i guess ill will put my 2 cents in.. first on union.. my only expiriences with unions have been watching them drive an airline out of business.. so i may not have the best opinion of them... i will agree that they 'MAY' and i do mean 'MAY' be needed in certain cercumstances.. does anyone here remember eastern airline... i live im miami.. their headquarters was about 1 mile from where i live.... the union went on strike.. the airline could not afford to raise wages.. they were just barely hanging on... the union would not budge... the planes did not fly and guess what... about 2 month into the strike if my mind serves me right.. the airline folded... NOW.. if you were one of those workers that went on strike and then lost there jobs.. you tell me.. would you have rather been working even if it was for the pay you were getting or out on the street looking for a job.... eastern airlines was not a small airline... so there were plenty of poeple that were affected by the airline folding.... now.. would they have still folded without the union strike.. maybe.. but we will never know......

now on our environment killing... it bothers me to see the posts about the headers that throw an CEL.. and then the O2 sensor trick is done to make the light go away... it really does not matter if ANY ,manufactures make cars that would last 1 million miles... we humans that really do not think about what we are doing to the environment , in our non caring quest for the extra 5 hp will screw with a perfectly working engine.. ALL for $$... why , what do you mean $$.. you may ask... well.. i can assure you.. with enough R&D a header can be made to keep the emissions low.. but then it would cost more than anyone here would probably want to pay... so.. a cheaper header is made.. emmision are high and we are happy... US automotive quality is a good 100% better than it was say in the 1980's... i have a 1995 grand prix GTP with 240k miles.. still runs strong... the car may need some work.. but the engine is still strong..... so ill say it again.. it really does not matter if the manufactures make cars that go for 1 million miles.. when we screw with a perfectly working engine at 2000 miles......

 

Federal law mandates $5.15 an hour, if you got paid less than it was illegal.

Well actually right now I'm going to school, so I do live with my "mommy" for a couple months when school is out. Tell me why would I go and get a job for 7 an hour, when I already have one that pays more. Its not like my bartending job is an exclusive job that only few could manage to get. It was open to any old fool who wanted to work. As far as my tC goes, I fully paid in cash. And no, my "mommy" didnt give me the money. It was through years of saving and careful investing that I managed to save this much money. (7 years to be exact, I started investing my money in the stock market when I was 12. Of course at that time the only money that I had was what I was given for my birthday/christmas, my allowance that I recieved for doing my chores, and whatever summer jobs I might have held)

I might live in your dream world, but I'm living my own reality. What exactly is it that I'm suppost to cry on my "mommy's" shoulder about?

 

Momma's boy I could read you all the way from the east coast. I bet your parents are paying for your school. Why don't you go save your allowance (mommy's money, just like the money you paid for the tC with) and move out for good. That's what i did, survived on my own, paid for my own school. I quit sucking on my mommy's teat when high school was over.


Now break your piggy bank and move out on your own and see how far your money goes.

 

Did you guys forget that the tC is made out of recycliable parts?

 

I do believe that this coutry was built on the working man. That is where I came from. And just because I went to college does not mean I think I deserve more place in society. I grew up with nothing (low income family) and paid my own way through starting at the age of 16, buying my own cars, working multiple jobs etc, so I do have HUGE respect for the working man. But when I was working in a plant, building cabinets or working construction, I still was adamantly against the union, even when I was FORCED to join one to take a job,.

I just dont feel that ANYONE deserves the protection to not be fired when they are not doing their job, or recieve ridiculous raises when the company cant afford it. Simple reasoning makes that clear. And if you do not think that that stuff goes on in unions... you are very misled. We had three useless people that used the union to keep them from being fired for two years at a job I once had... drastically lowering our productivity in the plant environment.. so I have seen this first hand. It is WRONG.

 

A prerequisite for being a slacker is not union membership. There are worthless people at every job everywhere. All union workers are not slackers and all companies are not heartless.

 

i dont' see whats so bad about living at home or accepting money from your parents when you're still in school.... i really doubt anyone can work (enough to pay an average of what, 20k? - per school year), get good grades, pay rent, bills, and still have enough leftover to feed yourself? i myself get help from federal aid instead of parents because of low-income, but i know for damn sure a lot of those students out there do not qualify for federal aid because their parents make too much.

 

I for one never said that being union made them slackers. There are more than enough slackers to go around in any job. That is agreed. The problem is that in a union environment it is nearly impossible to get rid of those people. I have said that it is not the idea of the union itself that I am against, it is the abuse of its overwhelming power that is messing things up... Let me give one example of what I mean.

We moved to a small town when I was a kid (about 20,000 or so people). The main supporting industry in this town employed about 1/4 or more of the population there. My father and his partner opened a very large shop there and everything seemed fine..... Hard times came upon the industry that this town depended on. Now this is not to say that the corporation had not made poor financial decisions, market was bad, etc... there are plenty of reasons this could have happened. But, the plant was still open. Many of my friends families worked there, so I was always hearing (and still do at times) about what was going on there. Anyway, the Unioin workers thought that they should be paid more money and made it public that they wanted this (keep in mind they were the highest paid laborers anywhere near this town already, and they would even admit this). The company was in financial strain already and claimed they could not afford a pay increase unless production could be increased. This did not sit well with the "smart" people wanting the raise (wow... so hard to understand, we have no more money.. but you want a raise). So on and on it went, people striked, which damaged the plant more, which upset the workers more, and so on. So what happened? Plant gone, 1/4 of the town loses its jobs, killing business for everyone else in town (my father included, which had to go from a large automotive shop to near bankruptcy to opening a small shop by himself) causing more businesses to go. It was like a snowball.

Now, did the union cause the corporation to make bad financial decisions and lose money? No. Did they worsen the situation by attempting to force the company to pay more money? YES. What good did it do? NOTHING, it caused a ton of people to lose their jobs.

Now, that is just one occurence that I know of. This is a perfect example of how the slackers we mentioned above use the power of the union to their advantage. During strikes... what happens to the "scabs" ? One of my friends was a replacement worker during a plant strike in cleveland.. so I will tell you. They were followed home every night, harrassed, called during the night, threatened when they came in in the morning, had to be driven in to work in buses to protect them from those "mature and professional strikers" etc. You know what the Cleveland police told him when he called? "This is a union dispute, we cannot get involved". Now, if you did any of the above to someone you would be placed directly in jail, no ifs ands or buts. But since they are the almightly union they can get away with crimes of this nature all day long. THAT IS BS!!!!!!!!!! Now, rationalize that for me. I do not support any organization having more power than the law whether it be the IRS, the union, the government itself or anyone for that matter. And someone will try to say that what I showed is an "isolated" occurance. BS. Just watch the news and you will see plenty of it. I am not sticking up for large, evil corporations. But what does the unions tactics in these situations do to help???? NOTHING. They do not fight to fix the problems in the company, they fight to get themselves taken care of. That is not a solution no matter how you look at it.

 

Finally some common sense. This stuff is very common with the UAW and Im sure it is that way with many large unions. Unions were a good idea but they take it too far and end up hurting everybody including themsevles.