Oops! Fox commentator slips up on outrageous new Romney ad and pension-loss 'controversy'

[ProgressiveEconomist]

Oops! Fox commentator slips up on outrageous new Romney ad and pension-loss 'controversy'

Fox "News" strives to be for President Obama what Tokyo Rose was for the World War II Allies: all disinformation, all the time.

Today, Fox "News" is running and re-rerunning a segment that begins with a middle-age woman's (Mary Miller's) Romney-ad supposed question for the President: "I would ask President Obama why he had all the rights to take my pension away, and I had none", Fox portrayed her as someone who lost a "NON UNION PENSION" at Delphi under the General Motors bailout.

For Fox, "NON UNION PENSIONS" is the correct term to be used to distinguish them from "UNION PENSIONS" at GM and its affiliates. Under the GM bailout deal, "UNION PENSIONS" were fully guaranteed by the Pension and Benefit Guaranty Corporation, while "NON UNION PENSIONS" were not.

But one Fox regular, "Judge Napolitano", slipped up and used the "wrong" term. He referred to "MANAGEMENT PENSIONS" rather than "NON UNION PENSIONS". Apparently, at Delphi all line workers were unionized, but management was not.

Anyone with half a brain would ask, since mismanagement at GM and its affiliates led the operation to the brink of extinction, why would Government guarantee the bloated pensions of management? Their overpayment and lack of accountability were the very reason a bailout was needed! Shouldn't their just financial punishment be part of the financial accountability of any rescue effort? In contrast, union pension benefits were the result of collective negotiations trading contractual future benefits for lower contemporary paychecks.

That, IMO, is the reason "NON UNION PENSIONS" were not guaranteed and 20,000 management personnel lost a third of their pensions. But I'd never have guessed it had "Judge Napolitano" not slipped up and used the "wrong" term.

I find this highly misleading Romney ad and Fox propaganda campaign extraordinary, even on a network known for ginned-up extreme right "controversy". I'd put it right up there with the Romney "welfare queens" ad and Romney's remarks falsely blaming Obama for trying to take away military rights to vote in Ohio.

WHAT'S YOUR OPINION?

[The Magistrate]

1. Romney's 'Let 'Em Eat Bankruptcy' Would Have Lost Her Her Pension, Too, Sir

More evidence anyone drawing a salary who votes Republican is clear only about the color of the President's skin....

"Romney loves America like a tick loves a dog."

[ProgressiveEconomist]

2. Management actually kept two-thirds of their pensions under the bailout deal--

see the Columbus Dispatch story at http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2012/07/11/slashing-delphi-pensions-was-reasonable-ex-official-says.html .

IMO the bailout board was far too generous to management, more than fair. I would have taken away two-thirds of bloated pensions and let incompetent managers live on one-third.

[The Magistrate]

3. And Again, Sir, Romney Would Have Seen Her With Not One Thin Dime

And yet that is who she supports for President....

"Hanging's too easy, and shooting's too dear."

[Monk06]

4. I was wondering what 'non union' pensions meant. Same as 'job creators' thanx for the clarification.