Well Kend, your more deserving Ford knew very well of the Pinto's deadly design but figured the wrongful death settlements into the cost of manufacture of them.

You're saying this happened because GM got bailed out? Kind of a leap doncha think?

Kend - Could you respond to the people who have pointed out the specific problems with your post?

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GM's auto shop labor charge ranges from about $95/hr to about $175/hr and they usually have a set labor hour per job (ie: say replacing a part may actually take only 15 minutes but they will charge for the whole hour). That could up the actual cost of that 57 cent part...and that is probably just the price it costs to manufacture the part...not what they'd sell it for..many times more.

Of course, these parts would have been under warranty and wouldn't have cost the customer anything except the wasted time to take the vehicles to the shop. But, GM still would have had to pay their employees for that hour of labor. And factoring in the loss of having to use their mechanics to fix these warranty calls vs. other maintenance that customers have to pay for would make it considerably more expensive than just 57 cents per part. However, if they had put that 57 cent part into the vehicles to begin with, when they built the vehicle, they would have lost a little bit of profit but they really end up losing in law suits and in loss of reputation. Who wants to buy a vehicle that is going to kill them? I guess some people will always give in if the sale price is cheap enough.

I think that many of these CEOs and other top execs spend way too much time reading Sun Tsu and Machiavelli and Ayn Rand. I remember the top execs all the way down to the managers in the company I used to work for were all raving about Sun Tsu like it was some kind of a bible. Maybe we need to get more like China...they whack off heads of CEOs who have shamed the country and tried to make too much profit at the expense of their customers...resulting in deaths from using their adulterated products. A chop, chop here. A chop, chop there. Here a chop. There a chop. Everywhere a chop, chop! ;-}

Quote Palindromedary:These are just a few...there are many...and in each bill there may be specific reasons that one might vote yay or nay....aside from the actual name of the bill.

Palindromedary ~ Stop it! This is ridiculous! You yourself have admitted that you've never listened to the segments on Thom's show with Bernie Sanders. Perhaps you are completely unaware that every Friday for YEARS no he has been a guest on Thom's show. Thom spends a large part of that show letting callers ask Bernie anything they want. Instead of posting a lot of unsubstantiated, one-sided hearsay, why don't you just wait till tomorrow and call the show? I'm sure Thom would love to let you state your mind and give Bernie a chance to respond in front of us all. Then simply post those responses on this blog tomorrow. It is that kind of openness that we all appreciate about Bernie.

In all the years I have heard Bernie speak on this show--sometimes with his back against the wall--I have never had the same feelings of dread that came about whenever I've heard most Republicans speak for 15 minutes or more. Quite frankly Bernie has been very candid about his voting record. When bills like the ones you've mentioned come through often they have added legislation that is more provocative than the bill itself. You cannot judge a man without hearing his reasoning to why he voted a certain way. So far all the reasonings I have heard from Bernie concerning his record stand the support of both Thom and myself.

In all the time I've participated in this blog it has been the general consensus over most people here that Bernie Sanders would be the ideal choice for President. That sentiment has been expressed hundreds of times by many of us. Yet not once have you ever uttered an objection till now. Now, when he announces his candidacy. Before, when he said he wasn't interested you said nothing. I'm curious my friend, why would you wait till now to raise a fuss? Are you simply playing the Devil's advocate? Or, are you pretending to be a Corporate Shill?

Quote dissidentvoice.org: In the 1980s, as Burlington's mayor, Sanders mounted a challenge to the Democrats and Republicans, maintaining a consistent anti-imperialist position in solidarity with the Nicaraguan Revolution and trying to implement pro-worker policies.

But that was long ago. Now Sanders is independent in name only -- he in fact supports the Democratic Party.

As his long-time antagonist and now ally, Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean, said on the NBC's Meet the Press, 'He is basically a liberal Democrat, and he is a Democrat at that -- he runs as an Independent because he doesn't like the structure and money that gets involved... The bottom line is that Bernie Sanders votes with the Democrats 98 percent of the time.' Ironically, that's more often than most Democrats vote with the Democrats.

Sanders' voting record is also not so very left wing; one study found that 38 other congressional representatives had a more progressive voting record.

Sanders' relationship to the Democrats has been developing for many years. In 1992, he supported Bill Clinton as a 'lesser evil,' though he later abandoned this impolite phrase to unapologetically endorse Democrats for the White House ever since.
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For veteran Sanders watchers, this capitulation to the corporate Democrats and their apparatchiks is nothing new. He has made it one of his missions to agitate against voting for Ralph Nader, the Green Party and, in some cases, Vermont's Progressive Party.
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Despite his own claims, Sanders has not been an antiwar leader. Ever since he won election to the House, he has taken either equivocal positions on U.S. wars or outright supported them. His hawkish positions -- especially his decision to support Bill Clinton's 1999 Kosovo War -- drove one of his key advisers, Jeremy Brecher, to resign from his staff. Brecher wrote in his resignation letter, 'Is there a moral limit to the military violence you are willing to participate in or support?'

So outraged were peace activists over Sanders' support of the Kosovo War that they occupied his office in 1999. Sanders had them arrested. Under the Bush regime, Sanders' militarism has only grown worse. While he called for alternative approaches to the war on Afghanistan, he failed to join the sole Democrat, Barbara Lee, to vote against Congress' resolution that gave George Bush a blank check to launch war on any country he deemed connected to the September 11 attacks.

