And, amazingly, nobody’s saying it’s going to bankrupt the company “for generations.”

And although a lot is still up in the air, move might even save it:

GM said it would recognize charges for the buyouts in 2006. The company, which posted a $10.6 billion loss in 2005, last week raised its estimated exposure to Delphi to a range of $5.5 billion to $12 billion.

GM, which remains the world’s No. 1 automaker by unit sales, has been hurt by the waning popularity of profitable sport utility vehicles, high commodity costs and the burden of its pension and health-care obligations.

Delphi said about 13,000 of its 24,000 UAW-represented workers would be eligible for the early retirement incentives, including a one-time payment of $35,000.

The Troy, Michigan-based company also said that about 5,000 of its workers would have the opportunity to return to factory jobs with GM, which spun off Delphi in 1999.

GM will fund the lump-sum payments and provide retirement benefits for any Delphi workers that return to its payroll, said GM spokeswoman Katie McBride.

Early retirement incentives will also be offered to all of GM’s 113,000 factory workers, she said.

Of that total, 36,000 are currently eligible to retire under the UAW contract, while another 27,000 are close to 30 years of experience and will be offered special incentives, McBride said.

If too many workers in a particular plant opt to take the buyouts, the existing contract between GM and the union provides a seniority-based system to determine who would be eligible.

Why is the UAW willing to accept this for Delphi workers, but dead-set against people who keep working investing their own Social Security money? OK, because they have to or Delphi will liquidate. Fine — But you have to wonder how many workers are pleased to get control of something compared to what has turned out to be an empty long-term promise of (probably) nothing.

Isn’t that what we’re facing as a nation with Social Security and Medicare?

My, my what a “classless” (so to speak) bunch of critics Stossel has.

But Stossel is ready for them:

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) objects that I “conveniently” failed to note that an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study found that “the six countries that spend the most on education as a percentage of GDP … all score well above the international mean on the PISA.” OK, some countries spend a lot of money and do well. But that very same OECD study said that no fewer than 20 countries that spend less money than we do achieve better scores, and that “Spending alone is not sufficient to achieve high levels of outcomes.” The United States spends $83,910 per student from ages 6 to 15. The Slovak Republic, which outperforms the United States in this study, spends $17,612 per student.

The NEA also claimed I’m not objective because I make speeches for money. I do, but I donate the money to charities. For example, I give money to Student Sponsor Partners, an organization that pays for poor kids to go to private school. You might say I put my money where my mouth is — unlike the teachers’ organizations, which often put their mouths where the money is.

Perhaps the most fundamentally flawed idea is this all-too-common one: “Public schools were created to provide a ‘public good’: education for all, regardless of a family’s ability to pay … By contrast, under a voucher system that gives public dollars to completely unmonitored private schools, there is no such right to expect or demand accountability for student performance or how tax dollars are spent.” They don’t get it. Competition brings accountability. Private schools may be “unmonitored” by bureaucrats, but they face the most demanding kind of supervision our society provides: a market full of freely choosing individuals. Parents’ desire for a good education for their children is a much more powerful check on schools than any politician’s law or union rule. The people who want to control every young American’s education like to talk about accountability, but what they want is to make schools accountable to anointed bureaucrats who think they know what’s best for all of us. They evade real accountability — the kind of accountability where if a student or parent realizes a school isn’t doing its job, he can find another one.

The first argument, on GDP, is a really dumb one for the AFT to trot out. The US has the highest per-capita GDP in the world. If a dirt-poor country has to spend, say 30% of GDP on education, does that mean we must? That’s preposterous — which is also a good description for a system on which we spend so much and get so little.

The subscription side of Monday’s Wall Street Journal had a grim reminder of the reality in the Mainland.

