$1000 off on Mustangs. That's just fact of life with UAW receiving full pay regardless whether carmaking takes place or not. The manufacturers have to over-produce. Almost every car from the domestics get discounted by the second model year, and getting progressively deeper as time goes on. The basic tool of supply management that is so crucial to any brand image management is completely taken out of the hands of the managers.
Consumers like you and me, who do give GM a chance is not the problem for GM. GM's problem is consumers like Solcal, who would never give GM a chance. Notice, I said, it's GM's problem, not the consumers' problem. Consumers can spend their own money whichever way they like. Even if GM made the exact same cars as Toyota today (never mind it's an impossibility in production lines that they have for most models), the exact same car would still be out-competed by Toyota branded vehicles. This is not even hypothetical, look at the resale value of Chevy Prism vs. Toyota Corolla and Pontiac Vibe vs. Toyota Matrix. In an idealized world, GM should have billions to spend to win back their hearts and minds, but on planet earth, people in charge of resource allocation understand that it would be quite a waste of human and natural resources to do that when there are perfect good alternatives to place your auto industry bets; that's why GM credit rating has been dropping . . .
The UAW will always be a scapegoat for the company's and it's membership gets little or no attention for jobs well done.
Isn't that the foudamental principle of unionism? There is no difference between a job well done vs. a job done poorly. Both demand to be paid exactly the same.
I guess some americans that are elites have no respect or value for "factory rats" that build products like cars for a living.
This is a bit off-topic and getting political, but I would never call anyone "factory rats." Individuals should indeed be respected and rewarded for the contribution they make to an organization, even the ones sweeping the factory floor or make lunches for the production line workers. UAW however is an organization invented to eliminate that individual accountability, and turning decent individuals into, what you call it, anonymous "factory rats."
Perhaps this is a culture issue we americans have torwards other americans and the dollar is always the bottom line with everything we do.
The dollar being the bottom line is a tremendous strength that we Americans have. It leads to efficient allocation of human and natural resources. Thank goodness we usually do not have a policy of keeping obsolete products in production just to keep jobs, wasting human and natural resources along the way.
So the issue isn't with capacity. The issue is what GM chooses to do with that capacity.
I wonder if you have ever designed a product to be mass produced anywhere. All capacities are not equal except in the minds of ivory tower statisticians and (former soviet and everywhere else) bureacrats. The intricacies of what product can be made where, with what kind of expected quality and yield rate is a scientific discipline in its own right.
$70k each (half of the $140k, for the sake of simplicity) times 47k is $3.3 billion! or 3300 million! GM could pay for 1000 Wagoners with that kind of money, when in fact at most only a handful executives have termination compensations numbering over even 1 million. Whatever golden parachutes that you have been talking about do not even add up to a fraction of that 3300 million. That's why talks of management compensation, in the auto industry, is nothing more than distraction and probably a tool to rile up workers; i.e. politics.
Or the UAW workers were simply way overpaid. If the going rate for wage is $19 or less; i.e. if you can hire a baby sitter for $10-15 per hour, why should UAW workers watching TV in the job bank be able to command the labor of five baby sitters for every hour he spends watching TV? The numerical value of wage is nowhere nearly as important as what goods and services, especially labor from others, one can buy with the wage.
I understand what you are saying but a executive from the american auto industry makes 250-400 times his hourly worker is ridiculous. The Japanese only make 25-35 times more. Isn't that a huge difference ? It's easier to to cut your salary from ten million dow to 1 or 2 million when you've already taken millions from the cash coffers over the years. I don't know brightness it just seems like it's okay to reward a select few for failures, and everybody else gets the shaft. That's where I and many have problems with.
Really is Rick Wagoner, worth/value 250+ times more per year than my father ?
The plant managers make $250,000+ a year to sit in front of a desk and make sure their supervisors are meeting production goals. I guess when it's your own private buisness you can make as much as you want.
GM isn't a privately owned buisness and many of the share holders of the company are individual UAW employees that take a small piece of the pie each. The sitting around watching TV is a thing of the past except where plants have closed and job banks are present. Those folks will soon be relocated to plants that are building products. They wouldn't be sitting around doing nothing if GM wouldn't keep losing market share. The bottom line is they need to make products people want. They could charge more if they did so. The Europeans, Japanese, all have labor unions with tighter work rules than the UAW ever dreamed of having and they still are making big profits. Why ? Good product.