Ever since, he has voted for appropriations bills to fund the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, despite their horrific toll on the occupied peoples as well as U.S. soldiers.

Sanders has been critical of the war on Iraq, but he has supported pro-war measures -- such as a March 21, 2003, resolution stating, 'Congress expresses the unequivocal support and appreciation of the nation to the President as Commander-in-Chief for his firm leadership and decisive action in the conduct of military operations in Iraq as part of the ongoing Global War on Terrorism.'
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This summer, Sanders voted for House Resolution 921, which gave full support to Israel's murderous war on Lebanon. He also voted for HR 4681 that imposed sanctions on the Palestinian Authority with the aim of removing the democratically elected Hamas government.

In response, longtime War Resisters League leader, David McReynolds sent a public letter to Sanders, stating, 'Because of your vote of support for the Israeli actions, I would hope any friends and contacts of mine would not send you funds, nor give you their votes.' Indeed, Sanders has consistently defended Israel through its worst crimes against Palestinians and Arabs. Unsurprisingly, some Sanders staffers have also worked with the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) -- including David Sirota, now a Democratic Party strategist, and Sanders' former communications director Joel Barkin.
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Sanders' support for the Democrats confounds his position. After all, it was the Democratic Party under Bill Clinton that passed NAFTA, established the WTO, cut the big deals with China and imposed some of the worst IMF structural adjustments programs on developing countries.

Ominously, Sanders' economic nationalism has led him to look for allies among Republican right-wingers like Lou Dobbs and Patrick Buchanan, who see China as a rival to U.S. power and are looking for political justification for a new Cold War.
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In cooperating with right-wing populists, Sanders reinforces American nationalism and its attendant racism toward immigrants. Such ideas are an impediment to workers forging solidarity against both American empire and the corporations' divide-and-conquer strategy to drive wages down inside the US and around the globe.
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http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Nov06/Smith15.htm
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Ashley Smith is a correspondent for Socialist Worker. This article first appeared on the Socialist Worker web site: http://socialistworker.org. Thanks to Alan Maass.

If you think that Thom Hartmann is a shill for the Democrat Party...you might also wonder if Bernie Sanders is not also... and that they may be working together just to get you to vote for the Democrats once more. They may not want you to consider voting Green. Bernie Sanders, if he even runs, will likely run on the Democrat ticket. And I don't think that is very likely. But, if they can get you herded into their corner... once more getting you to vote for the least evil candidate...then the rigged game will go on...and on.

SEEMS to me - i remember something about a pinto? something about the gas tank not being protected?AND no GM is not an employee owned cooperative.

Thank you, AIW. Your remarks led me to this:
https://votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/27110/bernie-sanders

There's a lot to peruse here. It'll take some time to go through it all...but so far...He voted against the NDAA of 2013 and other things I'd approve of. Although I see he voted Yea for the NDAA of 2014. hmmmm...and McCain vote Nay on that one...hummmmm...

here's another one...
Authorizes the Use of Funds for the Transfer or Release of Guantanamo Detainees to the United States-S Amdt 2175
Sanders: Nay
McCain: Yay

Comprehensive Student Loan Protection Act- S1003
Sanders: Nay
McCain: Yay

Prohibits the Payment of the Premium for an Insurance Policy For Tobacco-S Amdt 923
Sanders: Yay
McCain: Co-sponsor

These are just a few...there are many...and in each bill there may be specific reasons that one might vote yay or nay....aside from the actual name of the bill.

here is a perfect example of why capitalism works. Unless government of gets involved of course. GM was in financial trouble and it and all those CEO's would have been gone long ago If tax payers didn't bail them out. The well run reputable car comanies like Ford would have picked up the factories and factory workers and everything would be fine now.

The problem is jkh6148 and all his buddies would be the ones who pay the price. Nothing seems fair anymore.

I am guessing that the 57 cent part isn't the problem it is what it would cost to retrofit all the old ones. No excuse but Thom has a way of stretching the truth.

hey don't the employees own GM now? It would be tuff to throw them all in jail.

I am all in favor of the CEO and maybe the entire board of directors being charged with involuntary manslaughter and mandatory prison time for making the decision to not have a recall that results in death.

HOWEVER, as a blue collar GM retiree, the thousands of current and retired employees, and the supplier employees had nothing to do with the decision not to do a recall and would receive an extremely unjust punishment for a decision we had no control over. THESE recalls are almost exclusively the result of defective engineering but all too often it is the "lazy overpaid union worker" who seems to get blamed by the general public.

A thought for democrats in november:

While I agree wholeheartedly that the democrats should embrace the ACA and be proud that they were a part of it, it's not enough. If democrats want ANY chance of taking back the house and increasing their majority in the senate they need youth to vote. While affordable health insurance is extremely important, most young people could care less about it because they feel invincible and don't think they will ever get sick.

Therefore, if dems really want to energize youth to vote in a non-election year, they should tailor part of their campaigns to an issue young people actually care about: LEGALIZING MARIJUANA! This would do two things: give a huge part of your base a reason to show up at the polls AND you put the republicans in a corner because you can't argue small government one minute and turn around and oppose a measure that, by definition, DECREASES THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT!