Back to Basics

Fisker Automotive, as you might recall, received hundreds of millions of dollars in US taxpayer backed loans on the promise of manufacturing cars at a Delaware plant, and then promptly — assembled the first line of Gore-Mobiles at a factory in Finland.

Cue the inevitable layoffs:

Fisker Automotive, the struggling, government-backed hybrid sports car maker, terminated most of its rank-and-file employees on Friday, in a last-ditch effort to conserve cash and stave off a potential bankruptcy filing, sources said.

In a statement, Fisker confirmed that it let go about 75 percent of its workforce. The automaker said it was “a necessary strategic step in our efforts to maximize the value of Fisker’s core assets.”

People working two and three jobs to make ends meet must be so happy that their tax dollars were used to subsidize cars for “green” glitterati with guilty consciences while lining the pockets of eco-scammers.

Fisker has also been hit with a lawsuit for violating the WARN Act in its haste to conserve cash:

After losing its driving force, Henrik Fisker, and 75 percent of its employees, Fisker Automotive takes another blow. The fired workers are accusing the automaker of not having notified them in advance, and are calling the company’s action illegal, bringing about a federal lawsuit. Their motivation for pursuing the legal way also probably stems from the fact that aside from being paid for their unused days off, there wasn’t a severance package in sight.

What Fisker is being charged with is, breaking rules set by both the federal WARN Act and California’s own WARN Act (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification). The law states that employees need to be notified of impending contract terminations at least 60 days before it actually happens, so as to make the necessary arrangements and not be caught off-guard.

All that remains to be seen now is if the company Karma has enough juice to get Fisker to bankruptcy court.

At some locations you can now pick up a Fisker Karma for the super discounted price of $80,000. The car has a **lifetime warranty.

Richard DeVos, a star in Assemblies of God circles, is a man who loves being wealthy to the extent that he flaunts it, and at times appears to be showing off. He dresses the part of a very successful businessman and his overall carriage would seem to confirm it.

Having seen and observed him at several minister’s conferences where he was always the featured speaker, he would make a point of stating from the podium, “Don’t ask me, I’m not going to give any of you any money.” The sheeple would give a knowing muffled laugh acknowledging that they knew he was wealthy, that they were awed by that fact and they would like to have some of that money.

So much into himself, Devos shortened his name, Richard, to RICH. The name he chose for his company, AMWAY, was a derivative of the Name God, Who Identified Himself to Moses, when asked what name He should be known as. God answered,, “I AM THAT I AM.” (Exodus 3:14.) So with not so subtle implications, AMWAY would be to Christians, God’s Way. Clever.

In his quest to make a fortune, DeVos developed a pyramid scheme selling operation. Amway would consist of household products that would be hustled, door to door, to one’s own family or in contacts developed through social circles, neighbors and civic organizations and of course, the church. The goal is to recruit more salespeople.

An ambitious salesman/recruit who gives an illustrated screen presentation of the effectiveness of the products, convinces the ‘mark’ (carnival term for sucker) of the fortune to be made, as each salesman recruited would have part of their commissions directed up the pyramid to the one that recruited him, and the one who recruited the recruiter who….and on it goes. It is the ultimate ‘Pyramid Scheme” that legitimate businesses frown upon.

It is to be remembered that Proctor & Gamble, who also dealt in household products were hit by vicious rumors stating that their symbols are satanic and that an executive with P&G stated on The Phil Donahue Show that they were supporters of Satan. Nobody checked the Phil Donahue show to verify this. The program directors declared no such program took place and no appearance by a P&G executive took place.

The AG people were (and are) quick and anxious to run with any damaging rumor about anyone.

It took a devastating toll on P&G. THEN they learned that these rumors began with Rich DeVos who started the whole campaign, wanting to knock out competition, with lies and slander, typical Assemblies of God tactics. P&G sued Devos and AMWAY and were awarded over a million dollars.

One sales technique of recruiters is to make the mark dissatisfied with what they presently have. “You shouldn’t settle for this, you should have a bigger house (photo shown) or, top-of-the line car (photos of Rolls Royce) and be able to enjoy life” (photos shown of tropical paradise complete with palms and bikini-clad girls).

At a service I did at Trinity Assembly of God in Charlotte, Pastor Calvin Bacon introduced me to Dexter Yeager who had become a close friend of Jim Bakker host of The PTL Club. Yeager had become a legend of sorts.

President Obama called for a higher minimum wage in his State of The Union address.  That sounds good to the great majority of people, who don’t understand even the basics of economics, but it will harm the people whom he intends to help.

Raising the minimum wage always has decreased hiring for entry level jobs.  Labor unions and other maggots feeding in the socialist cesspool strongly support higher minimum wage laws on the assumption that they will push up all wages.

But if businesses can’t make profits with higher wage costs, they will reduce output, which means fewer jobs, or will raise prices, which negates the effect of higher minimum wages.

Read Raise the Minimum Wage and Get Minimum Jobs, posted on the Fiscal Times website.

A bankruptcy judge had asked Hostess and one of the labor unions to go through a mediation session on Tuesday in order to try to come up with a deal to keep the company in business and save over 18,000 jobs.

