Central Command, we seem to have a problem.
The union has decided that Bank of America is to blame for the fact that Republic Windows And Doors is going out of business. Accordingly, they’re demanding that BoA lend enough money to Republic to pay out the 60 days’ severance and vacation pay to the unionized labor.
When I first heard this story a few days ago, I thought what you’re thinking now: boy, this is stupid. The bank isn’t liable for a business failure, and they can’t flush their own money down a rathole, for a large number of very good reasons.
But that wasn’t the end of the story. Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich said that his State does business with Bank of America that’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars in fees and commissions. And that the State of Illinois would pull their business from Bank of America unless they funded the union’s demands.
This is also incredibly stupid. You don’t poke your nose into the dealings of private businesses if no laws were broken. And Blagojevich knows that.
And then it got even more stupid yet. Barack Obama, no less, was asked about the situation in a press conference on Sunday. And he expressed support for the workers. He was quoted in various wire stories to the effect that his plans and programs would need to “get money out the door†and help ordinary people.
Fair enough, Mr. Obama. And I know as well as anyone that the ongoing efforts to stabilize the financial system have been mysteriously unsuccessful at getting banks to start lending again. (Well, it’s mysterious to some people, maybe. Not to anyone who’s ever seen the inside of a bank.)
But the President-elect of the United States has implicitly given his support to an attempt by the State of Illinois to blackmail a private corporation into modifying the way it makes business decisions.
Now this tells you one of two things about Barack Obama: either he’s incredibly unaware of the effect that his words have, now that he’s the President-elect. Or, which would be far worse, he actually believes that it’s appropriate for Illinois to strong-arm the Bank of America into flushing its depositors’ money down a toilet, in order to get an ugly but isolated situation out of the headlines.
The President-elect needs to stand up and clarify which of these two possibilities is the truth.
Be that as it may, I still can’t wait to get my hands on the All-New 2012 Pelosi, the best car Congress can make.
From Pablo, Blagojevich taken into custody:
A source said today that Gov. Rod Blagojevich was taken into federal custody at his North Side home this morning. The U.S. attorney’s office would not confirm the information.
A Blagojevich spokesman said he was unaware of the development. “Haven’t heard anything — you are first to call,” Lucio Guerrero said in an e-mail.
The stunning, early morning visit by authorities to the governor’s North Side home came amid revelations that federal investigators had recorded the governor with the cooperation of a longtime confidant and had begun to focus on the possibility that the process of choosing a Senate successor to President-elect Barack Obama could be tainted by pay-to-play politics.
Blagojevich was taken into custody hours after the Tribune reported that the investigation into allegations of pay-to-play politics within his administration had been expanded to include his pending choice of a Senate replacement for Obama. The Democratic governor has said he expects to make a decision on the state’s next senator in weeks.
He is probably just talkin out his ass like always. Just like NAFTA, FISA, public financing for his campaign, and immediate withdraw from Iraq. Either that or he is just a freakin socialist take your pick.
“Or, which would be far worse, he actually believes that it’s appropriate for Illinois to strong-arm the Bank of America into flushing its depositors’ money down a toilet”
I think he calls this “spreading the wealth around”. You now the trickle up economics that he keeps mentioning. Everything will be so much better when O! can just skip the middle man and just force businesses to give away money to people. No votes in Congress that way.
The workers, dunce fuck, aren’t liable for Bank of America’s business failures either, oh wait, yes they are since that Socialist-fuck George W. Bush nationalized the banks. I forgot.
Good morning!
If a business is a failure, it’s George Bush’s fault. I’m sure Hussein Obama will be using that excuse as well.
You wanna know what my platform is? Here it is. I’m gonna soak the fat boys and spread it out thin.
Willie Stark, All the King’s Men
The workers worked for a factory, they did not work for Bank of America.
I know I blame Bush. It was Bush that implemented the policies that got us here, now, wasn’t it?
Oh. No, it wasn’t. I sure was a dumbfuck for thinking that, wasn’t I?
Morning, Dan-o. Making friends through personalized derision, as usual.
I’d like to take this opportunity to focus your attention to the destructive nature to the age old firewall between corporate and government entities now that the taxpayers’ money is being used to fund the raining of pain onto the heads of the taxpayers themselves.
Indeed this corporation did violate labor laws, and Bank of America facilitated the breaking of those laws.
We may have to look to France’s legal structurings of their nationalized banking system to help us remedy the broken nexus.
No, I’m totally serious. We also may have to throw Messrs Bernanke and Paulson in jail for acting well beyond their legal authority.
The fuck if some nationalized piece of shit failed bank should extract unlawfully upon the same taxpayers who fund their operations.
Cluster fuckage.
I blame George Bush for thor.
Personalized derision? What are you talking about?
And what labor laws did they violate?
The bank pulled its credit from the company and the company closed its plant without due notice and with standing legal financial obligations to its employees, you seismic fuckin’ retard. You cowardly fuck, stand their with your dick in your greasy redumblican hand while hardworking honest Americans get fucked out of money they need to feed their families – you unabashed whore, to the gulag with your ass.
Thor do you think people in here actually read what you type and do not come to the automatic conclusion you are just here to call people names and act like a douchebag for your own amusement?
The business couldn’t have provided “due notice” in this case, thor. As far as the standing financial obligations, that’s something that needs to be worked out as best it may.
They don’t have any money. BoA isn’t giving them any money. Sell the plant, if you can find anyone who has the money to buy it. Pay off the workers, first. But there’s going to be no end to this, once entered.
“The bank pulled its credit from the company and the company closed its plant without due notice”
Yes that whole forcing banks to give credit to people that can not pay sure worked out great huh? All Bush’s fault too I bet.
Failure to give proper notice to those being layed off. You can’t lay off employees with only three day notice.
Thor has never heard of bankruptcy.
And banks don’t owe people ( nor corporate entities) loans they probably can’t pay back.
thor, you tell me where they get the money to keep the employees on.
IF the company thought it would qualify for a loan and guessed wrong, maybe they guess wrong about doors and windows, too.
How about O! raise taxes on the factory because it produces too much carbon. That will be a sure fire way to employ all of the workers.
Maybe all those loans to people who couldn’t pay them back have something to do with the lack of need for windows and doors around the nation.
Who said anything about blaming Bush, you fuckin’ airheaded retard? Don’t even try to pull your little victimized-by-Code-Pink fantasy, ya Pussy with a capital P.
Honest men and women who work deserve their pay. You little redumblican bail-out whore, fuck off.
They shouldn’t write any books, though. That would be wrong.
Thor’s memory is short.
I guess he’s hitting the nog early today.
Wow if cussing at people over the internet makes you a real man then here let me try. I bet your mother must be a sad sack of shit. At Thanksgiving dinner she probably tells the rest of your family you are dead. All that in between working as a Natasha in some flea infested hostel. I would pay her the normal fee just to stop her from procreating again.
They have all the protections the law allows, Thor. They are first in line amongst creditors. But they aren’t guaranteed the company will succeed and need their labor.
Smoking the wreath!
Those working persons are also taxpayers, my man, and their taxes funded BofA, therefore BofA has no right to force that company out of business without regard to its new masters – those taxpayers.
The days of smirking redumblicans fuckin’ the little guy over are over, smirking redumblicans.
I’m kind of unhappy at the gratuitous vulgarity. Sweariness has lost all its spice around here.
Thor, banks have no duty to lend to any given person or entity.
Most especially no duty to people or entities who can’t pay the money back.
Okay. Well, let’s see. Making stupid loans got us into this, so let’s make more stupid loans.
The company is forced out of business by bad business practices, overextension of assets, poor prediction of markets and demand, perhaps overcompensation of employees. Businessess are to make profits on goods or services, they aren’t kindergartens for the protection of fingerpainters unions.
Attn. redumblicans, listen up: everyone should do what thor wants, except thor. And get him his freaking bottle!
Carry on.
The banks do, however, have a fiduciary duty to depositors and shareholders. Making bad loans is a breach of that duty,
Ah, so you get it! BofA is trying to push to the front by pulling their credit from the company before that company can pay its first in-line creditors, namely, its employees. Glad we agree. Now if those employees get screwed and walk off with that plant’s equipment I hope the courts give the nod of approval.
Thank God we have a President-elect who gives a fuck about hardworking Americans being victimized by failed corporate leeches.
He’s sad employees lost their employment because of tight money. It is sad. But life isn’t fair, and those employees will have to rely upon their share of the companies remaining assets, and unemployment insurance or union protections, and their own prudential savings. If no one wants to buy windows or doors made by this company, pretending that there IS a market is not really a clear headed way of dealing with the situation.
THe courts will distribtute assets or arrange payments to creditors according to law. The bank cut its losses.
Bank of America should agree to make the loan….as long as Illinois pledges the public employees pension funds as collateral.
How do you know if these people were “hard-working?” They probably made a shitty product, or didn’t deliver on time. They’re entitled to unemploment, making a “I got screwed video” for youtube, etc. Move on!
Why anyone bothers responding to the mayfly’s “Look at Me! Look at Me!” is a mystery.
At least Barack is paying back some of his debts.
You can’t lay off employees with only three day notice.
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Mikey NTH, I guess I will quit again. I was cold turkey for awhile. Hammer is laid down.
“No golden parachutes for anyone!”
Fox just reported that Blagojevich has been taken into federal custody. Yes, a sitting governor got himself a new pair of bracelets this morning.