I will always be favorable to GM products and hopefully the 08' CTS will be the first vehicle in a long time that gets me excited about GM again. The Velite was the first one since the Trans-Am/Camaro was canceled and now that I have a family it's a vehicle with 4 doors and gadetology that gets me excited. Sure I want it to be pretty darn fast and fuel efficient also.
What GM pays its executives is an issue between the sharehold/board and the individual managers. The only issue even tangentially relevant in the blames game here is whether that adds up to a great hill of beans in the great scheme of things. As illustrated previously, it clearly doesn't when compared to how much the company is overpaying UAW workers.
I'm not sure where you get the 250-400x number for the auto industry executives. UAW workers get paid on average $65k in cash and another estimated $60k or so in benefits and retirement; even if only taking the first number, multiply by the lower limit of your 250-400, that's over 16 million! Not a single auto industry executive is being paid that much as far as I know. The upper limit of your estimate would work out to $50 million . . . pray tell who is paid that much in the auto industry?
Japanese executives get all sorts of perks in addition to their salary. Japanese executives have far more power over their employees, including frequent personal privileges. I wonder how much that would cost in the US . . . oh, wait, we have an estimate, the latest suit against former Toyota NA chief is seeking $40 million in damages and $150 million in punitive damages. That works out to be what? 2000 times a $100k salary? or 4000 times a $50k salary?
I guess when it's your own private buisness you can make as much as you want.
I wish ;-) I can only make money when I offer products and services at market competitive rates. The law simply does not allow me to hold up the customer as hostage until I'm paid what I want, like UAW was allowed to do.
Depending on what the $19 can buy. Since thousands are expected to apply, the going rate is obviously below that. Why should the factory door at the automakers be such a huge divide: those lucky enough to be inside get paid way beyond the going rate, those outside get not only only get paid at going rate at other jobs but also be gouged for overpriced cars to pay for the above-market wages for those inside?
Put it another way, if say two kids fresh out of high school, both previously doing lawns for $15/hr, both applied for the job. One got it. Isn't a 27% wage increase enough for the advancement? why do you think the lucky one deserve several times that if the employer is not willing to pay?
Rick Wagoner, made $22 million in salary and stock options and bonuses about 4 or 5 years ago which equals out to 338 times what a $65K a yr. UAW worker makes in a year.
The board of executives are like the our congress, they get to write their own ticket to wealth with nobody to answer to. They are all in it togeather like a bunch of rich kids, which makes them no different than the UAw, except that the UAW members get a meager broze package when compared to the Diamond package the auto executives get. It's a right, not a priveledge for executives in this country to become millionaires after working just 1 year. They are set forever. Yes some CEO's outside of the automobile buiz make $50 million a year in salary, stock options, bonus.
The bottom line still is product, customer service, are the keys to make this all go bye, bye, and then the UAW wages and auto executive salary's would be a moot issue.
Boy wouldn't that be a nice day, but then what the heck could we disagree on then. :P
$65k did not represent the full extent of the UAW pay. The benefit and retirement packages are actually worth more than the cash pay, and are what's ailing the company in legacy cost.
There is no "board of executives." There are executives and the board of directors supposedly watching over them. Executive compensation indeed can be a problem when the various participants form an oligarchy. That however is a different issue altogether and not all that relevent to the dire financial straits that GM is in, as the numbers bear out.
What other executives in other industries get paid is even less relevant. Talks of executive pay in the context of GM's financial problems is little more than envy talking, which has its room, in the politics forums.
Products are not designed in vaccuum. Products have to be designed and engineered to be manufacturable with the production line one has and the workers one has.
ps. Boards and executives do get voted on everyday in the market place; it's called the stock market.
Well if we didn't have hundreds of thousands of jobs evaporating from our economy, then the going rate would be higher.
The going rate for unskilled/semi-skilled labor is a function of inflation. A person living in an economy that gets paid $50/hr to flip burgers and has to pay $50/hr for baby sitting is no better off than another living in an economy that gets paid $10/hr to flip burgers and has to pay $10/hr for baby sitting.
If the rate for autoworkers like you said is so low, then why is Toyota paying more than that with benefits ???
Toyota benefits can not begin to compare to UAW benefits. Toyota pays the amount over going rate has as much to do with worker retention rate as politics. They are generating enough profit on products to pay for it, for the time being. With the GM-UAW lesson before them, Toyota strived hard to avoid infexible labor arrangements.