It didn’t happen:

Hostess Brands lived to die another day.

The maker of Twinkies and Ding Dongs said late Tuesday that it failed to reach an agreement with its second biggest union. As a result, Hostess plans to continue with a hearing on Wednesday in which a bankruptcy court judge will decide if the company can shutter its operations.

The renewed talks between Hostess and The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union came after the company declared last week that it would move to wind down its business and start selling off its assets in bankruptcy court. The company cited a crippling strike that was started on Nov. 9 by the union, which represents 30 percent of Hostess workers.

Yesterday I checked at my local store and the shelves that usually hold the Hostess products were more barren the list of MSNBC’s criticisms of Obama. Sad. So much for my traditional Thanksgiving turtwinken.

Pass the Kleenex…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ocmj6bpcqY

The Hope-a-Nomics Disaster: One Company’s Horror Story
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2012

President Obama promises to move the country forward with his recycled pledge of five million green jobs. But in the real world, small businesses are struggling to stay afloat as they deal with the fiscal wreckage of this administration’s disastrous venture socialism. Here’s the tale of just one Colorado company victimized by the Obama Department of Energy (DOE).

Colorado Distribution Group is a privately held storage and shipping company based in Denver. Thanks to hope-a-nomics, its warehouse is saddled with nearly 7,000 pallets of federally subsidized solar panels (one-third of which are completely spoiled and unsalable), along with related detritus such as broken glass and stray module parts.

While $22,000/month in storage costs go unpaid, the panels consume up to a third of the company’s warehouse space. Legal costs have forced CDG to slash payroll and lay off at least three employees. A source with knowledge of CDG’s woes told me this week the company is facing pressure by the Department of Energy to drop its petition to recoup those costs. The feds want CDG to swallow a $1.4 million tab to dispose of the bum solar panels.

In July, according to Dow Jones, CDG asked a Delaware bankruptcy court “for permission either to sell or collect rent on the property Abound Solar Inc. has at its facility, saying the situation is threatening its ability to stay in business.” Like many private enterprises in the Age of Obama’s Brass-Knuckled Politics of Revenge, fear of retribution holds back many from coming forward publicly about such attempted shakedowns.

CDG serves industries ranging from automotive to food and beverage, electronic, medical, furniture, clothing, sporting goods and telecommunications. Founded in 2005, CDG handles distribution, fulfillment, transportation, logistics and inventory management using a high-tech data system. For the past three years, the company warehoused solar panels manufactured by Fort Collins-based Abound Solar.

Yes, Abound Solar. Also known as: Colorado’s own Solyndra.

In June, less than a year after fellow Obama green boondoggle Solyndra went belly up, Abound filed for bankruptcy. As I reported in March, the financial outlook of the $400 million DOE loan guarantee recipient was based on false hope and imaginary change. Obama’s envirocrats ignored bright red flags from Fitch Ratings about Abound’s substandard technology and failures to meet basic efficiency targets.

Abound borrowed $70 million against its $400 million Obama DOE loan guarantee; taxpayers will lose up to $60 million on the loan after the bankruptcy proceedings are complete. Nearly 125 Abound Solar employees lost their jobs. Screwed-over companies like CDG that did business with Abound are not alone. At least one other warehouse in Colorado is storing the costly panels. And an untold number of related contractors and businesses have been stiffed.

They waited until the day after the election to make the announcement — what a happy coincidence for Obama:

Boeing announced a major restructuring of its defense division on Wednesday that will cut 30 percent of management jobs from 2010 levels, close facilities in California and consolidate several business units to cut costs.

Boeing, the Pentagon’s second-largest supplier, said the changes were the latest step in an affordability drive that has already reduced the company’s costs by $2.2 billion since 2010, according to the memo.

The measures come as U.S. weapons makers are under pressure to cut costs and preserve profit margins amid dwindling defense spending in the U.S.

And if they’re cited for violating the WARN Act, who cares? You and I will pay the fine.

In the previous post I mentioned how Obama had created a “win-win” for rich people who pledged their support, and here’s People’s Exhibit A of what will be thousands of examples in the coming months and years.

(h/t Michelle)

Obama’s Layoff Bomb
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2012

In June, a diffident and self-deluded President Obama claimed that “the private sector is doing fine.” Last week, the private sector responded: Speak for yourself, buster. Who needs an “October Surprise” when the business headlines are broadcasting the imminent layoff bomb in neon lights?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last Tuesday that employers issued 1,316 “mass layoff actions” (affecting 50 workers or more) in September; more than 122,000 workers were affected overall. USA Today financial reporter Matt Krantz wrote that “(m)uch of the recent layoff activity is connected to what’s been the slowest period of earnings growth since the third quarter of 2009.” Some necessary restructuring is underway in response to the stagnant European economy. But more and more U.S. businesses are putting the blame — bravely and squarely — right where it belongs: on the obstructionist policies and regulatory schemes of the blame-shifter-in-chief.

Last week, Ohio-based auto parts manufacturer Dana Holding Corp. warned employees of potential layoffs amid “looming concern” about the economy. President and CEO Roger Wood specifically mentioned the walloping burden of “increasing taxes on small businesses” and the need to “offset increased costs that are placed on us through new laws and regulations.”