When one of their reporters asked China’s Commerce Minister Bo Xilai what his country might learn from India, whose economy, after decades of overbearing government mismanagement, has finally opened up and flourished as a result, the response was right out of the Marxist playbook (links to Wiki entries for Long March and Bo Yibo added by me):

“Democracy is not the ultimate goal,” Mr. Bo, the princeling son of Long March veteran and former Vice Premier Bo Yibo, declared. “We need to raise the living standards of the people.” (Cue: rent-a-clap.) “I’ve been to lots of developed countries where there are also a lot of poor people,” he added, jabbing his finger at us. (Encore rent-a-clap.) “I don’t think it’s good to separate countries into democratic or non-democratic countries.” (One more clap.)

Now, Mr. Bo happens to be one of the more enlightened Beijing bureaucrats. A former mayor of Dalian, a northeastern port city in Liaoning province, he won praise for boosting foreign investment, among other things. In his new role as commerce minister, he’s also reacted calmly to bouts of European and U.S. trade protectionism.

But despite prolonged contact with open societies, Mr. Bo still doesn’t seem to understand the secret of their success. Near the end of his huff, Mr. Bo backtracked and claimed that Beijing is “listening” to the voices of its people, and that its citizens are gradually gaining more democratic freedoms. If only it were so.

And if only the members of BizzyBlog’s Internet Wall of Shame weren’t assisting Mr. Bo and his cohort in keeping their iron grip.

….. and an excuse to do a relatively effortless post (HT Students for a Free Tibet):

This card was delivered to Google Security at the headquarters of BizzyBlog Internet Wall of Shame member Google in Mountain View, California on No Luv 4 Google Day, known to most as Valentine’s Day. Video of the delivery is here.

And Students for a Free Tibet is blogrolled, which should have happened long ago. (Don’t worry, conservatives, we can worry about a free-market Tibet when the “free” part is taken care of.)

Mark at S.O.B Alliance Member Weapons of Mass Discussion has mostly figured out Ohio US Senate Candidate David Smith, and it’s not pretty. Especially if you’re from Ohio, read his post.

For those from outside of Ohio, incumbent US Senator Mike DeWine is not and really never has been popular with the GOP base for a whole bunch of reasons, and dislike for him has steadily grown in the 11- plus years he has been in the Senate. I’ll just name three reasons, and if you’re center-right or conservative, you’ll be with me: He’s anti-ANWR, he’s one of the Gang of 14 on judges, and he’s weak on the 2nd Amendment (and that only gets to about 60% of it).

DeWine had three GOP Primary challengers. With 7-1/2 weeks to go in the race, one of them, John Mitchel, figured out three things: first, that Mike DeWine can’t be defeated if there are multiple challengers; second, that he was not in the best position of the three to pull off the upset; and third, that he’d better get out quickly so that he could take his name off the ballot. So he withdrew. Class act, all the way.

That leaves two challengers. One, Bill Pierce, has gained traction in two forms. First, he’s winning endorsements from county leaders in open and honest and endorsement contests. Second, the state GOP establishment in Columbus, who has never met an incumbent candidate it doesn’t like, regardless of how many times that person has betrayed core principles, has made crystal clear its obvious dislike of Bill’s success (no time here to go into the details, but anyone with eyes can see it), i.e., the establishment’s cozy “no primaries, please” preference is paramount, and they see Bill Pierce as a clear and present danger to the status quo.

The remaining challenger is David Smith. He has lived in Ohio just over a year, and never lived here previously. On that basis alone, he’s unelectable; DeWine will rip him for it, and if Smith by some incomprehensible miracle got past DeWine, Democrat Sherrod Brown would plant the carpetbagging seed so deeply in voters’ minds in summer ad blitzes that no amount of charisma and charm would be able to overcome it.

He has won no endorsements at county GOP endorsement meetings (fair or rigged). He clearly trails Pierce, and badly, by any objective measure.

Despite all of this, Smith has dithered to the point that I am told his name will be on the ballot and cannot be removed at this “late” date. (Aside: What’s THAT all about? You would think we’re still using the Pony Express and that Kinko’s didn’t exist. There are still six weeks to go — the legislature should cut down the “off the ballot” time to four weeks at most before an election.)

