Posted on 02/13/2009 5:40:45 AM PST by teddyballgame
This is awkward, like truly first-date awkward, when your hands brush and the other one pulls away.
President Barack Obama speaking at the Caterpillar plant in East Peoria, Illinois Thursday afternoon on his economc stimulus plan (see video below) still before Congress:
"When they finally pass our plan, I believe it will be a major step forward on our path to economic recovery. And I'm not the only one who thinks so.
"Yesterday, Jim, the head of Caterpillar, said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off. And that's a story I'm confident will be repeated at companies across the country."
Jim Owens, chief executive officer of Caterpillar who announced 22,000 layoffs recently and supports the president's plan, was asked if he agreed with that re-hiring assessment:
"I think, realistically, no. The truth is we're going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again."
So, like, call me sometime? Sure, yeh. OK. Sometime.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
The hits just keep on coming. Obama is in so far over his head...which we all knew. I just couldn’t imagine it being this bad.
Obama's whole thing is a sham. His bill isn't about stimulating anything. It's not about economics. It's just a power grab so that this becomes a socialist country.
LOL
“Obama’s whole thing is a sham. His bill isn’t about stimulating anything. It’s not about economics. It’s just a power grab so that this becomes a socialist country.”
Yup. The Dems could care less about improving the economy - just look at how massive this spending bill is and where the majority of the money is going. The more government jobs they create the bigger, the more dependent people become on the government and the bigger their consituency grows.
This bad this FAST.
Part of the problem is that by the time a project is “shovel ready” it has already had its financing arranged. It it’s at that stage then there’s nothing a stimulus bill is going to do to hurry it up. Finances aren’t the time consuming part of getting a project underway. It’s the years and years of legal and environmental work that needs to be done.
These projects take a certain amount of time. That amount is dependent on things like the courts and a myriad of governmental agencies. You’re peeing against a wave if you try to speed these guys up.
My dad had a good saying for ‘crash programs’. He said a crash program was like getting nine ladies pregnant in hopes of having a baby in one month.
Say no more.
I posted this in one of the other threads.
I work for a supplier of equipment to the construction industry.
One thing that isn’t being talked about is all the idle machines that are out there right now.
2005, 2006, 2007 were all record years for our company. We are off more than 50% right now. The reason is companies that buy construction equipment are usually rental companies, i.e. United Rental, Sunbelt, Cat Rental, etc.
Once you purchase a bulldozer, it doesn’t stop being useful next year. The build up over those three years was to keep up with demand because there were so many construction projects all across the country. Now that the construction has just about stopped, there is a huge glut of equipment sitting idle, and the rental companies are not about to buy more equipment until they see an extended demand.
There will be at least 6 months to 2 years lag before the Caterpillars of the world start their full production back.
The irony is that Obama and his people were loudly looking for projects that were 100% "shovel ready" and merely lacked financial resources. And the media chimed in and also talked about the vast amount of "shovel ready" projects that were out there, just waiting for someone to show up with money. That Stimulus Bill was gonna kick in and WHAM! millions of new jobs, easy!
The reality is far different and Obama knew it, and I bet the media knew it too.
BTW, I heard Obama talking about "creating or preserving" 4 million new jobs. Lately he's been talking about "creating or preserving" 3.5 million new jobs. Keep on eye on that. I suspect we'll be talking about 2 million jobs fairly soon.
Watching this is educational.
Congresses approval is dismal, yet Obama, who is hand in glove with them, has a 60 something approval rate.
Why? The cult of personality built up about him by the media.
It’s a lesson in what happened in Nazi Germany. It doesn’t really matter what obama does, or what he ruins that people care about. He’s like a god to some of these people out there.
I’ll be curious to see if the unions are foolish enough to call a strike on Cat. Some of my uncles used to work for them, and it seemed that sometimes, they were strike as often as they were working.
Your comments certainly make sense. Thanks for sharing.
Cat’s long range plan has been to eliminate as many UAW jobs as possible and replace them with non-union workers outside IL. They just closed their older engine factory outside Peoria and permanently laid off about 900 more UAW members. They are building a new plant in Texas.
The next plant to close may be the one that Zero visited. It is the oldest building and makes things that could use some lower labor costs.
Jim Owens could not afford to be misqouted..the stock analysts and union people would have had him for lunch when the prediction didn’t come true.
Cat will rehire when they start getting more orders to fill the plants and this “stimulus” won’t do it.
Go to the article and look at the picture of him. He has a look of disgust, disdain, contempt — something — on his face. He and Michelle both make this face a lot. What is it?
And he is looking old and tired already.
Whitey.
It’s about unionizing the country, including the illegals. Once he gets the illegals unionized, he won’t worry about whether they are citizens. He never worried whether or not he is a citizen, either.
I wonder who “saved jobs” are accurately captured in any economic model. Obama is a joke, but we all are the rotten egg on his face.
Caterpillar was one of the first and most vocal opponent of the Obama’s “buy American” plan. I’m sure that Obama has not forgotten that, either. Pay back will be coming.
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