Case in point: Obamacare. The mandate will cost Dana Holding Corp., which employs some 24,500 workers, “approximately $24 million over the next six years in additional U.S. health care expenses.” As Ohio Watchdog blogger Maggie Thurber reported, the firm’s Toledo area corporate offices laid off seven white-collar employees last Friday; company insiders told her more were on the way. They are not alone.

On Tuesday, Consol Energy issued a federally mandated layoff disclosure announcing its “intent to idle its Miller Creek surface operations near Naugatuck, W.Va.” The move will affect the company’s Wiley Surface Mine, Wiley Creek Surface Mine, Minway Surface Mine, Minway Preparation Plant and Miller Creek Administration Group, all in Mingo County, W.Va. Despite state approval, cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and myriad other agencies, and a stellar safety record, Obama’s EPA dragged its feet on the permit approval process. The impasse has forced layoffs of 145 Consol Energy employees that will hit at the end of the year. They are not alone.

In August, Robert E. Murray, founder and CEO of Murray Energy Corporation in Ohio, blasted the White House anti-coal agenda for the layoffs and closure of his company’s mine. He told Obama water-carrying CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien that “the many regulations that (Obama) and his radical appointees and the U.S. EPA have put on the use of coal, there are dozens of them and collectively by his own energy administration, have closed 175 power plants.” As O’Brien barked at her guest about purported environmental objections, Murray explained that “we cannot get permits for these mines. They are delaying the issuance of permits. If you can’t get the permit, you can’t have the mine. … I created those jobs, and I put the investment in that mine. And when it came time to lay the people off, I went up personally and talked to every one of them myself to lay them off. It’s a human issue.”

And it’s an innovation issue, too.

WYNN: I’ve created about 250,000 direct and indirect jobs according to the state of Nevada’s measurement. If the number is 250,000, that’s exactly 250,000 more than this president, who I’ll be damned if I want to have him lecture me about small business and jobs. I’m a job creator. Guys like me are job creators and we don’t like having a bulls-eye painted on our back.

The president is trying to put himself between me and my employees. By class warfare, by deprecating and calling a group that makes money ‘billionaires and millionaires who don’t pay their share.’ I gave 120% of my salary and bonus away last year to charities, as I do most years. I can’t stand the idea of being demagogued, that is put down by a president who has never created any jobs and who doesn’t even understand how the economy works. . . .

When I first saw reports on Twitter that Chick-fil-A had caved to the tolerance mob, I despaired. Corporation after corporation has given in to the free speech-squelching agitators on the Left who demand political conformity.

Turns out the information was coming from progressive activists trying to shape a false narrative.

Chick-fil-A responds via CitizenLink:

“In response to media reports that Chick-fil-A has agreed to stop making charitable donations to groups like Focus on the Family, the company today released a statement to set the record straight.

Contrary to reports first made by the gay-activist group The Civil Rights Agenda (TCRA) on Tuesday and later picked up by mainstream media outlets, Chick-fil-A and its charitable-giving arm, the WinShape Foundation, did not agree to stop making donations to groups that support the biblical definition of marriage in exchange for being allowed to open a franchise in Chicago.

“For many months now, Chick-fil-A’s corporate giving has been mischaracterized,” executives said in today’s statement. “And while our sincere intent has been to remain out of this political and social debate, events from Chicago this week have once again resulted in questions around our giving. For that reason, we want to provide some context and clarity around who we are, what we believe and our priorities in relation to corporate giving.

“A part of our corporate commitment is to be responsible stewards of all that God has entrusted to us. Because of this commitment, Chick-fil-A’s giving heritage is focused on programs that educate youth, strengthen families and enrich marriages, and support communities. We will continue to focus our giving in those areas. Our intent is not to support political or social agendas.

“As we have stated, the Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect — regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender. We will continue this tradition in the over 1,600 restaurants run by independent Owner/Operators.”

Jim Daly of Focus on the Family added:

Moreover, many news agencies reported that Chick-fil-A had specifically agreed not to give money to Focus on the Family or the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). NOM said Wednesday it has never received money from the foundation. Focus on the Family has.

Some people were quick to criticize the 66-year-old chicken chain for “caving” to political pressure. Focus on the Family President Jim Daly said that’s not what happened.

“Dan and Bubba Cathy are my Christian brothers and good friends. They and their company have long shared Focus on the Family’s commitment to helping build strong and thriving families — and they have in no way deviated from that deeply held and biblically inspired passion while working with the city of Chicago to open Chick-fil-A restaurants there,” Daly said.

“I feel bad the Cathys are having once again to endure media accounts mischaracterizing their values and charitable efforts — and, unfortunately, I know how they feel. Focus on the Family has for 35 years been dedicated to saving and strengthening marriages, helping couples raise happy, resilient kids and encouraging and empowering men and women to advocate for God’s truth with Christ’s heart. And still, in stories like some of those about Chick-fil-A’s efforts to expand in Chicago, we are described as being ‘hateful’ toward certain groups of people.