Tuesday, December 9, 2008

A President with a Heart

President-elect Obama has issued a statement about workers at a Chicago factory (Republic Windows and Doors) - they deserve what they've worked for.

Here's a bit more of what Obama said:

"When it comes to the situation here in Chicago with the workers who are asking for their benefits and payments they have earned, I think they are absolutely right," Obama said Sunday at a news conference announcing his new Veterans Affairs director. "What's happening to them is reflective of what's happening across this economy.
    "When you have a financial system that is shaky, credit contracts. Businesses large and small start cutting back on their plants and equipment and their workforces. That's why it's so important for us to maintain a strong financial system. But it's also important for us to make sure that the plans and programs that we design aren't just targeted at maintaining the solvency of banks, but they are designed to get money out the doors and to help people on Main Street. So, number one, I think that these workers, if they have earned their benefits and their pay, then these companies need to follow through on those commitments.
    "Number two, I think it is important for us to make sure that, moving forward, any economic plan we put in place helps businesses to meet payroll so we are not seeing these kinds of circumstances again,'' he said. "Have we done everything that we can to make sure credit is flowing to businesses and to families, and to students who are trying to get loans? And to homeowners who have been making payments on their homes but are still finding their property values so depressed that it becomes very difficult for them to make the mortgage payments?
    "That's where the rubber hits the road and that's going to be the central focus of my administration."

Amazing - we have a President with a heart, and we will all learn that heart matters. We will see our economy recover, with benefit for all the people, not just the upper tier. What has happened since the Great Liar is a travesty, a crime of now imaginable proportions - the pillaging of the once-great American economy.

A union official said: "Here the banks like Bank of America get a bailout, but workers cannot be paid?" said Leah Fried, an organizer with the union workers. "The taxpayers would like to see that bailout go toward saving jobs, not saving C.E.O.'s."

But then this follow up by Bank of America: ... "Neither Bank of America nor any other third party lender to the company has the right to control whether the company complies with applicable laws or honors its commitments to its employees."

Talk about evasion of responsibility ... but this much I know: they'd care and they'd get involved if the company didn't pay them.

The American financial industry has become a-moral,  without moral orientation, and therefore immoral ... it's all about money, and that's a dark pathway for them, and for the nation as a whole.

The wheels of God's justice turn slowly but surely ... and if, like the ancients, we begin to think that God isn't looking at us, that God doesn't care what we do, we compound our error and further the injustice. It isn't just about doing something for the sake of doing something; it's doing what's right, because what's right works, and works well.

Justice is profitable.

1 comment:

  1. President-elect Obama's ability to grasp the issues, and apply realistic solutions to them is unlike that which we've seen in a long while - to your point, he argues further the "why" portion of the solution he proposes - the "why" being to improve the lives of people, to give them what they earned by fulfilling their end of a contract - notice the heart he has, juxtaposed to his analytical mind - he's a lister with his "Number one...Number two."
    The times in which we live are equally terrifying as they are exciting - Obama brings hope and is leading the charge that we will have a real discussion going forward.

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