Fuel-Efficient-Vehicles.org

employment in the U.S. has been steadily improving since Obama took office

April 2nd 2010
Earlier today, the Labor Department released its employment report for March 2010, which found that "employment in the U.S. increased in March by the most in three years" signaling that the "economic recovery will be sustained."

people hired - people laid off = Jobs Lost. Finally, more hired than laid off!

Some Republicans have falsely claimed that the numbers are "mostly" due to hiring Census workers, others lied that this is only one month, not a trend, but of the 162,000 jobs added to the economy last month, 123,000 were in the private sector, and the graph (above) shows clearly the disaster Bush and the Republicans in congress were dragging us down toward, and the decided reversal instantly after Obama took office. This is not just a one month "tic" or "blip".
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U.S. Stuck In Reverse on fuel economy

Only two 40+ mpg cars available, down from five, study shows
By Roland JonesAssociate editor MSNBC, ET Feb 28, 2007

While Congress and the Bush administration debate how to improve fuel economy in automobiles, a new study says the United States is "stuck in reverse" when it comes to offering consumers a wide selection of fuel-efficient vehicles.

In his State of the Union address this month, Bush asked for authority to reform the fuel economy program as part of a broader plan to curb gasoline consumption by 20 ("adjusted" = only 8%) percent over the next decade. [but, even that is a lie. He intends to create "a sliding mileage scale" to wreck even that:]

The Bush administration recently revamped [relaxed] the rules for light trucks, creating a sliding mileage scale that is based on a vehicle's size. Now Bush wants to assign a similar measure to passenger cars. (making the rules more relaxed not more demanding. So - no incentive to improve)

The American people are not the problem, it is the "partners" of big oil in Washington.
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Bluefin tuna will be ‘wiped out in three years’

From correspondents in Madrid, Spain; April 14, 2009 10:35am

OVERFISHING will wipe out the breeding population of Atlantic bluefin tuna, one of the ocean's largest and fastest predators, in three years unless catches are dramatically reduced, conservation group WWF said. As European fishing fleets prepare for the two-month Mediterranean fishing season which opens tomorrow, WWF said its analysis showed the bluefin tuna that spawn - those aged four years and older - will have disappeared by 2012 at current rates.
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New Directions for “Government Motors”

Management didn`t want to convert from the internal combustion engine.
MultinationalMonitor.org An Interview with Jerry Tucker 06-30-2009

Jerry Tucker is a former executive board member of the United Auto Workers union and co-founder of the UAW New Directions Movement. He is also co-founder of the Center for Labor Renewal.

Multinational Monitor: Could you give a thumbnail sketch of how GM and Chrysler collapsed into bankruptcy?

Jerry Tucker: It certainly is not something that just came about. Over the years there has been a steady development that put them on this course. For a long period of time, the corporations were seeking, as most companies do, to maximize profit -- but at the risk of profit in the future. The entire domestic industry behaved as if gas prices would never rise. It`s true that small vehicles don`t produce as much profit as the big ones -- the corporations wanted to maximize short-term profit.

Management certainly became ingrown. I suspect that they talked more to each other and listened less to the consumers. They certainly didn`t listen to environmentalists talking about emissions, and the union didn`t either. I was in Washington in the 1970s as one of the union`s representatives, and we actually lobbied against the corporate auto interests for cleaner air. We later became a partner with them in fighting to keep any regulation off of the industry.

At the same time, the corporations refused to become part of the lobby for government insurance and social insurance like the single payer bills that we`re fighting for now. This was, even though there had been requests by the union at an earlier period to look at the question of how to deal with the healthcare cost differently. The corporations were smugly building products that consumers could suddenly deviate from based on certain conditions.

Another part of the problem is that the union has become complicit in this by dropping any adversarial stance and becoming a partner with the corporations. Back in the 1950s, [then-UAW President Walter] Reuther criticized the corporations for what they built, and to some extent the materials they used, and the safety of their products. In recent years, starting in the 1980s, the union`s role became to agree with everything the corporations said.
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