The local Machinists union fought the shutdown, taking their case to the streets, to the press, to politicians, and to Maytag shareholders, even winning national attention when U.S. Sen.-elect Barack Obama mentioned their cause in his Democratic National Convention keynote speech. But the union could not stop the Maytag jobs from being added to the tally of 2.7 million manufacturing jobs lost since 2000.

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/1057928/ :

But the union that represented most of those Galesburg workers isn’t impressed with Obama’s advocacy and has endorsed his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. Its leaders say they wish he had done more about their members’ plight.

Obama had a special connection to Maytag: Lester Crown, one of the company’s directors and biggest investors whose family, records show, has raised tens of thousands of dollars for Obama’s campaigns since 2003. But Crown says Obama never raised the fate of the Galesburg plant with him, and the billionaire industrialist insists any jawboning would have been futile.

Beyond such talk, there is little evidence that Obama went to any lengths to fight the Galesburg shutdown. Some analysts say his ties to the Crowns — Lester’s son, James, is the Illinois finance chairman of Obama’s presidential run — leave him open to criticism.

The Obama campaign said the Maytag workers union never asked him to intervene with Crown and that he would have done so if they had. Union officials said they were unaware of the Crowns’ ties to Maytag or to Obama.

Amazingly, though, this little union information seems to have made zero impact with most unions which have actually seemed to go out of their way to endorse Obama (even though he doesn’t seem to really support unions).

Another point. With his past ties and work with and for Acorn, Obama, Dodd, and Barney Franks are the three who are most to blame for the market meltdown parcipitated by the mortgage crisis. They have made people lose a lot of money. If people knew this fact, he would be at 15% in the polls. I am an AA and every time I look at the phony, lying, race-baiter I could puke. I will never vote for him.

We’re back now. And just watch the Great Obama perform a feat never yet managed in all history. He will create that enormous new government health program, spend billions to transform our energy economy, provide financial assistance to former Soviet satellites, invest in infrastructure, increase education spending, provide job training assistance, and give 95% of Americans a tax (ahem) cut — all without raising the deficit a single penny! And he’ll do it in the middle of a financial crisis. And with falling tax revenues! Voila!

If he can’t do any of that, what is the Democrat’s message now? Does he have a plan for dealing with the crisis? Other than that he is calm, cool, and collected about the crisis, what do we have? How the hell is he better than McCain? McCain at least is talking about HOLC type thing which is message the electorate can understand.

Thanks for another great roundup of articles and comments. Nice to enjoy a chuckle or two in the mix.

And we’ll have to worship the one. The knower of 57.

Berlusconi Says Leaders May Close World’s Markets (Update1)
By Steve Scherer
Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) — Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said political leaders are discussing the idea of closing the world’s financial markets while they “rewrite the rules of international finance.”
“The idea of suspending the markets for the time it takes to rewrite the rules is being discussed,” Berlusconi said today after a Cabinet meeting in Naples, Italy. A solution to the financial crisis “can’t just be for one country, or even just for Europe, but global.”