I'm having a difficult time distinguishing between the reality show starring Donald Trump called "The Apprentice" and reality with an apprentice in the White House named Barack Obama.  Both have their fans that love to watch them to see what will happen next, both are the top man in charge in their individual show, and both are able to fire people.  There is one minute difference, however, one that Obama doesn't seem to mind or care about, and that is Trump can fire people because it is both a TV show and a private entity in which people desire to work.  On the other hand, Obama sees it fit to fire someone from a private company as the leader of, at one point, the free world.

Now that the line has been crossed, shouldn't every private citizen that is employed in the private sector be fearful that perhaps Obama will fire them next?  Just imagine, Jimmy who works at a coal plant could be fired because Obama deems him not "green" enough because of how he does his job.  Dr. Smith could be fired because he might want to be paid by either the individual patient or their insurance company directly, not the government-run health programs.  Suzy that manages a McDonald's could be fired because she is making children fat.  Tim Geithner could be fired for not paying his taxes.  Wait, that one is implausible.  The point is that if Obama sees it fit that he fires the CEO of GM, what will stop him from firing anyone else he sees fit?  Maybe Ron Gettelfinger, the current chief president of the UAW, should have been fired.  It's the UAW's fault for running GM into the ground in the first place.  If Obama oversteps the line again and fires someone, I pick him.  Maybe we can all vote on it, American Idol style, on who to fire next.

Which brings me to my next point.  I don't know if the firing of GM's CEO, Rick Wagoner, was a deal of sorts that guaranteed GM more of our tax dollars if he left.  Regardless the reason behind it, PLEASE STOP GIVING GM AND CHRYSLER MORE OF OUR MONEY!  They have already gotten much more than enough.  Stop wasting our tax dollars on these businesses that are so far into the grave that four feet of dirt would have to be shoveled off of them to even discover their rotting corpses.  If we want to support them we would go buy their cars.  Give us every penny of our tax dollars back that was sent to these failures and maybe we can then consider buying something from them.  That should be the only way, though, that they receive a cent from any of us, by the willing transaction at a GM or Chrysler dealer.  This government's socialist idea of wealth redistribution obviously isn't working and it won't work in the future.  Let them fail, let them go bankrupt, let them figure it out like every other company would have to do.

I am getting awfully fed up with the enormous waste of my tax dollars, even though Obama has only been the apprentice for three months or so. Now not only do I have to watch tax dollars be wasted like the water from sprinklers in the middle of a rainstorm, I have to be concerned about perhaps being fired by the government.  This is America?  What gives them the right to remove a private individual from their job?  Absolutely outrageous!  This is getting so old and I've about had enough with this recklessness and waste.   I'm getting tired of the abuse of power and socialization of America.  Let GM's CEO quit on his own, or be fired by the company.  Let GM and Chrysler figure out survival on their own.  And give me my tax dollars back!

Why did we elect an apprentice when we were suppose to elect a president?

When will people realize that unions are bad for business? Look at the “Big 3” car companies here in the U.S.; they are failing, no surprise there. They want money from the government, and more of it, and more of it. But why is it that I should willingly give them my hard earned dollars to support their idiotic decisions? 

Let’s look at some data, compliments of Forbes. In 2006, Forbes reported that the average compensation, wages and benefits, for workers at the “Big 3” car companies and Toyota, Honda, and Nissan. Chrysler workers received an annual average of $151,720 each, GM workers received an annual average of $146,520, Ford workers received an annual average of $141,020 each, and workers for Toyota, Honda, or Nissan received an annual average of $96,000 each. Breaking those numbers down into hourly wages, Chrysler paid the workers $75.86 an hour of compensation, GM paid $73.26 an hour of compensation, Ford paid $70.51 an hour for compensation, and Toyota, Honda, or Nissan paid $48.00 hour for compensation. 

How many jobs do you know of, especially jobs requiring a mere high school degree, that will pay comepensation of even $48.00 an hour, not to mention almost $76.00 an hour of total compensation? How can it be that a high school degree can earn someone over $150,000 a year? And why is it that Toyota, Honda, or Nissan workers make almost $30 less an hour or $55,000 less than Chrysler workers? The “Big 3” car companies have the United Auto Workers (UAW) union working for them, the Japanese companies do not.

The UAW is responsible for the astronomical wages that these workers earn, the enormous compensation packages they receive, and the lavish pensions rewarded to the workers. Sure the workers love it, but it is extremely difficult for a business to undertake such enormous costs and be profitable. And what are the car companies at the current time? Unprofitable.

It is true, however, that Chrysler, GM, and Ford don’t absorb these exorbitant prices. They do what any business does when the cost of doing business increases: change things like passing the increased cost along to the customer. Imagine how much cheaper a new car would be if the average UAW worker screwing in the headlights was not getting $75.00 an hour, if that worker was not earning over $150,000 a year. Moreover, in addition to passing these costs on to the consumer, spending such money unnecessarily hampers innovation, research, and expansion.

When Chrysler got bailed out the first time back in the late 1970s there workers were making two and a half times the amount the national average was for someone in their line of work. Two and a half times more! It’s no wonder they were failing when they were basically throwing money away at paying their workers. Reviewing the aforementioned numbers, it seems as if the car companies still throw away an unnecessary amount of money on their high school educated workers. Why don’t they learn from the past? Speaking of learning from the past, why is it that American car companies take so long to adjust production to align it better with demand? Anyway, workers at the American Toyota, Honda, and Nissan plants aren’t part of the UAW and they still are nicely compensated. They also aren’t apparently on the verge of collapse. Coincidence? 

Even if you may consider yourself more patriotic for buying an American car, as in from one of the “Big 3” car companies, doing so only makes the UAW union stronger because they see the money. Conversely, if you buy an American made Japanese car, such as a Toyota Camry built inside the U.S. you are paying the American workers, not the union to pay the workers.

Other than requiring companies to pay ridiculous wages, unions are bad for business for other reasons. In a union you advance in the workplace based on seniority, which is a good concept in theory. But what happens when you work at a unionized place for two years and know infinitely more than someone that has been employed there for 25 years? Even if you would deserve the promotion due to your knowledge and skill, the other person would get it because they have been there longer, regardless of knowledge and skill. It is not difficult to see that such a scenario is disastrous for businesses. Unions also take away the worker’s voice. They claim to represent the worker’s, but really they represent the union’s own self interest. If the worker wants the same thing, then fine, they represent it. However, if the worker has an opposing want, good luck getting union support. Lastly, unions, and their policies and demands, also have a negative effect on the economy, particularly the GDP. Reverting to the asinine price of wages, assuming aggregate demand does not change, a higher paid wage leads to a decreased aggregate supply, which means a lower number of total goods and services produced, increased price levels, and a decreased real GDP.  Not only is this bad for the business, but it is also bad for the economy as a whole.

How inefficient must a business become before it realizes that unionization was a bad idea?