Heh. Nicely done, Fitzy.
Save me, O!
The companies I’ve worked for gave no prior notice, they just laid workers off. One day Joe and Jane were there, and the next day they weren’t. Really fucked up the organizational chart!
…btw, I’m aware that Illinois has an idiot law on its books that demands 60 days notice of a layoff, I’m laughing at the fucking idiocy of such a law and that other idiots would support it.
By not giving a failing company more money. Thanks for clearing that up, finance boy.
What are they paying for aluminum cans these days?
This is almost as beautiful example of the idiocy of redumblicanism as the day Carin stopped cheering for the demise of General Motors when her warehouser hubby informed her that closing GM would cause the closing of her hubby’s warehouse.
You go around hating on people for nothing more than you believe them to be non-human symbols of economic narratives that you don’t even fully understand. Our prosperity is intertwined in this economy, always was, but you allowed yourself to believe the redumblican shills who told you that you were an island, and that over there on that island are evil American people.
Every worker has a right to his wages, and they should maximize their wages when they can. A factory worker who wants a buck more an hour is no more greedy than the CEO that asks for a $10-million dollar bonus. But those CEO’s have be getting their non-performance based bonuses yet the workers, not so much.
Trickle up, not down, is the answer.
Fox just reported that Blagojevich has been taken into federal custody.
Nothing on their web site yet.
Oh please, please let this be true.
Look, it’s a government welfare bunny!
Oh please, please let this be true.
It’s on the site now.
I’m having a Muntz Moment.
Fox just reported that Blagojevich has been taken into federal custody.
Looks like he’s organizing his own sit-in.
….and thor, you need to loosen those neck-bolts a little. You wanna live through all this, don’t you?
Linky
Pot,
kettlerefrigerator, black.Better be an energy efficient refrigerator, bitch!
workers are not business CREDITORs. They get paid for their labor and they are owed exactly for their time.
At least, thor, I have a job and I work for my money rather than an allowance from mommy and daddy, basement boy.
Viva la Revolucion! I’m protesting for the little guy!
If Blagojevich is found guilty, never forgetting that’s if, then maybe he’ll share a cell with Sarah Palin’s good buddy Ted Stephens.
Haha!
You have no idea how I earn my money, little pajama clad gov’t-dole bloggerina.
Sarah Palin’s good buddy Ted Stephens.
You’re too stupid to breathe, thor.
If Blagojevich is found guilty, never forgetting that’s if, then maybe he’ll share a cell with Sarah Palin’s good buddy Ted Stephens.
And then when William “Moneysicle” Jefferson joins them, it’s gonna be a three-way sausage-fest for the books.
You know what they should do? Start a business that makes windows and doors. That’ll show The Man!!
The Vice President (elect) has a son who is kept on $100,000/year retainer by BoA. I understand that this setup was for the purposes of favorable credit card legislation, but if Obama (elect) is actually interested in helping out, he could probably get Scranton Joe to make a couple of phone calls.
I trollhammered you again, by the way, thorrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Try adding 50 m’s next time. You get one post per.
You know what they should do? Start a business that makes windows and doors. That’ll show The Man!!
Only one problem: When it’s your business, you get about 10 seconds notice.
Yeah! Maybe they could even make better windows and doors than the competition, at a lower price!
Nah. That would never work.
Blagojevich, Rezko, and birth certificate concerns — this president takes office under what can only be described as an ethical cloud.
More of an ethical supercell, I’d say.
How about the government force people to buy those windows? Or else fine them if they do not. That seems to be the direction health care is going so f@ck it.
Oh, they’ve got Blago on wiretaps trying to sell the Senate seat. Nice.
Bye, Rod!
It would be awesome if he rolled over on Obama, wouldn’t it?
Blagojevich lives two blocks north of me. I feel absolutely deprived I didn’t see this spectacle on my way to work today.
I hope they get Todd Stroger next (Cook County board president, patronage pig, prime mover behind the highest sales tax in the country, and noted Urkel impersonator).
“Viva la Revolucion! I’m protesting for the little guy!”
Hey, it’s “power to the people” thor, today. He’s only allowed to be an elitist pussy to republicans, I guess.
Question for constitutional scholars: can a President-Elect be impeached? I mean, since it’s an official position now and everything.
Fitzmas!
Oh, they’ve got Blago on wiretaps trying to sell the Senate seat. Nice.
This highgrade stupid or wait for the word…hubris!
thor tripped and fell in a bigger pile of stupid than usual, this morning.
If there’s ever a stage version of Barfly, thor is your man.
Heh. I can’t wait to see what the usual suspects have to say.
Oh, look! BOOOOSH!
