Big Three Bailout Dead

Bust the union? Why? Why not bust the company instead?

 

Hey dude, I know it's kind of lame to send people myspace links, but what you are saying and what a lot of people are saying lately about the auto industry reminds me of this one band called Warsawpack. Their song entitled "Year of the Car Crash" is worth a listen to.

http://www.myspace.com/warsawpack

 

Busting the companies is definitely an option.

I'm biased here... fairly anti-union... at least as they currently function. People do need to be able to collectively bargain but at what expense? I've paid union dues too... United Food and Commercial Worker's ... for the privilege of being on the bottom rung of the wage scale... and for the benefit of wage increases to be based solely on seniority and not merit. For my union dues I was the company's bitch.... shopped around to fill vacations, scheduled back and forth from day to night repeatedly within a single pay period only to be cut back to 15 hours when the magic consecutive week of full time hours would entitle me to full time pay and benefits. I never made close to a living wage working a single job until I became non union.

Bully for the UAW rank and file that they get such lucrative compensation. I've never seen any pay rate that even approaches what they've been getting. My sense is that it's the position of the union that they're entitled to it. At a time when I'm as uncertain as ever whether I'm even going to be gainfully employed a month from now I find the games going on to be particularly profane. The banks have had their way creating investment bubbles that took out half my 401k when they burst and without any say I watch tax dollars being thrown at them; they are not using the money to help the economy.

Meanwhile, largely as a result of the credit crunch the big three start crying poverty while an inadvertent show of excess in the form of private jet rides to panhandle. Yes, there's justification to take down the automakers but there's a huge price to be paid and I'm not eager to be paying it... and I'm nearly 100% certain that I will be personally.

Just a reflection on all this... wouldn't taking down the big three have the effect of busting the UAW? I'd much rather see if the existing manufacturing capacity can be preserved and adapted to be competitive... bring in management familiar with how the Japanese make things work and re-invent them instead of disposing.

 

If 7-11 went under, would you want your money spent to bail them out?
If WalMart went under would you want your money spent to bail them out?
If Time-Warner went under would you want your money spent to bail them out?

None of these companies are essential to "life in America". And neither are GM, Ford and Chrysler. With the exception of equitably taxing them and ensuring they are not contributing to the pollution of our mother earth, our government should be focusing on more important issues than whether or not big business is staying in business. Business is a gamble and bankruptcy is the chance you take when you incorporate and it doesn't matter whether you have 4 employees and a 6 year history or 4,000,000 and a 100 year history. I'm not anti-union but the UAW took it past "competitive wages and benefits" into superior wages and benefits and probably possessed one of the largest trusts in the country. They can afford it, let it be their problem. Oh right, they lost it all in the market. Too bad. They played the Nationalist card and look where is got them. Higher wages and bennies for American workers of American companies. Complete shite.

The unions contributed, and the companies failed to evolve. Why is this our problem? The little guy is, has and always will get fucked by corporate America. Fact of life. Get past it. No bailout.

 

That song belongs in the conspiracy forum.

Besides i like my cancon west coast.

http://www.imvf.com/cinestir/playvideo.php?id=3

:Chevy_anim:

 

I'm sure the "get over it" attitude will really resonate well with people who can't find a job and are facing homelessness as a result, directly or indirectly, of the corporate fucking that we're supposed to just deal with.

 

They placed their trust in a system that is failing *EDIT* like most everyone else *EDIT*. Bailing out the auto industry will not stop the collapse of the US economy. It's a chain reaction that began long ago and we can throw all the money at it you want, it's still going to happen. So we bail out the financial sector, then the manufacturing sector, then it will be the service sector. And somewhere in there we'll run out of money. This whole affair will only prove to reinforce a class system that already unfairly exists.

 

I really can't argue with that. There is a special bleakness with the "what next" question that I'm just better off not processing.

 

I can totally appreciate that. It just concerns me that our government is even continuing to debate this roughshod policy economic eugenics. You can feed a few for a while or we can all narrowly avoid starvation. Maybe.

 

The only solution seems to be along the lines of overthrowing the government... or lurch awkwardly toward the ultimate destiny of being just a powerless statistic.

 

And aren't these the same companies that are always complaining about "government interference"? ...

hahahahahahahaha

 

Yep lol

So much theater in all of this. "And the Oscar goes to the members of government who convincingly acted as though they gave a flying fuck for the taxpayer..." Certainly the "performance of contrite" perpetrated by the auto execs when they returned to beg for handouts was unconvincing at best- more like infuriating.... the real lesson being that appearances count for more than honesty.

Part of me wonders if the whole debacle with the big three bailout isn't just more theater designed to distract people from watching the banking system use the TARP fund to consolidate instead of for consumer lending... because I see it as entirely possible that if the 350 billion already spent were used to actually extend credit to taxpayers we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.

 

the real lesson being that appearances count for more than honesty.

Yah, I think that's been true for a long time.

because I see it as entirely possible that if the 350 billion already spent were used to actually extend credit to taxpayers we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.

It's all a matter of psychology anyway. I mean, what is fundamentally different about the American economic machine now compared to a year ago? Nothing really, except that money isn't moving. When the flow of money slows down, you have a recession.

It's all about the psychology of buying and selling. Get the money moving again, and you're good.

Oversimplification, I know ... but it doesn't appear to me that the Bush Administration has been doing a thing about it for the past year.

 

Wages are inline with Toyota and Honda.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081212/ap_on_go_co/congress_autos

 

There was a story on TV- not sure whether it was CNN, MSNBC, or another news network that the cost per car was considerable higher with labor and benefits (health care, pensions, etc). Regrettably I didn't read it on the web or I'd furnish a link to it to back up my assertion. I'm sure that any skilled CPA could mix numbers up to justify any agenda so I really need to qualify some of my assertions here which is something I have yet to cultivate the habit of doing.

I shall have to accept your source until I can scare up something which reflects what I heard.

 

Expenses for retirees is used as an excuse. Those expenses are incurred when the employee is working, the company sets up a pension fund to pay off the benefits as they fall due. They don't wait until the guy actually retires and then go looking around for the money.

 

It's not an excuse, it's a reality, it's the same deal as social security, there's no big bank somewhere holding all the money, it's pay as you go, from this earlier in the thread, look at the amount of current employees GM has compared to retires, keeping in mind aside from pension and health care, they are also responsible for health care for normally at least the spouse too and kids if they're still of age:


Also aside from all the fuck ups they made, comparing the overhead costs of GM vs Toyota
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/gmvstoyota/
GM:
White collar: 36,000
Production: 106,000.
Retirees: 460,000

Toyota:
White collar: 17,000
Production: 21,000
Retirees: 1,600

 

I think you are right on the money.

 

Yeah me too, distract people with pennies and nickels while they clean dollars off of the table.

 

Its not like social security, they have a pension fund, i.e. assets set aside. Private companies can't promise pension benefits and then not recognise the expense or set aside money to pay for it.