Outrageous?

[trublue 939]

I'm trying to figure this out in my "ittsy bitsy" brain how this can be....Mr. O loved by the world and "Joe the bumbler" says the following:

 

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/biden-to-suppor.html

 

Biden to Supporters: "Gird Your Loins", For the Next President "It's Like Cleaning Augean Stables"

 

Share October 20, 2008 7:35 AM

 

ABC News' Matthew Jaffe Reports: Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., on Sunday guaranteed that if elected, Sen. Barack Obama., D-Ill., will be tested by an international crisis within his first six months in power and he will need supporters to stand by him as he makes tough, and possibly unpopular, decisions.

 

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

 

"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

 

Not only will the next administration have to deal with foreign affairs issues, Biden warned, but also with the current economic crisis.

 

"Gird your loins," Biden told the crowd. "We're gonna win with your help, God willing, we're gonna win, but this is not gonna be an easy ride. This president, the next president, is gonna be left with the most significant task. It's like cleaning the Augean stables, man. This is more than just, this is more than – think about it, literally, think about it – this is more than just a capital crisis, this is more than just markets. This is a systemic problem we have with this economy."

 

The Delaware lawmaker managed to rake in an estimated $1 million total from his two money hauls at the downtown Sheraton, the same hotel where four years ago Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., clinched the Democratic nomination. Despite warning about the difficulties the next administration will face, Biden said the Democratic ticket is equipped to meet the challenges head on.

 

"I've forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know, so I'm not being falsely humble with you. I think I can be value added, but this guy has it," the Senate Foreign Relations chairman said of Obama. "This guy has it. But he's gonna need your help. Because I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, 'Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?' We're gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I'm asking you now, I'm asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you're going to have to reinforce us."

 

"There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, 'Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don't know about that decision'," Biden continued. "Because if you think the decision is sound when they're made, which I believe you will when they're made, they're not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they're popular, they're probably not sound."

 

Biden emphasized that the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border is of particular concern, with Osama bin Laden "alive and well" and Pakistan "bristling with nuclear weapons."

 

"You literally can see what these kids are up against, our kids in that region," Biden said in recalling when his helicopter was forced down due to a snowstorm there. "The place is crawling with al Qaeda. And it's real."

 

"We do not have the military capacity, nor have we ever, quite frankly, in the last 20 years, to dictate outcomes," he cautioned. "It's so much more important than that. It's so much more complicated than that. And Barack gets it."

 

After speaking for just over a quarter of an hour, Biden noticed the media presence in the back of the small ballroom.

 

"I probably shouldn't have said all this because it dawned on me that the press is here," he joked.

 

"All kidding aside, these guys have left us in a God-awful place," he then said of the Bush regime, promptly wrapping up his remarks. "We have the ability to straighten it out. It's gonna take a little bit of time, so I ask you to stay with us. Stay with us."

[bluefieldRocks 14]

[Deleted Account 5,203]

Top 5 of dumbest statements I've ever heard, good go'in. You don't have a CLUE what you're talk'in about!! You are a GOP dream voter. Replace the word "Unions" with the word GREED........then you'll be a LOT closer to the truth.

 

Ahhhh, the good ole days.

 

Worked for enough company script to buy a new pair of shoes every fall for each kid.

 

We got to live in company shacks.

 

Get killed in the mines? throw that widow out of our company shack, let her and those kids starve....we don't make a dime off them!!

 

You're sick you say?........TOUGH!!!......work til you die, we'll have another in here tomorrow.

 

Holiday? what's a holiday?

 

Who said 40 hours is considered a work week? not here!!

 

I believe I'll stick with my union!!

 

Now, I'll agree to disagree here if it comes to this, but this is what I believe.

 

1. At one time, there was a certifiable need for unions. There truly was. In the early part of the 20th century, conditions in mines, textile mills, and assembly lines were putrid. However, thanks to the ascendancy of John L. Lewis to the presidency of the UMWA, things started to turn around for the better, but the process was slow. The Wagner Act of 1935 help increased union membership tremendously. Hard, tight-fisted work helped ensure the passage of the Federal Mine Safety Act in 1952 and the Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959. Things were starting to come up. Frankly, this was all the legislation needed in this area. Pay started to increase, the mines started to boom. All was well.

 

2. However, like most things in life, unions started to become less of a driving force behind economic progress and more of a blockade. All the legislation was currently in place to protect the miners, and in a perfect world, the unions would taper off to a maintenance level. Alas, it did not. Unions kept pushing for more, more, more, more over the 1960s and early 1970s. And whatever the unions wanted, the unions got. They got their better pay, better benefits. On the surface, this is a great thing, please don't get me wrong. However, coal energy stayed a fairly consistent price on the marketplace. Unions kept unceasingly demanding more, more, more for their members. See the problem here? This is before my time, but this is EXACTLY what led to the mine layoffs/closings in the 1970s. The market just couldn't sustain itself anymore. And my father was a casualty of this.

 

3. Thus, my conclusion: unions are not economically viable anymore. When you have to pay workers more money because GM strikes every other summer, or because airline pilots aren't satisfied with a 6-figure salary, or because a union demanded a different brand of soap in its members' bathrooms (I kid you not), this constricts the market, and has 1 of 2 effects. One, the outlandish costs of implementing this are passed on to me and you (pilot example). Two, hundreds of people are laid off (GM example). And these are good for our economy how? Again, I can't state this enough, legislation is currently in place to prevent a company tyranny, and has been since the 1950s.

 

Unions are far removed from usefulness. Look around us, people. There's a reason McDowell County's lost 70% of its population in the last 50 years. There's a reason Bramwell no longer has more millionaires per resident than any other town in the United States. There's a reason we have to see our high schools consolidated left and right. There's a reason why this area loses 1.7% of its population every year. And it ENRAGES me. I want to see this area prosper. I want to come back home to live in a prosperous area, where business is booming, where life is good. Now, unions are not the only cause of this problem, and I'd have to be dim-witted to suggest that they are. However, if you think that unions have helped this area by attracting businesses, providing desperately-needed jobs to our youth, and sustaining the only true cash cow to come out of this area, you're woefully, terribly misguided. That's why I vehemently refuse to support unions.

Edited October 21, 2008 by UVAObserver

[buzzsawBeaver 12]

Yeah, I guess that American's won't work for the 17 cents a day that the chinese will. I will have to disagree with you on this one. Unions are part of the problem.....part, not all. The company I work for made 300 million last QUARTER, and I can't buy a roll of toilet paper. But yet my CEO made about 12 million last year.......now who is greedy?

 

But greed isn't illegal, and however much greed there might be, the ceo of a company such as in this situation took a different route in buisness and worked hard in a way that worked out financially much better than other people's hard work, but you suggest what, that America should punish those who prosper and force them to share what they earned with the many people who didn't climb the ladder as well?

With all due respect, what is the argument against a ceo's salary, or the profits big business make (the latter if it earned legally of course ) the fact that we all don't have it? Is this a situation that the elections are supossed to somehow change, or are you just venting, which is quite understandable?

[Popeye 32]

Unions, as with other organizations, are only as good as the people that join them. If they are staffed with people that have a genuine concern for the members and also understand that companies must make money in order to employ workers then Unions work. If they become corrupt at any level with individuals who are self serving and "Greedy" then they have become worthless. I myself would lke to see more Unionized workplaces as long as there is a competent watch dog put in place to keep check and balance's.