Consumers like you and me, who do give GM a chance is not the problem for GM. GM's problem is consumers like Solcal, who would never give GM a chance.
Blaming the consumer is a sure-fire method to generate losses. Since this seems to be par for the course in Detroit, they are now reaping that harvest of fingerpointing.
Since GM is losing both market share and retail sales, it needs to look within itself to figure out why that is. And at this point, understanding these reasons should be a no-brainer.
Please re-read my previous post. I made an explicit statement that you cut out to make it clear that it was not blaming the consumer. Perception is a problem for GM. BMW can win comparos with a car breaking down and spinning out of control in the middle of a performance test . . . whereas GM hardly ever gets recognized for their quality improvement in recent years. It gradually reaches a point where one has to decide whether it even makes sense to put money into a brand with image problems. Like you expounded so many times on the need to cut divisions, perhaps GM carmaking/selling in the US should be put to pasture altogether, leaving the company mostly serving loyal truck and SUV base here and cars overseas where there isn't a perception problem.
Yep. And who do you believe created that perception problem? You guessed it -- GM itself. It is entirely to blame for its loss of goodwill in the marketplace. Management teams are there to fix these things when they break, not to continue to blame the customer for its hard-earned bad reputation.
$65k did not represent the full extent of the UAW pay. The benefit and retirement packages are actually worth more than the cash pay, and are what's ailing the company in legacy cost.
Those benefits costs done by some quack economist is giving a free pass to GM for not fully funding it's pension obligations over the years and is tacking on those additional costs to every working UAW member. Even you should beable to figure that out. Even with the pension obligations the numbers are bogus. :mad:
There is no "board of executives." There are executives and the board of directors supposedly watching over them. Executive compensation indeed can be a problem when the various participants form an oligarchy. That however is a different issue altogether and not all that relevent to the dire financial straits that GM is in, as the numbers bear out.
There you go again finding excuses to blame the UAW, while giving a free pass to management. Gosh your killing me pal. :P
What other executives in other industries get paid is even less relevant. Talks of executive pay in the context of GM's financial problems is little more than envy talking, which has its room, in the politics forums.
Well since Japanese executives do work for less then perhaps they should be hired since they seem able to accomplish tasks like build relavent products with union labor without finger pointing. :P
Products are not designed in vaccuum. Products have to be designed and engineered to be manufacturable with the production line one has and the workers one has.
Well even in ununionized country's where GM has assembly plants they still build unrelavent products. I believe Socala, has braught this up in the past as a reference point. Who do you blame then ? :P
ps. Boards and executives do get voted on everyday in the market place; it's called the stock market.
Well if that's the case then why hasn't Bill Ford and Rick Wagoner and all the suits been fired yet ? GM stock has fallen like a rock over the last 5 years. Oh that's right it's all the UAW's fault. :confuse:
The going rate for unskilled/semi-skilled labor is a function of inflation. A person living in an economy that gets paid $50/hr to flip burgers and has to pay $50/hr for baby sitting is no better off than another living in an economy that gets paid $10/hr to flip burgers and has to pay $10/hr for baby sitting.
Well the going rate is unskilled chinese labor at $0.60 an hour. If GM wants to solve all its problems then let em' ship all the plants to China so we can quit hearing blame the UAW for unfavorable products. Please ship them all GM !!!!
Toyota benefits can not begin to compare to UAW benefits. Toyota pays the amount over going rate has as much to do with worker retention rate as politics. They are generating enough profit on products to pay for it, for the time being. With the GM-UAW lesson before them, Toyota strived hard to avoid infexible labor arrangements.
Like Socala, has pointed out the labor costs for the transplants like the Japanese, is higher than it is for the domestics. What are the costs per employee in Japan for union labor ? The family's live in Toyota City and the company pretty much pays the way for basically all activity's in the community.
I understand what you are saying but a executive from the american auto industry makes 250-400 times his hourly worker is ridiculous. The Japanese only make 25-35 times more. Isn't that a huge difference ?
yes it is. But what can be done about it? That is the going price for an executive in the US. Rock, this is our country and this is the way it is. You can complain about a few execs making more money than you but if you want to keep them you have to pay them the prevailing rate. I do not care if you think they are not doing a good job, it is the prevailing rate. I guess we could get a law to stop it.
If your father is worth that much then have him apply for the job. If you think you are good enough send in your resume.