Any question now whether Patrick ‘Gives’ Fits-gerald gets to keep his job under the new P-E? I’ll bet the loss comes in a Clintonesque wholesale sweep clean but it can’t come without pain, due to the fuss they made over Bush’s purge of the turgid seven.
Honest and hardworking Governors cannot be arrested with out so much as three days notice!
The dude was under investigation and thought nothing of continuing his corrupt practices assured he’d get an Obama appointment.
At least Blago appears to be a proper family man just looking out for his honey.
Whenever God closes doors and windows, somewhere he opens a jail cell.
Heh. I can’t wait to see what the usual suspects have to say.
Oh, look! BOOOOSH!
Heh indeed. Doesn’t even get the prosecutor is Saint Fitz!1!!!!
This is not the Fitzmas you were looking for.
He can go about his business.
Move along.
I guess it is time to play name that party again.
How much friendly feeling are Cubs fans gonna have for this guy when they smell him using their ballteam as a lever to get rid of his critics?
Meh, [shrug] everybody does it, it’s Chicago…..?
Or, hey, fuck with my Cubs?…….let’s kill that guy……?
Thor is evidently not able to handle the complexity of the Illinois law which specifically allows the lack of notification in cases where it could interfere with getting or maintaining financing.
Nobody wants to lend money to a failing business. Unless they are: too big to fail or need a czar.
Thor should cut out the middle man and lobby Nancy Pelosi for a window czar. That would do it. Maybe the czar could do something about Vista in his spare time.
Have they found out who he was soliciting bribes from to take over the vacant senate seat? Maybe this is just a leap of imagination but wouldn’t they be guilty of something too. I do not know though since these people all have D’s in front of their names they must have had the best intentions possible so I am sure everything was on the up and up.
What did Obama know and when did he know it?
Mr. Pink
He just had a meeting with Jesse Jackson Jr. on the ahem appointment ahem.
There are wiretaps in this case.
Oh, that would be a catch.
“very productive conversation, very thoughtful†that covered a broad range of issues.
and
On the issue of the U.S. Senate selection, federal prosecutors alleged Blagojevich sought appointment as Secretary of Health and Human Services in the new Obama administration, or a lucrative job with a union in exchange for appointing a union-preferred candidate.
Biz as usual.
He’ll do the Clinton thing and fire them all, and nothing will happen to him. Expect pardons to fall like rain on Illinois.
The best way would be to pardon all persons, living or dead, who at present, or at anytime in the past, lived in or around the State of Illinois. Just to be sure. Congress won’t mind. Hell, pardon all them too.
How about we elect someone from this political machine to be president? Oh wait…..
O! “That is not the Governor Blago I knew. The Blago I knew wouldn’t get caught.”
Who needs fiction when you’ve got Chicago? And who wants to start the NO MORE YEARS chant?
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O Lord, please don’t let me be disappointed when I turn on the tv in about 5 minutes. Amen
Actually, employees with wages owed them by a company filing for bankruptcy are a type of creditor in bankruptcy cases, with a priority claim to assets.
Employee claims for wages earned in the 90 days prior to the bankruptcy filing (or the debtor shutting down operations, whichever comes first) are a priority for payment, but payment in full isn’t guaranteed, only priority among claims of creditors against the debtor. And distribution may not take place for a very long time, until the bankrupcty case is over.
Funny Thor, not really, she helped force out the party treasurer and the Atty General in her state; challenging both parties, she resigned from her post on the oil commission, when it seemed they were willing to keep his corrupt ass in office. She probably did burn bridges to the state party, by doing so which is more useless than your musings. But she’s accomplished a heck of a lot more than your guy.
That may be true, Sarah. thor seems to be confused, though; he’s got the cutting-off of additional credit all twisted up with debt priority.
Let’s see….I stopped making my car payments so the bank repossessed it. I lost my job for lack of transportation.
But I live in a ‘right to work’ state….so according to Blaga…Blagoja….(oh hell, Jailbird), the bank should be forced to provide me with a rental car and a down payment for a new one…and probably unemployment, too.
This is no less stupid and criminal than what’s been happening for the last thirty years with the CRA and ACORN.
Mmm, no. Slarti too tooopid to know much about business complexities. Better you stick to your political hack whelping and your Duuuuuuhs.
Geez, tailgunner. Sorry about that.
Based on O!s comments, it sounds like we’re headed for a whole new flavor of CRA…
Perhaps I’m thickheaded, but I don’t see how they could have given anybody any more notice if they had suddenly had theor financing pulled…
When they sell off their assets, they’ll be able to pay the workers, as well as their other creditors…
It’s a crappy thing to go down, especially at this time. But, get used to it because there’s gonna be a lot of legislation coming doen the pike soon that will cause a lot more firms to suddenly go belly up…
And, what about the LA Times suspending their severance payments to former employees…
Where’s the Outrage!…