Brian Sussman, evening host, fill- in morning host, KSFO, ABC Radio Network, Citadel Broadcasting, 12-02-2008, 06:00pm

Brian Sussman: This bailout plain is just absolutely ridiculous, do you realize our national debt, not the budget deficit, the national debt here in the United States is over 8 trillion dollars, but when you include all the money that is being thrown toward bailing out everybody and their brother it’s now about 16 trillion dollars. In other words in the last six months alone these idiots who are running the country have decided to double the debt. The national debt. Now at some point in time somebody’s got to pay the piper and I’ve got news for you, if it’s not going to be you and me it will be our children. This is absolute madness, we are selling ourselves out to what? It’s a decent to slavery. And cockamamie.  We are adopting a welfare mentality where by anyone having a tough time will be able to go to who, the government? The federal government for a  hand out?

General Motors, Chrysler and Ford today presented their turn around plans to congress.

With a big hand out. GM had the widest hand out there the widest you know the biggest, the biggest bucket I guess you could say they want 18 billion in federal loans, that’s 6 billion more than they said they needed just a few weeks ago. They said that they needed an immediate injection of four billion dollars right now, just to stay afloat through Christmas. Chrysler wanted seven billion dollars. Chrysler is a private company! Ford doesn’t want any money because they’ve got cash reserves but at the same time they want a nine billion dollar line of credit just in case. How did we get to this point?

Now the urgency of GMs request has stirred up all sorts of worries that GM may have to file for bankruptcy protection. I say bring it on. That would be the best thing that could absolutely happen. But I’ll tell you something else House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco treat, the house Madam as I like to refer to her, suggested that bankruptcy isn’t good, it’s not an option. It will not be on the table. Why? I’ll tell you why in just a moment.

In a conference call with reporters GMs President Fritz Henderson said that the company is not considering bankruptcy he said that today. He said instead they’re focusing on solely securing help from Washington, he said “There is no Plan B”. Why would he say this? Okay, I say bankruptcy is the only option for these companies.

 I want to get your take on it at 808-5600. That’s 808-5600 on the Sussman show. What do you think we should do. But let me tell you why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said bankruptcy is not an option. It’s become the Democrats are beholden to the unions. They wanna a bailout because there are all of these unfunded liabilities that need to be paid. These are liabilities for retired workers, retired UNION workers. And I will tell you exactly why they are beholden to the unions it has to do with the Obama election.

Obama won among white men who are union members by 18 points. White men who are not union members in the United States of America I’ve got news for you this may be a surprise but it’s true, he lost to that group by 16 points. The Union guys showed up for Obama, Obama won among Union gun owners by a 12 point margin. Gun owners across the United States of America, I’ve got news for you, he lost that group by 25 points. Veterans who are union members voted for Obama by a 25 point margin. Veterans in the general public? He lost by nine points. Can you see what I’m saying here?

The democrats are beholden to their Union friends for all the votes that were cast. And here’s probably the most telling statistic of all. Union members identified protecting pensions, social security and reducing health care cost as their top priorities for the new administration. Union members. We want our pensions protected, we want our social security and we want our health care costs to go down. That’s why Nancy Pelosi and the democrats and quite frankly many Republicans refuse to allow General Motors and Chrysler Ford to go down to bankruptcy. If they were allowed bankruptcy then guys like Fritz Henderson the GM president would have the very tough job of trying to sort out the difficulties, sell off assets that are under performing, renegotiate contracts with the unions and give himself and all the other executives a bit of a haircut. They don’t want to do that. We have laziness we have greed and we have too many people in Washington DC who are beholden to the Unions in the mean time who do they want to pick up the tab?

You and me. The taxpayer. This is absolute nonsense, and then on top of all that today here’s what we are hearing., “House Democrats say that they want to pass an economic recovery bill worth 500 billion. Right away, right away for states! For the 50 states! Another 500 billion. It’s just amazing to me. I used to hear from so many of you liberals. Not so much liberals as anti-war people calling this program on a regular basis you folks that are way to the left calling up and you would recite to me exactly how much money we spent in Iraq and you would break it down by the hour, you would break it down by the day, the week, the month by the dead body. You would break it down every which way, “It’s just an absolute shame that we spent ALL of this Money!” I’ve got news for you. 800 billion dollars for this first big go around bailout bill. That’s is as much money as we’ve spent in Iraq in these past many years. Where are the calls from you kooks on the extreme left? You should be outraged about this, but I guess,  ah your man is in office and all is good. No, it’s not good my friends. This is an eventual decent into slavery something has to be done. Now how should we deal with the automakers, that’s the question here on Hot Talk 560 KSFO.  We are 808-5600. It’s eight minutes past 6.

Brian Sussman, Sussman’s Revolution. Mike “Red” State he joins us right now as your first check on the traffic this hour Mr. State take it away.