I think it is absolutely the opposite -- that GM has benefited from a fiercely loyal customer base that refuses to consider anything without a GM nameplate. If you went back to 2003 and drove the current Honda Accord (I4 or V6) against its competetors, I don't know how anyone objective can say the domestics were even in the same league.
I realize that the quality of GM vehicles is better NOW, but being angry that the customer hasn't caught up isn't really fair either -- this low repuation got earned over many decades of passenger car neglect.
The domestics were very fat and very happy selling trucks and SUV's at fat profits. I think it was really easy back then to see that they would have big problems if (when) the cost of gas would rise, and that's pretty much what has happened.
That is true, even UAW members blame the product planners and bean counters on product developement. GM could build premium vehicles like the Europeans/Japanese and charge like it if only the products would stand up in the real world. Just creating a nice interior which still shows signs of cheapness in some new launches still isn't good enough. However some executives are taking premature bows :mad:
Shoddy vehicle quality was the result of UAW objection to automation back in the 80's; the management wanted to. Management can only fix things that are fixable. They did not have the magic wand for making perfect cars.
yes it is. But what can be done about it? That is the going price for an executive in the US. Rock, this is our country and this is the way it is. You can complain about a few execs making more money than you but if you want to keep them you have to pay them the prevailing rate. I do not care if you think they are not doing a good job, it is the prevailing rate. I guess we could get a law to stop it.
I could understand when a company is doing very well and the CEO could be compensated nicely. OTOH when is millions of dollars enough ?
Is that mommy and daddy Yale degree really worth tens of millions in salery over a decade ???? How about still getting paid that much dough when the company is losing billions in sales and huge losses in market share. The bottom line is we run our corporations like we do our government, the elites get to write there own ticket to who wants to be a millionaire and in some cases billionaire.
If your father is worth that much then have him apply for the job. If you think you are good enough send in your resume.
We both weren't blessed with "skull and bones" parents to pay for 10 years at Yale or Harvard. We both had poor union family members trying to make ends meet.
OMG you got to be kidding me. They started automating back in the 80's thus offering several thousands of worker severance packages years ago. Some were my ex co-workers at former jobs that used to work along side of my father.
Shoddy vehicle quality was the result of UAW objection to automation back in the 80's
We already covered the inaccuracy of this statement. Repeating it doesn't give these one-line "explanations" of yours any more credibility.
In any case, a lot of the problem rests in areas aside from reliability. Other aspects of the product such as bland or unattractive designs, inferior drivability, poor quality materials, and outdated technologies. That goes back to poor design and engineering, and to cheap parts, problems that don't get fixed by using more robots.
Pray tell where is your set of numbers to refute what's on the table for actureal estimates.
The magnitude of executive compensation can not begin to compare to the amount being paid out to "buy out" the privileges that UAW members have. That is cold hard fact. $70k x 47k = 3300 million! Your refusal to deal with numbers in any detail does not speak confidence for you assessment on what economists estimate for GM pensions. As for under-funding, GM's problem can not compare to what the federal government faces with its employees. That's the natural result of pie-in-the-sky demands made by unions.
Well since Japanese executives do work for less then perhaps they should be hired since they seem able to accomplish tasks like build relavent products with union labor without finger pointing.
Isn't that what's precisely happening with consumers giving market share to Japanese carmakers?
Well even in ununionized country's where GM has assembly plants they still build unrelavent products. I believe Socala, has braught this up in the past as a reference point. Who do you blame then ?
Please mention the specifics, Socala has not been a reliable source of info or valid opinion so far; being quoted second-hand makes the point even more suspect.
Well if that's the case then why hasn't Bill Ford and Rick Wagoner and all the suits been fired yet ? GM stock has fallen like a rock over the last 5 years. Oh that's right it's all the UAW's fault.
Who do you suppose would replace them with? Us yahoos on the edmunds' forum? ;-) Wagoner did try improve quality and efficiency back in the late 90's; he was stopped by UAW.
We already covered the inaccuracy of this statement.
Like where? I must missed it.
That goes back to poor design and engineering, and to cheap parts, problems that don't get fixed by using more robots.
Robotics makes for consistent output. When output consistent, you can design and engineer for much tighter tolerance. You'd know that if you had designed or engineered anything for mass production.
Well the going rate is unskilled chinese labor at $0.60 an hour. If GM wants to solve all its problems then let em' ship all the plants to China so we can quit hearing blame the UAW for unfavorable products. Please ship them all GM !!!!
