Community Health Care Discussion
From the press release:
HEALTH CARE COMMUNITY DISCUSSION
Monday, December 29, 2008 @ 7 PM at
the Unitarian Universalist Meetinghouse
5310 Old Mill Road, Fort Wayne, IN 46807
President-elect Barack Obama has asked all Americans to meet together to discuss the best ways to achieve quality, affordable health care for all.
The Northeast Indiana Chapter of Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan will host the Health Care Community Discussion on Monday, December 29, 2008 @ 7 PM at the Unitarian Universalist Meetinghouse, 5310 Old Mill Road in Fort Wayne.
This is open to everyone in the community – please bring your ideas for change. Light refreshments will be served.
Also, if you feel drawn to do so, please bring a non-perishable item for a collection to be given to the Community Harvest Food Bank of Fort Wayne.
White Lodging City Council Visit Postponed
At a prior city council meeting, council President Tom Didier said that he would try and get a representative from White Lodging to come before council sometime in December. Readers will remember that White Lodging is the developer for the downtown Courtyard by Marriott hotel that has faced financing trouble and is likely to miss their groundbreaking deadline. Readers will also know that White Lodging hasn’t come before council yet and they aren’t scheduled for the final meeting either.
Didier informed me that White Lodging was unavailable for the Dec 9 and 16 council meetings and so he is now trying to reschedule their visit for sometime in January. There will be a new council President at that time but I’m sure whomever takes that role will be interested in hearing from White Lodging - especially if they still haven’t broken ground and would thus be in violation of their agreement with the city…
Laughable Elitism
I was reading Tracy Warner’s column this morning about the overuse of the word crisis and became a trifle irritated after reading the following:
That could apply to the current financial conditions. Yes, it’s a significantly bad situation - and if you are laid off or cannot afford a prescription or can’t get your car that takes you to work fixed, it may well be a personal crisis. But is it truly a national crisis?
“They’re using that word to make something seem as serious as they can make it,” Rumsey (assistant professor of English at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne) said. “By calling it a crisis, it creates more problems than it solves.
“Economies rise and fall, and that’s just the nature of things. Yes, this is a fall. A crisis is so far and away worse than anything we’re experiencing, I think it is an unfortunate choice of words.”
I know it’s dangerous to argue semantics with an English professor but her comments are about as out-of-touch as one can get. What sort of economic indicators would she like to see before declaring this a crisis? According to her this is just the natural ebb and flow of the economy - of course nobody outside of the English department actually believes that.
So while the entire system around us begins to collapse we have this English professor, in a Kevin Bacon/Animal House like performance, screaming “All is Well!”. Tell you what professor, I’ll compromise, I’ll substitute the word meltdown or disaster for crisis - your call…
Another complete regulatory failure
A major Wall Street Investor is accused of massive fraud. You should read this story for yourself in its entirety.
There are several things disturbing about this:
1. Where were the regulators? He should NEVER have been able to get away with this kind of fraud with the massive amounts of regulation required.
2. How on Earth can one man swindle as much as fifty billion dollars in America?
3. Did he have any financial audits done. If so who were the auditors? (Per another story I read his auditor was a tiny accounting firm in Rockland County that no one had ever heard of before.) If this is true I hope that auditors spend the rest of their lives in prison along with everyone involved in this scheme.
It will be interesting to see how this works out.
Mike Sylvester
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is a joke!
Last night the auto bailout bill luckily failed in the Senate. The bill clearly would have passed; however, the head of the UAW absolutely refused to concede to union wage concessions until 2011.
Single-handedly; the head of the UAW derailed the auto bailout bill in the US Senate.
The big three automakers are geared up to produce about 16 million cars a year. For months now the big three have known that their annualized sales have dropped to approximately 11 million cars. Anyone with one ounce of common sense would realize that this means they need to idle a significant number of their auto manufacturing facilities. The day after the bailout bill failed in the US Senate the management of these companies ”woke up” and decided to start taking action that should have been taken months ago. The management of the big three is completely inept.
The Democratic leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, is going to go down as one of the least effective majority leaders in modern history. The Democratic majority in the Senate has got basically nothing accomplished in the last two years.
Yesterday Harry Reid said and I quote
“I dread looking at Wall Street tomorrow.”
Obviously Harry Reid was wrong, again…
The Dow Jones Industrial average increased by 64.59 today. Harry Reid missed it again…
The people in favor of this awful bailout bill have only made one legitimate point that I can see. They are right that the 700 billion dollar bank bailout was significantly worse than the auto bailout bill that failed. With the 700 billion dollar bank bailout bill the Democratic Congress wrote a blank check to the Bush Administration and the companies involved made no concessions, are hoarding the cash rather than lending it out, and there is no effective oversight or even an effective strategy in place to implement the TARP plan.
The Democratic Congress and the Bush Administration are completely inept and have handled the current economic crisis badly.
Mike Sylvester
News Release from KPC Media
Breaking News: GM to idle Fort Wayne plant temporarily in March
NEW YORK (AP) — General Motors Corp. said Friday it will temporarily close 20 factories across North America — including its truck assembly plant in Fort Wayne — and make sweeping cuts to its vehicle production as it tries to adjust to dramatically weaker automobile demand.