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Twelve minutes past 6 o’clock. You’re driving home I’m behind the mike it’s Hot Talk 560 KSFO it’s the Sussman Revolution, not transforming America, we are reclaiming her and now we are talking about the automakers, the big three. Is bankruptcy the best option. I say absolutely yes. Our founding fathers where very clear about this, it’s not as if companies have been upside down in the past, had never been upside down in the past, they’ve seen this before this is as old as the world itself. But the bottom line is that bankruptcy would be the best deal for the US automakers. GM for example. GM has about 7,000 dealers Toyota has 1,500, Honda has about 1,000. GM needs fewer dealerships, it would be a much more efficient way to do business. Problem is the dealers are protected by termination by state law, in many cases. Under a reorganization a chapter 11 bankruptcy guess what? they would be able to terminate a lot of those dealership deals, can’t do it now but under bankruptcy they could. Okay let me give you another example. These unbelievable union contracts. GM is contractually required to support thousands of workers in the United Auto Workers Union jobs banks program which I told you about so if there is modernization if there is robots are brought in on the product line, if a product line goes by the wayside, in other words where ever there are layoffs those UAW workers go to a job bank where they sit around twiddle their thumbs and get full pay. Under a bankruptcy a chapter 11 those regulations would be reworked like [snap sound] that. But with a bail out there is not going to be any reworking anything. Not going to be reworking of anything. Here’s one more for you. Just look at the hourly rates of a lot of these employees. I’ll see if I’ve got the paperwork around here the bottom line is that. Here it is: take home wages at the US average car makers 28.42 an hour. Okay? 28.42 and hour. 26 at Toyota, 24 at Honda, 21 at Hundi GM, Chrysler, Ford about 28 an hour. However, when you add in the legacy cost, the pensions the this the that, 73 dollars for the big three autoworkers per hour. 44 for the non-Detroit producers and when I say non-Detroit producers I’m talking Toyota, BMW, KIA. They make up 54% of the cars bought in America today, and they are build here in America but they have different rules. A lot of these shops are not union shops and those that are, like the NUMI plant out there in Fremont they’ve worked out a contract that’s much more beneficial for, not just the company, but the consumer as well.

Okay, what do we do? Bail out or bankruptcy. 808-5600 on the Sussman show. Let’s hit the lines right now and we will go to Steve, Steve is checking in from Morgan Hill. Steve thanks for joining us, you are on the air.

“Hi Suss. I just wanted to say, I was a small business   Caller.

I say it could happen the say way for US Automakers, file bankruptcy. You know there are profitable aspects to for example GM in foreign countries they do great. But here in the United States they are sucking gas, eh no pun intended.

And the other think I don’t like about this, with the bail out is going to come a mandate from the feds to build cars that nobody wants. People don’t want these light weight high CAFÉ standard cars, they just don’t want them. So GM is going to be building a product that is going to be less competitive because I’ve got news for you the foreign automakers don’t have these same mandates, that’s going to give them a leg up. 808-5600 here on KSFO, we’ll go to Gary in Santa Rosa. Gary is this you? Go right ahead Gary.

Hi, I was call to say that what really bothers me is the tail wagging the dog. Seven percent of the for profit sector of the American is Unionized, seven percent eh if you include government agencies which has been the only sector that has really grown over the last 10 to 20 years it’s still under 12 percent. So that means 88 percent of the people are union free and are not involved in what’s going on in Washington around this and this is just the first step. They want the bail out and then they want EFCA in January when Mr Obama takes office. So that they don’t even have to go thru a secret ballet election, which by the way is the way he got elected. In order to determine if they want to be in the union or not. 

Yeah that irritates me as I was doing some studying up for this show I was reminded of the right to work laws of course here in California we are not a right to work state as a result I HAVE to join a union in order to get behind this microphone, but that is one of the things that has happened in certain other market places where the Ford automakers are building cars in America they are going to states where they don’t have to be Unionized and as a result they can keep their cost lower, so right off the bat they are at an advantage as opposed to in Detroit where everything union top to bottom.

Caller: Absolutely. So duh, who’se going to want to build a plant in California vs. Mississippi or Arizona even.

BS: No you are right on the mark man, appreciate your call on KSFO, here is Jill. Jill is checking in from San Jose. Jill are you there.

Jill: Hi Brian I’m actually driving down

Here’s Dan. In Sonoma. Dan you don’t sound too hopeful tonight I don’t think I do either. What’s going on?

Dan: Good to talk to you Brian. As you point out these sort of situation have happened over the centuries and usually a war happens a revolutionary war a civil war, a collapse of a country, My question is simply this, if the government keeps bailing out and heads in the direction that it keeps going, how long before this country collapses. I don’t think that it can last more than a couple years.

BS: I would agree with you. At some point in time. It’s just going to, we are going to have to pay the piper. I don’t know who the piper is at this point, a lot of our debt is owned by foreign entities, including the Chinese. Most of it is held by the Federal Reserve but at some point in time you couldn’t operate your family like this with out going Busto.

Dan: Well the thing is at times like this, the enemies of this country have a funny habit of wanting to attack us,

BS: Sure

Dan: At our weakest not just a military attack, there is such a thing as an economic attack,

BS: Sure

Dan: They will try to buy us out or put all sorts of leverage against us and we will be powerless to stop them.

BS: Could you imagine financial leverage from foreign entities as well as OPEC deciding to squeeze us with high-oil prices the likes of which we couldn’t even deal with? We could be taken out financially with out a shot being fired from a weapon.

Dan: I honestly think why we haven’t one of the reasons why we haven’t had an attack, the enemies against us are looking at us and saying “We are destroying ourselves, let them do it. And we will pick them apart while they are at their weakest..”

BS: Wow. Hey listen Dan thanks for your call not really encouraging but I think it’s possibly quite realistic.

Here is joe now checking in. Arrogance don’t want to take a personal haircut archicic business model that they have for themselves