Caterplillar is laying off another 2,500 people this week, on top of the 2,500 or so it already laid off last month.
Caterpillar makes construction equipment.
You know, the kind they need at all of the construction sites created by projects such as those stuffed into Obama’s Trillion Dollar Spending Bill (you know, the one Congress rammed through last month without reading).
So, if this “stimulus” was really going to “save our economy” as advertised, wouldn’t the very first companies to benefit from the “stimulus” be the ones that make construction equipment, since infrastructure projects are supposedly the backbone of the “stimulus”?
Obama/Pelosi/Reid claimed the infrastructure projects were “shovel ready”, meaning they would be getting underway quickly.
Caterpillar’s layoffs indicate otherwise. Why would a company that makes construction equipment layoff 5,000 people in two months if it saw massive orders for construction equipment (ordered to handle all of those “shovel ready” infrastructure projects) heading down the pipe?
That just doesn’t make any sense.
Unless, of course, you look critically at the projects included in the Trillion Dollar Spending Bill and see that most of them actually are not “shovel ready” at all (such as the $8 billion being sunk into Harry Reid’s levitating train from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, which won’t be built for years, if ever); the ones that are ready to go are projects planned years ago, that were already underway with all of their needed equipment purchased, with the “stimulus bill” only picking up the tab by the Federal Government instead of the local and state governments.
The spending bill isn’t stimulating anything.
If it was, and infrastructure projects were going to turn the economy around, then Caterpillar should be HIRING 2,500 more people, not letting them go.
March 18, 2009 at 7:49 am
But you have to remember that 25 police cadets were saved in Columbus, Ohio. 2500-25 = stimulus is working using the New Math of ObamaLand.
Not only do these clowns fail math, they also fail reading – as in they don’t do any as evidenced by the bonuses paid at AIG.
And these idiots want to improve education and want merit pay for teachers. Hell, they flunk Civics 101. They can’t do basic math. They can’t first grade reading. I say NO pay for any of them!!!!!!!!!!!!
March 18, 2009 at 8:04 am
It was never intended to “stimulate” anything. It’s a big fat pork bill that gets through all of the pet projects that the Dems couldn’t get through under Bush.
Go read some of it. It’s full of ridiculous, unbelievable CRAP.
Oh, and it gives more money to Acorn.
Hope. Change. Socialism.
WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!
March 18, 2009 at 9:04 am
The Obama was embarrassed on TV by the CEO of catepillar. The fool in the WH actually believed that all of a sudden a heavy equipment maker would somehow stop the process of layoffs and begin to hire people back on account of this government POC bill. The CEO set him straight on the facts of life: financial difficulties mean no investments in building and hence, no purchase of heavy equipment. I hope that Obama was schooled that day that he really doesn’t possess magical powers. What an idiot. How many more days left to his term?
March 18, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Because Oprompter is a big ‘ol liar, that’s why!!
March 18, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Because the spokesperson for Caterpillar couldn’t lie, he pissed off Obama by saying he actually wasn’t hiring back furloughed employees, even though Obama said they were…. when they had that make nice photo op…..the man, poor fool that he was, said he couldn’t make that statement….ergo, caterpillar is fodder for the trash bin. The fact that they make an excellent product is probably something else they have against them. Never, Never embarrass Barack Obama…..didn’t you learn that lesson from Joe the Plumber?