When shrub talks about wanting America to be an “ownership society”, this is what he is talking about:
This cartoon pretty much sums up what is happening to working class people in this country today. The executives and their media spinners sail off into the sunset with their golden parachutes while all the working stiffs and engineers and low-mid level managers get fucked. While senior executives give themselves a 50% increase in severance packages, the people who have gone to work all these years see their pensions go up in smoke, their health care probably disappearing and demands from management for a 63% cut in pay. This stuff is going to hurt all of us. When those thousands of people lose their jobs, and a great many of them will, they will lose their houses, they won’t be buying cars, they won’t be going to restaurants. That means that others trying to sell their houses won’t get as much for them if they can sell at all. Those of us still working in the auto industry (including oems, suppliers, dealers, etc) will be pinched even harder. People running small businesses will se revenue dry up. We will all pay for the loss of companies like Delphi and Visteon and Collins and Aikmen.
No matter what you think of unions (and I agree there have been problems associated with them) you have to acknowledge that if a lot of our predecessors hadn’t organized and fought for better working conditions and pay and benefits, most of us wouldn’t be living anywhere near as good today as we are. This is truly a case of a rising tide lifting all boats. When large numbers of people are working at better paying jobs they buy more stuff and that leads to more jobs. A limited number of rich people with extra disposable income only has a limited effect on the economy. A person can only buy so much stuff. But lots of middle class people can buy a lot of stuff, food, houses, clothes etc. That’s what makes economies grow. But the middle class is shrinking and most of them are sliding downward. If we don’t focus on growing the middle and helping the lower classes move up, America will shrivel up into a third world country. The bush cabal needs to be stopped now. America needs new leadership with a real vision. I just don’t know where that is coming from right now. Somebody please step forward.