But it gets worse: Mr. Smith is sandbagging county GOP leaders and voters he talks to about his background and experience, and has been caught in a litany of, ahem, less than truthful statements that I will not catalog, except to say that I can.

Last straw: He has reneged on a promise to withdraw if certain conditions were met. Pick it up with Mark:

The mediator, you, and Bill Pierce all agreed that if FIFTEEN central committee chairs could be found who believed your carpetbagging issues were a fatal flaw, then you would drop out. The FIFTEEN WERE FOUND, and you….RENEGED!!!! Columbus TownHall has you on tape making promises that you have not kept about getting out of the race, yet you deny this and you also send bots over to smear other candidates and their campaigns, yet claiming you are a victim.

David Smith has crossed the line into being clearly unacceptable under any conditions.

For the good of his party, and to give primary voters one clear and genuinely viable up-or-down alternative to Mike DeWine, David Smith should drop out of the race. He still has time, but not much, to do the right thing.

I’ll have more to say on this in the next few days as certain things shake out, and as we find out once and for all what David Smith is made of.

Free Links:

• The Gallup Polling Organization Drops CNN after 14 years — It’s because Gallup doesn’t want to be tied to one network and wants to get into “e-broadcasting,” but despite CNN denials, it’s also, based on a memo Drudge obtained, because CNN doesn’t pull in the viewers: “CNN has far fewer viewers than it did in the past and we feel that our brand was getting lost and diluted combined with the CNN brand. We have only about 200 thousand viewers during our CNN segments.” Even as recently as 1999, who would have thought this could happen? I won’t be happy until the CNN programming at the airports gets replaced with Fox. Update: Media Bistro’s TV Newser has CNN’s strong response (”unprofessional and untrue”), claiming that Gallup was going to go its own way regardless, and citing international ratings to refute Gallup’s low ratings claim. I’m not buying — I would think that with minor exceptions all Gallup cares about is domestic viewers.
• Schlussel Is Exactly Right — On the occasion of NFL Commissioner Paul Taglaibue’s retirement announcement (effective in July), she points out that professional football has profited on the backs of taxpayers. A previous BizzyBlog post on the topic is here (”Pro Sports Owners and Athletes: Supersized Welfare Queens”). The reason players can command such ridiculously high salaries is that taxpayers have built the stadiums and removed a cost from the equation that should be borne by the owners. With the market distorted in that way, a lot of money is freed up to bid on, and bid up, the talent. Add to that the idea of the “salary cap” (which to diehard fans is really a salary goal — if the owner isn’t spending the money, he MUST be a greedy pig who isn’t interested in winning), and you have a recipe for ever-escalating costs and every owner having the ability to hold his city hostage if facilities aren’t kept state-of-the-art. Example: Indianapolis is in the process of building a brand-new stadium, only 22 years after the Hoosier Dome was built to entice the then-Baltimore Colts to Indy.
• Schlussel Is Right Again (that’s the usual situation with her) About Something Else — HBO’s “Big Love” manages to deal with polygamy, and totally ignores its practice in the US by Muslims. I think the word she was looking to describe HBO’s failure to deal with this starts with “chicken” and ends with “t.”
• Geez, it’s hard to keep up on everything, but I did notice that our friends the mainland Chinese have, according to Reporters Without Borders, imprisoned a dissident for 10 years (HT RConversation, whose daily links on online freedom, especially in China, should at least be skimming material). The story was also picked up by PC World (HT Drudge)
• If it weren’t for the fact that ignorance has consequences, the Free Market Project’s report on a conversation between dimwitted talking head Ann Curry and reality-based Jim Cramer would be funny. Trouble is, it’s the Currys of the world, who think the sky is falling because they still think consumer prices are jumping (they aren’t), and who don’t realize that the demise of General Motors, if it even occurs, won’t weigh that heavily on the overall economy, who appear on the nightly news shows.
• Romantic notions die hard — Like the myth of wondrous free health care in France. Here are 12 datelined events that should disabuse people of the notion that going in that direction here in the US would be a good thing (HT Don Luskin).
• A Corrupt Congressman You Probably Haven’t Heard of — It’s hiding behind a subscription wall at Roll Call, but No Agenda has a lot of the story at his place. This guy’s making REPUBLICAN Randall “Duke” Cunningham, who the WORMs (Worn-Out Reactionary Media, known to most as The Mainstream Media) have covered breathlessly, look like a smalltime operator. (Do you really have to ask what party William Jefferson of Louisiana is with?)

