Where is the UAW?

You know, the number of times that GM, FORD, and CHRYSLER have come up in the news is amazing. They are floundering, or would like us to believe they are floundering. I read somewhere that for every truck that FORD sells they lose 7000 dollars to pay off pensions of former employees. That is more than the cost of the steel to manufacture the ENTIRE TRUCK if it is accurate.

So, when you think about how much the UAW has helped the employees get better working conditions. I think you now have to weigh how terrible it will be for their members if the companies fold. I think it is time they came to the table with concessions to keep these companies afloat during the downturn.

For instance, if the UAW was not around there would have been more investment in automation and innovation. Because there wouldn't have been someone keeping them from the investment because it would reduce the number of workers on the job, which in turn reduces the dues paid to the union. For all the good unions were at one time, they are their own corporations now.

So while Toyota has invested more than the US budget for research into their car manufacturing process, the US automakers continue to get worse innovation. I wonder how much would have happened if it weren't for outside influences like EPA guidelines for miles per gallon. Would the industry have gone that direction if not ordered to do so.

With all the glut tacked onto the cost of these cars, it is no wonder they are hurting. With all the focus placed on building bigger and badder, not innovative and efficient, it is no wonder that they will suffer in an economic downturn.

This is not rocket science. They were not prepared financially just as most americans are not prepared financially. The rule I hear in school is to have at least 6 months of liquid assets lying around should you lose your job or need money for an emergency. While most americans live paycheck to paycheck. Here too, these large corporations are living paycheck to paycheck because they aren't making much money off of the vehicles they sale. Why is that? the overhead is too high. Why is that? because they are hemorrhaging money due to union agreements.

Example of the UNION impact on FORD, they built one of the worlds most innovative facilities for building cars in the world...and it is NOT in the United States. Why? because that level of innovation would have contradicted with their union contracts. So, they built it in Brazil. How does that help the US economy? How does that help the FORD employees? How does that help the UNION?

I wait patiently for the UNIONS of the world to come to the table with some ideas of their own on how to solve some of these financial issues and stop driving around in their limousines. I think that JFK said it the very best "Ask not what your country can do for you...ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR COUNTRY!!"

Critically Stupid...

So there I was on my campus just headed to the boys room in the library. I was in dire need and hurrying as quickly as I could. I won't be too graphic...so you don't have to avert your tender little eye-pods (snicker.)

As I sat in the office, I glanced around. The walls are usually humorous in boys rooms. The fare is light and the drawings are witty...yet this stall was unique. It was a graffiti hell of politically focused writings and drawings. How Obama is going to ruin the world with his terrorist agenda. How McCain would die in office and we'd be stuck with Palin.

I was shocked! This really took me by surprise that the usual "call me for a good time" writings were replaced with politics. How bad off is America when the young hormone charged youth is more worried about the economy and politics than banging suzy-rotten-crotch.

I am a Moderate. As you will read in my profile. I could give two twinkies who is in office, because they all are the same to me. Rich men, doing rich men things, laughing at rich men jokes. No where in the Government besides the janitors do you ever find the "Common" man. All our lives we listen too and follow millionaires through their paces. NFL, NBA, NASCAR, and GOVERNMENT are all just rich boys doing rich boy things.

So, what caused this sudden tailspin that my bathroom stall giggles got replaced with utter ignorance in one of our learned institutions. I don't know the answer to that...but what I do know is that the world needs some better spell check. Mostly the McCain writers were incapable of writing in complete sentences, or using the correct spelling of half their words.

For instance...NO is no, not know. Their isn't there, or they're. UR isn't your or you're. There were a lot more, and even a few people that were helpful enough to edit their posts for them. I thought it was interesting that people A) had white out in a bottle and B) had it in the stall with them...or did they leave and come back?

So anyway, I am really interested in how the next four are going to be. Especially when the secret service has announced that it will need more agents to protect this president than any previous president in our history.

I really hope and pray for his safety, because what we don't need is to have some stupid extremest give America another black eye.

School Sucks

Shocking?! I must tell you that if I haven't before, I am a full-time student in Georgia. I didn't say UGA...just an undergrad at a university that happens to be in Georgia. So, what you are about to read is an angry posting that may not make sense to most people...

NO ONE FUCKING LEARNS A DAMN USEFUL THING IN SCHOOL.

There...I feel much better now that I have screamed this to the top of my ability. How much technology is in this world of ours? How much? LOTS. Iphones, Ipod touch, graphic calculators, laptops, cell phones, computers, you name it...hell we even got a car that can take voice commands!

How do people that are graduating from college right now not understand how to wire up a sound system? Install an operating system? Navigate a help menu? diagnose anything?!

When you are paying top dollar to hang a pretty pretty diploma on the wall, you really don't get much else.

I told a person that I could load a file on my thumb-drive and give it to them...thank god I didn't say "Sneaker-net" because that would have been crippling for them. I am not that old, I am peers with many of the people I am in school with. I am old enough to have used a 286 in my lifetime and signed onto Prodigy...yet what the hell are they teaching students these days.

If I hear someone say "I have 200 Gigabytes of Ram" or "I burned this file to my memory disk" again I might have to kill them. It is cromagnum to be this paralyzed by technology. I akin this to not being able to change a tire or change the oil in your car for that matter. We are surrounded by all things techy yet people are instantly reverted to single cell organisms when faced with something technological.

When will our schooling wake up and realize they are failing to produce people capable of functioning in todays world. We have video billboards for gods sake and yet 5% of the population even knows what that means.

When I think about the question: "what is missing from today's education that was there 10 years ago?"

VOCATIONAL TRAINING!!!

Where did this go? why did it all of the sudden disappear from our schools? It must have been cost reduction to produce neandertal texting monkeys that can't function without their sms texts for more than 30 seconds. I am just amazed when I talk to people that don't understand a car engine, electricity, welding, transmissions, differentials, central processing units, hard drives, networks, wireless fidelity, digital video interfaces, human interface devices...the list is too long.

Where did shop goe? was it liability because kids are too stupid today to understand that saws kill? or that safety goggles aren't just to make you look stupid, they are to protect your fricken eyes. Without this vital piece of highschool education kids are being spit out into the world without a damn idea how or why anything works. Why is this a problem...some of them go to engineer school to design more things they don't fricken understand. I've been on those campuses and seen them. I worked on my land cruiser in the parking lots of those schools to be surrounded by the curious. I would ask them (pointing at something under the hood) what this is...they wouldn't know. These are mechanical engineers mind you...if they don't get it why should I hope that our AMERICAN CAR COMPANIES will ever get it.

This is a dominoe effect, or the butterfly effect in real time here people. You take out this important piece, this integral point of a school curriculum you cripple learning as a whole. Books can only teach so much theory without application. Children need to learn how to function in this world and it is going to become more and more evident as technology gets more and more sophisticated.

Students need to learn computer repair, electronics repair, car repair, carpentry, metal fabrication, home economics, agriculture, botany, meteorology, networking, construction, and communication skills at an early age.

There is too much at stake to remove the fundamentals from school. Maybe we teach them too much stuff that has no application. I really appreciated that I learned about 18'th century art...but what I would have really like to know is how all this shit works so that I could become the next engineer to make it better than it is.

It goes like this, survival of the fittest doesn't just end with mother nature...it exists everywhere. Are our children ready for it? Hell, in Georgia we have school boards losing acredititation...WTF is that!

Welcome to the future kiddies...enjoy the ride...