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A Quick Tour of the Bush Legacy |
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* In the Laugh-if-it-Didn’t-Hurt-So-Much category:
In an interview with The Associated Press, Vice President Dick Cheney also said that President George W. Bush has no need to apologize for not foreseeing the economic crisis.
“I don’t think he needs to apologize. I think what he needed to do is take bold, aggressive action and he has,” Cheney said.
* Laugh and Hurt, Part II: Bush took such “aggressive action” on the economy, he must have worried a lot about it. NOT. In fact, when asked by People magazine about which moments from the past eight years he revisited most often, Bush talked passionately about the pitch he threw out at the World Series in 2001:
“I never felt that anxious any other time during my presidency, curiously enough.”
* While Bush spent his presidency reminiscing about a baseball throw, the nation lost 2.6 million jobs last year alone, and some 11.1 million U.S. workers now are unemployed. Bush has the worst record for economic gain of any president since Herbert Hoover, with 3.7 million jobs created over eight years, compared with 22.7 million created during the two Clinton administrations.
* And those unemployed workers likely have no health care coverage. COBRA—the 18th-month health insurance extension available to laid-off workers—is too expensive for most. A Families USA study found that paying for COBRA would eat up a workers’ entire unemployment check—and more. Worse, if laid-off workers with health problems do not continue their employer-based coverage through COBRA and seek coverage in the individual health insurance market, they likely will not find any insurer who will sell them a policy that will cover their pre-existing conditions.
* In the Let Them Eat category: So what if since January 2001, the month Bush took office, the percentage of unemployed workers has increased more than 84 percent? He’s got his priorities. Like ordering an entire new set of White House china that arrives two weeks before he leaves office to make sure he sticks the Obamas with yet another disaster—Lenox ware with magnolias the size of, well, baseballs.
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President Bush used very little common sense in his presidency. He was every bit as bad as Clinton and Carter. Obama seems concerned about the AMERICAN working families.
With so much fair game I wondered if we really have to beat up on Mr. Bush about the new White House China. I have to admit that I like the Magnolia pattern. It’s appropriate for Washington D.C. where the Magnolia is a gracious and magnificent shade tree and I hope the Obamas enjoy it.
It seems that there is a certain tradition in a gift of china being made by outgoing presidents. And Lenox has become the traditional supplier. So I wondered about that. Are they an American company, do they use American labor, are they unionized. I was not able to unearth anything about union activity in connection with them, so my guess is they are not unionized. They do still manufacture their finer china in the United States. Thier activities have shrunk to a single plant in Kingston, NC. The company filed bankruptcy in November of 2008, citing a poor economy and a change in public tastes that moves against fine china. The workforce seems to have been shrinking over the past decade as jobs have been consolidated and jobs for the lesser quality goods moved off shore, cheaper labor was cited in that decision. I think that on the whole the folks who work at the Lenox plant in Kingston are happy with the president’s outgoing gift and proud of their work, are hoping the company will bounce back. I may be quiotic, but I’d like to see them recover and I’d like to see a unionized workforce and good job opportunities. In the meantime, at least this purchase contributed something to the company and likely kept some jobs live a little longer.
This is a long article meant to inform about the mechanics of making bone china, but it has lots of photos of the Kingston plant and those who work there: http://home.howstuffworks.com/lenox.htm
I will include these addresses, stray articles over the years regarding Lenox plant openings and closings:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5388/is_/ai_n21314461
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_/ai_n15389072
http://www.allbusiness.com/manufacturing/miscellaneous-mfg-novelties-ornaments/5007874-1.html
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/2854716
http://www.aclink.org/AdminServ/press/mainpages/pr_detail.asp?ID=720
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/101634/
http://www.lenoiredc.com/news/lenox4-06.htm