In two months, the school went from “horrible” to “an amazing transformation”:

Completion of Al Buhaira School in Mahmudiyah is gift to children, Soldiers
By Spc. Karl Johnson,
363rd MPAD
March 19, 2006

FOB MAHMUDIYAH, Iraq – Amongst the smiles and shouts of excited children, U.S. and Iraqi military officials came together Monday to celebrate the completion of the Al Buhaira Elementary School remodeling project in Mahmudiyah.

During an emotional ceremony held inside the all-girls school, eager students greeted their guests with cheers and applause. Proud young Iraqi students sang while escorting 4th Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division Soldiers through the school in order to view first-hand, the progress made during the two-month project.

“When we first visited the school, it was horrible,” recalled Brig. Gen. Mahdi Chark Zier Kadim.

“The building was horrible,” he reiterated, “but the students still had a desire to study and learn. They pushed us to get this project done.”

….. The hard-luck school, which nevertheless boasts some of the highest test scores in the country, first came to the attention of U.S. and Iraqi military forces when it was used as a polling location in December’s elections. Littered with broken glass, dilapidated ceilings and crumbling walls, it was hand-selected as a candidate for reconstruction.

“General Mahdi chose this school because it was in the worst condition of any school in Mahmudiyah,” said Lt. Col. Eric Conrad, commander of the Brigade Troops Battalion, 2nd BCT, 101st Abn. Div., and serving as Military Transition Team chief for 4th Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division. “When the project started, he not only sent his own soldiers to help with the reconstruction, but also contributed with monetary assistance.”

Struck by the school’s amazing transformation, an emotional Conrad said the building’s condition just two months ago reminded him of the “bleakness” he had witnessed as a young boy visiting East Berlin.

“The first time we went in the school, the children were crying,” said Conrad. “This time, because of the children cheering and singing, it was the Soldiers who had a tear in their eye.”

Also swept up by the emotion of the event was the school’s staff. Overwhelmed by the children’s cheers, several tearful school officials expressed their inability to adequately thank the soldiers who had made the project possible.

“This community has always been proud of its students,” said Conrad. “Now they can be just as proud of their school.”

….. In a nation marked by many years of conflict and struggle, it is hoped that the efforts of those who want to build a better future for Iraq don’t go unnoticed, and the cheers and tears of joy brought on by the success at the Al Buhaira Elementary School will prove to be contagious.

Okay, this post about the Unreality-Based Community and one of its big players’ contention that the right-wing blogosphere is dead was pretty funny. In fact, from time to time I have to pinch myself to be sure I’m still alive.

This post isn’t funny. It’s about coal mine safety. It’s about a stubborn pack of lies that won’t go away in the face of the facts.

Today’s offering is from yesterday’s editorial page of The New York Times, that financially deteriorating former newspaper of record (HT Armed Liberal at Winds of Change, who referred back to that site’s good debunking on March 2, via Instapundit):

The Bush administration’s accommodation of the mining industry — notably by packing the mine safety agencies with pro-management appointees — has produced a marked decline in major fines for negligent companies. A recent data analysis by The Times documented a risky, business-friendly downturn in penalties since 2001. At the same time, nearly half of the announced fines still go uncollected.