GM said it will cut 250,000 vehicles from its production schedule for the first quarter of 2009, which includes a cut of 60,000 vehicles announced last week. Normal production would be around 750,000 cars and trucks for the quarter, spokesman Tony Sapienza said.
Many plants will be shut down for the whole month of January, he said, and all told, the factories will be closed for 30 percent of the quarter.
The Fort Wayne plant will be shut down the weeks of March 2 and 9.
Editors note: per this press release it looks like our local GM Plant will be idled for 2 weeks in March. That is “better” than the original reports indicated.
Fort Wayne GM Plant To Be Part of Major 2009 Production Cuts
More horrible economic news for this region. Our local GM plant faces severe production cuts during the 1st quarter of 2009:
FOR RELEASE: 2008-12-12
GM Announces Significant Production Cuts for Q1 ‘09Moves In Direct Response to Rapidly Deteriorating Market Conditions
DETROIT - General Motors announced today a significant reduction of planned production for the first quarter of 2009 due to the ongoing and severe drop in industry sales, which were down 36 percent in November overall and 41 percent for GM (2007 vs. 2008). The impact of these and recently announced actions to adjust production with market demand, will result in the temporary idling of approximately 30 percent of GM’s North American assembly plant volume during the first quarter of 2009 and will remove approximately 250,000 units from production.
The speed and severity of the U.S. auto market’s decline has been unprecedented in recent weeks as consumers reel from the collapse of the financial markets and the resulting lack of credit for vehicle financing.
The following U.S., Canada and Mexico operations impacted by today’s announcement include:
U.S.:
* Ft. Wayne (Ind.) - Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra Light Duty Regular and Extended Cab
* Flint Assembly (Mich.) - Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra Heavy Duty Regular and Crew Cab & Medium Duty
* Wentzville (Mo.) - Chevy Express, GMC Savanna
* Lansing Delta Township (Mich.) - Buick Enclave, GMC Acadia, Saturn Outlook
* Pontiac Assembly (Mich.) - Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra Heavy Duty Extended Cab
* Spring Hill (Tenn.) - Chevy Traverse
* Fairfax Assembly (Kan.) - Chevrolet Malibu/Hybrid, Saturn Aura/Hybrid
* Arlington Assembly (Texas) - Full Size SUVs: Chevy Suburban, Tahoe & Tahoe Hybrid, GMC Yukon, Yukon XL & Yukon Hybrid, Cadillac Escalade/Escalade ESV & Escalade Hybrid
* Lansing Grand River (Mich.) - Cadillac STS & CTS
* Orion (Mich.) - Chevy Malibu, Pontiac G6
* Detroit-Hamtramck (Mich.) - Buick Lucerne, Cadillac DTS
* Shreveport (La.) - Chevy Colorado, GMC Canyon, Hummer H3 & H3T
* Bowling Green (Ky.) - Chevy Corvette, Cadillac XLR
* Wilmington (Del.) - Pontiac Solstice, Saturn Sky, Opel GT
Mayor Henry’s Statement On Gambling
Mayor Henry has released his statement on gambling and its potential future in Fort Wayne. An excerpt:
We are living in painful economic times. It would be irresponsible for the City not to talk to individuals interested in gaming because of the potential revenue it could create to help us provide the level of services expected by our residents and necessary to keep us competitive.
I believe people should be able to spend their money on whatever they wish, but I am against licensed casinos on a matter of principle. For the state to decide that person A can operate a casino while bar owners B-Z can’t have Cherry Masters wreaks of hypocrisy. But my personal thoughts on the matter are immaterial - we live under the current set of laws.
So the question is will a casino bring increased economic development to Fort Wayne? And is the proper government response to painful economic times more gambling? I suppose it’s responsible for the mayor to keep all options open and research the issue but I have my doubts that an expansion of gambling would benefit this community in the long run.
And what is it about Fort Wayne modeling itself after Gary. Baseball teams/stadiums, casinos - how’s it working for them?
An Economic Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
I hate to keep doing this to you but people need to realize how bad this situation is. Check out this retail sales chart from Calculated Risk:
Republicans Sabotage Auto Bailout For Ostensible Reasons
If Senate Republicans are against the auto bailout then just come out and say so. But pretending that UAW workers taking concession in 2011 vs 2009 is some sort of deal breaker is just disingenuous. Where was the outrage when the paper-pushers on Wall Street wanted 100x the auto bailout? Where were their concessions?
Citibank is in much worse shape than any of the autoworkers and so is AIG. Yet the clowns that run those companies are still there and giving themselves bonuses. Is the Senate Republicans’ goal really to destroy one of the last production capabilities we have in this country?
The UAW is willing to concessions that will put their wages in line with their foreign competitors. All they are saying is that they want to phase those in over a couple of years. That’s called compromise and allowing the lame-duck Republicans in Congress to sink this economy even further is unconscionable. Now it’s up to President Bush - good grief…
