Bailing out the auto industry where do you stand?

You are making more mistakes in your "analysis" than can be covered in a post. For starters, housing costs as a percentage of income is a serious issue these days, and bringing up 70 a month rent in the 60's does not help bolster your case.

Second, non sequitur sequitorum, dude.

Further, wages are not the problem. The problem is all the entitlements these companies owe their retirees and employees. They lobbied against universal healthcare, and came up with these pension and health plans as an alternative. Problem is, when you are successful, you have a lot of employees, and then when you progress technologically, you increase productivity and thus need fewer workers per unit produced. If you have to pay pensions and healthcare for past workers, the cost of the past as a percentage of each unit sold becomes so high that you cannot compete.

What needs to happen? Universal healthcare, starting with all the workers who are about to lose their jobs. Victory gardens. Personal austerity. A culture of saving and conserving.

Our lifestyles are about to change more drastically than we can handle if we don't get this right.

 

our lifestyles are about to change no matter what,,well let me rephrase that,,

most americans lifestyles are about to change beyond their wildest dreams,,errr nightmares no matter what..

as for me and mine,,we will continue on just like we have done for years..

 

Was just looking at the market

GM can be had for 1.3B
250,000 employees...

The employees could buy majority stake for a week or two of pay...yet they aren't.

Makes you wonder...

 

Actually it winds up being about $5,400 an employee, that's alot of money, and that'd be if all the shares of the company were for sale

As much as I hate to throw more money, I'd rather the money go here then to banks, let them have the money, on the condition their entire board goes out the window. Considering were talking about the big 3 of Detroit, Dire Strait's Telegraph Road rings all too familiar here:

I used to like to go to work but they shut it down
I got a right to go to work but there’s no work here to be found
Yes and they say we’re gonna have to pay what’s owed
We’re gonna have to reap from some seed that’s been sowed

 

seems to me from what im reading the money wont go into their operations here,they will funnel it all overseas and the plants here will still be shuttered...

and i ask again,that benefits our economy how??

 

I should have explained more, but I was rushed at the time.

My reasoning when I posted went like this:
In the 1980's it was arguing often that the 'cure' for ailing companies was to have more ownership of a company by the employees. Give the workers a stake in the company, quality increases and waste decreases, because it is their profit that suffers otherwise.

So when I checked the GM share price, it had dropped to a low of 1.70 a share, and then was recovering to something like 2.25 a share. So it struck me, huh, why AREN'T the employees taking their future into their own hands?

You are right, not all shares are for sale, so a 100% buyout is impossible. I should have been clearer. I meant that GM was so low, and there were so many employees (and retired workers) that pooling their resources and developing their own plan could save themselves and buy up a 51% stake in GM.

It just strikes me as odd. What better way for GM to save itself then to have the current and former workers own the company and decide for themselves what is fair concerning retirement benefits, etc?

 

http://www.theage.com.au/world/us-bailout-stymied-for-big-three-car-makers-20081120-6csw.html

 

GM is asking the goverment of Germany for a 1.25 billion loan for its production facilities there: Opel Automotive.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aFYpWMC8Gkp0

Yet..... a company by the name of Solarworld has put forth an offer to purchase those German production facilities: the offer $1.3 billion.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aHG4iPWMWpZA

In the old days a Corporation in trouble would sell assets and consolidate production to it most profitable lines.

But hey if Congress is handing out money, why not !

Read the links dammit!

 

Big Three auto CEOs flew private jets to ask for taxpayer money




"There is a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hand, saying that they're going to be trimming down and streamlining their businesses," Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-New York

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/19/autos.ceo.jets/index.html


Stinks of the AIG party in California (massages, pedicures, booze) after they got their big chunk of taxpayer charity cash.
Screw the "Big Three." Let them make a better product.