….. Beyond the slump in fines, the administration’s record has been distinguished by budget and job cuts in critical mine safety agencies. Lately, there’s been a flurry of reform proposals in response to the deaths in the headlines. But an administration that prefers to fill key regulatory positions with mining lobbyists and executives has a long way to go toward miner safety. It should begin with an urgent reversal of its embarrassing record on penalizing flagrantly negligent companies.

Sigh.

So here we go again, with the main points covered previously (here, here, and here), plus a couple more:

• The most important “downturn” before this year, which tragically has not gone well so far, was in the number of coal mine deaths:

Coal Mine Fatalities, 1995 -2005

• Real Clear Politics Blog documented the decrease in the injury rate.
• This graphic shows a selective 9-year trend in fatalities, injuries and inspection hours through 2004 (2005 is still not available), and shows improved results, with no letup in inspection effort:

  

• On spending, from this previous post — “spending has trended upward during The Bush Administration, from about $250 million in fiscal 2002 (the first budget the administration was responsible for) to about $285 million in fiscal 2005, before being reduced to 2006’s planned amount of roughly $280 million. Even with the 2006 reduction, the increase from 2002 is 12% in 4 years, which is about equal to inflation during that time.”
• More importantly in terms of spending, if onsite inspection hours aren’t being reduced, but spending is, that must mean that the Mine Safety and Health Administration is being more efficient in its back-office operations and in keeping its overhead in Washington under control, making organized labor’s complaint about a 170-person reduction in headcount irrelevant.
• Also, don’t forget that there were 6.4% fewer coal mines in 2004 than there were in 2001 (probably fewer now), and 5.2% fewer coal miners in 2004 than in 2001.
• As to the fines, I believe that many are waived if there is demonstrated compliance, so it’s not a matter of them somehow going uncollected. Only someone with a punitive turn of the century mindset (20th century, not the 21st) would look at the goal of the government inspectors as collecting as much as they can in fines.

As to the Times’ complaint about using industry insiders to adminster the MSHA, I stand by these comments from two of my January posts:

(from the first post)

In fact, these results support the contention that staffing Interior with people who actually know their industry has led to greater safety. And where was The Times when coal mine fatalities increased over 40% during the last three years of the previous administration’s arguable responsiblity (1999, 2000, and 2001, given that a new administration’s first budget and full implementation of its priorities typically does not occur until October of its first year in office)?

(from the second post)

Overall, I would characterize MSHA’s performance in coal mine safety (during the past four years) as a record of continuous improvement (with, of course, the general cooperation of coal mine operators and employees). This is what happens when people who know how to run businesses take the reins of government agencies: They streamline operations while at the same time improving results, all while working together with, instead of antagonizing, the companies they monitor.

Nothing meaningful is accomplished when The Times whines about a modest spending reduction, or when Big Labor objects to gradually shedding workers who aren’t needed, except planting seeds of resentment and bitterness where they don’t belong (but that is the point, isn’t it?). It’s supposed to be all about results, not money.

I can guarantee you that the people at MSHA, and the people that run the mines, think that this year’s death toll (21 coal mining fatalities so far) is unacceptable, and are devoting all their energies to resuming the downward trend. To think otherwise is unsubstantiated slander.

The fact that The Times continues to play the same tune it has since the Sago tragedy occurred in January, in the face of the reality of the previous four years, is nothing more than a cynically opportunistic attempt to discredit an administration they simply cannot abide for purely partisan political reasons. It has led to many embarrassments over a several-year period, a really recent one, and ultimately has caused financial embarrassment. Yet they never learn.

So the decline of The Times continues.

_________________________

UPDATE: In aptly titled post (”Groundhog Day at The New York Times”), Pundit Review chips in (sorry guys, I must have deleted your trackback — it’s hard to get good help these days), and revisits their very good post on fatalities and safety from early January.