions blackmail out of the employees they bargain for affirms Lord Acton's observation that "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Anyway, the picture on the other side isn't any prettier. As much damage as the unions have done to industry in America, corporate chieftains have sent to their workplace graves millions of employees over the years.

Joseph Schumpeter called capitalism "creative destruction," and in any act of destruction, something is obviously destroyed--and that something in capitalism is workers' lives and livelihoods.

The sad fact is, for CEOs, destroying workers' lives through downsizing pays off big time. A study by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy (admittedly, two left-leaning groups) shows that CEOs for the 50 companies that did the most downsizing in 2001 averaged 44-percent pay raises the next year. In fact, compensation for downsizing CEOs grew seven times faster than for CEOs in general.

The CEO for Hewlett-Packard since 2005, Mark Hurd, over the years eliminated 40,000 jobs through 31 mergers and acquisitions and reaped a cool $60 million-plus in 2008 alone. Larry Ellison of Oracle, with a personal net worth of $22.5 billion, eliminated 5,000 good jobs with his acquisition of PeopleSoft in 2005 and looks to axe another 5,000-10,000 this year through his acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

Now, to change the subject a bit and return to the plight of the Big Three: When I read over the weekend that the government would end up owning 50 percent of General Motors and the United Auto Workers most of the rest, it brought to mind this perceptive observation of Ronald Reagan's:

"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

In the case of the Big Three, Washington and the Democrats not only ruined them with taxes but also with ridiculous regulations like CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy), which forced the automakers to build cars no Americans wanted to buy. Now with the Obamacrats owning GM, we'll end up with an American version of the Yugo--and with an automaker (or two) that will be forever subsidized by the federal government (in reality, by you, me and all the taxpayers, who will have no say whatsoever in the matter).

Reagan was and always will be right about taxes and government.

To preview GM's future, just take a gander at these Soviet-mandated cars for the masses now lying in a Russian boneyard:

Card Check Rears Its Ugly Head in California

I guess that headline shows my bias. Anyway, turns out that the Golden State (doesn't glitter too much anymore, though) legislature will soon send a bill to Ahnold's desk that would allow agricultural workers to form unions by card check.

Card check is the now-infamous method proposed in the federal Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) that allows organizers to form unions by collecting signatures from 50 percent-plus-one of a firm's employees. The EFCA would enshrine the method nationwide, but that bill is locked in a pitched battle in the Senate.

New Jersey has a card check law, but it applies only to businesses that have no interstate commerce connections, such as race tracks, so its impact is limited. Similarly, the California law slips through the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by confining itself to in-state agriculture (though I'm sure the food is sold in other states--so a questionable bill at best).

The Governator has three times vetoed similar measures, and hopefully he will this time too.

In the meantime, catch a load of this surreal debate:

"How many summers do we have to go through of heat-related deaths? How many farm-related accidents...before we recognize that unions are most important for people who are the most vulnerable?" said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.

Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said his bill would prevent farm owners and labor contractors from intimidating workers before secret-ballot elections. But farm and business groups say the legislation could let the United Farm Workers pressure employees into signing the union cards.

Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, questioned whether workers are any safer with union representation.

"I was unaware of the fact that under union contracts we have less heat-related deaths. Do you have statistics to back that up?" Denham said.

Steinberg did not produce statistics but said he was unaware of any unionized farmworkers dying from a heat-related ailment.