In preparation for playing Captain Jack Sparrow in "Pirates of the Carribean", Johnny Depp went out and got a mouthful of gold teeth. Michael Eisner pitched a fit and wanted the gold teeth gone. So Depp negotiated away a few of the gold teeth.
But he'd gotten more gold teeth than he'd wanted in the first place, so he would have, as he put it, "a few to negotiate with". He ended up with exactly the gold teeth he'd wanted for Jack Sparrow in the first place.
That's what this smells like to me:
Town Halls Having an Impact? White House Bends on Health Care Provision in Face of Discontent
The main difference, of course, is that Depp only tinkered with his own teeth, and had no agenda other than the way he wanted a movie character to look. And face it, Johnny Depp certainly can be trusted in things like that.
This is not, however, about people tinkering with their own teeth and their own careers. This is about people I don't trust any further than I could spit them tinkering with our very lives, in addition to a fifth of our economy. This is about people who are so clueless about real people's needs that they're proud of destroying cars that could have lifted poor families out of welfare.
I don't trust them. This smells of chicanery. Agreeing to that "health care" bill is going to be at best a Faustian bargain.
When you sell your soul, you never get what you're actually promised in return.
3 comments:
they're proud of destroying cars that could have lifted poor families out of welfare
I was just talking to somebody about this. Why destroy the cars? Wouldn't it be better to give them out to others w/o a car?
Supposedly the idea is that the cars in questions are gas-guzzlers that need to be destroyed "for the sake of the planet".
But what do they leave on the market? Even worse gas guzzlers.
People who can afford a new car aren't driving true clunkers. They're driving reliable cars. And it's absolutely criminal to take those cars and destroy them, taking them away from people who would have been able to get jobs if only they had reliable transportation.
I've looked up entry level jobs on the state job posting board:
Restaurant workers -- Public Transportation Available: No
Baggers -- Public Transportation Available: No
Cashier -- Public Transportation Available: No
General Laborer Scrap Metal Handlers -- Public Transportation Available: (blank - description of job says "need to be dependable and have reliable transportation)
Cashier -- Public Transportation Available: (blank)
Call Center Support -- Public Transportation Available: Yes (but it's rotating shifts with evenings and weekends, which means that the person still can't use public transit exclusively, given the hours buses run in the area)
Telerecruiter -- Public Transportation Available: (blank) For this employer, it depends on where the person lives. People in the greater metropolitan area can commute for this job by bus; outside the greater metropolitan area, they could only get there one or two days a week)
Sales Associate -- Public Transportation Available: (blank) This employer is at the mall. Employees could use public transit to get either to work (evening shift) or home from work (morning shift), but not both ways because the first and last buses don't run to the mall until after the mall opens and before it closes; it's for the convenience of shoppers, not employees.
So only ONE of those jobs is a job that a person without a car could actually get to.
The bus routes and times are great for 5-9 office workers, but how many of them really ride the bus? Restaurant work, most retail, personal care, inventory, etc., require that the person either get to work before the buses run, or stay until after the last bus, if there is any bus transportation available at all. Some people have a commute of over 2 hours if they can take the bus, because of the way the hub system is set up. And "run more buses" isn't cost effective -- the buses are running mostly empty most of the time as it is. Private cars would be much more cost effective and actually burn less fuel. How "green" is it to run a huge bus for a long route in the city for 2 or 3 passengers?
People who can afford a new car aren't driving true clunkers. They're driving reliable cars. And it's absolutely criminal to take those cars and destroy them, taking them away from people who would have been able to get jobs if only they had reliable transportation.
Hear, hear!! If they had really wanted to "help the planet", they would have given vouchers to buy any reliable car, or any car getting more than X mpg, or any car that gets more than X mpg over your current car, or something. Now they have made the situation that much worse, because there is now going to be a lack of used cars trickling down to those who can afford to buy them, jacking up the price of them. Well, at least it looked good on paper.... {sigh}
Post a Comment