Numerical accuracy is apparently not in vogue here. The GM production line China pays about $2-5/hr, at currently exchange rate. In any case, it is indeed worthwhile to ship production there. Socal's beloved Toyota and Honda are doing the same thing, along with MB, BMW and Audi. If someone else can do a job more inexpensively, why do you want to do it? do you make your own clothes or hire a local tailor for it? Obviously for most people it's neither . . . they just want clothese, cheaper (which makes their own effective income higher); cars are the same.
Like Socala, has pointed out the labor costs for the transplants like the Japanese, is higher than it is for the domestics.
Like I said, SocalA4 is not a reliable source of information. The bulk of GM labor cost is benefits and pensions. The transplats never locked themselves into such carte blanche arrangement.
The family's live in Toyota City and the company pretty much pays the way for basically all activity's in the community.
Toyota City was built like a sweatshop/dormitory, at a time when a dollar bought 300 yen or so. When Henry Ford tried something like that some 30 years earlier, he had a workers' riot on his hand within a few years. Carmaking in Japan is no longer price-competitive today with a dollar buying 115yen. That's why some Japanese are bemoaning about job loss to India and China just like some of us do :-)
Well do you think those uneducated peasants in some foreign country are going to fix those robots when they break down ? They are having problems as we speak with getting robotics technicians. I hope it snowballs in their face.
The key here is that GM making a BMW-ish vehicle, even if suceeding, would still be unable to command the premium of a BMW. Therefore, money looks for other venues to multiply itself, e.g. going to BMW! When the cost of borrowing goes sky high, the company dies . . . because a corporation is little more than an entity that arbitrarges the difference between its intrisic return on capital vis-a-vis the opportunity cost of money (ie. borrowing cost, interest).
So your saying it's not worth a try ? I think with the proper design and execution team a BMW-ish type of car could be done. All GM would have to do is build a better driving machine than BMW and advertise Trophy Wives driving them on Oprah. :P
We both weren't blessed with "skull and bones" parents to pay for 10 years at Yale or Harvard. We both had poor union family members trying to make ends meet.
Union families are not poor; one single UAW job at $65k today puts the whole family in the top-20% for income. Two at $65k each makes the family close to top 5% cut-off line at $140k. That's today. It was even higer in relative terms a couple decades ago. Your grandpa was paid $20-40k award checks, college was only $5k a year or less back then. In other words, you are from a family of privilege.
So your saying it's not worth a try ? I think with the proper design and execution team a BMW-ish type of car could be done.
I'd go further. If GM management can't compete with BMW in some way, shape or form (perhaps not directly, but in some other premium segment), then they need to be fired.
Some progress is being made with Cadillac, but it's simply too slow. At this stage, GM doesn't need a gradual progression, but a quantum leap forward.
Saab, on the other hand, has failed in its endeavor. Leave it to GM management to try to leverage Saab's prime differentiation (the quirky Swede) by selling rebadged Subarus and GM SUV's. I'll tell you, these guys just aren't very smart.
Once again, irresponsible envy talking. Those "uneducated peasants" actually have their college degrees, which is more than some of us can boast :-) Yes, college graduates staff the majority of positions on Buick production line . . . at the beginning it was 100% college degree holders, from what I heard. Apparently folks there love the American brand and were eager to make something that could show off their Japanese neighbors.
Who makes $65K a year ? Not without working quite a bit of overtime.
Rocky
P.S. Grandpa on my moms side was worth a few four letter words, but was very intellegent and yes made very good money living inside and offering suggestions inside GM's Kalamazoo Mi. plant that is now closed. He was a Tool and Die guy.
Well, in math and science, college degree programs in China are actually more rigorous than their counterparts here. Some think there's an educational gap to our disadvantage. I tend to think that making independent thinkers is a more worthwhile goal for college education.
Comments
Here are what we have on planet earth:
http://www.fordvehicles.com/cars/mustang/incentives/offers/results/index.asp?mod- - - el=Mustang&year=06&zip=10012
$1000 off on Mustangs. That's just fact of life with UAW receiving full pay regardless whether carmaking takes place or not. The manufacturers have to over-produce. Almost every car from the domestics get discounted by the second model year, and getting progressively deeper as time goes on. The basic tool of supply management that is so crucial to any brand image management is completely taken out of the hands of the managers.
Consumers like you and me, who do give GM a chance is not the problem for GM. GM's problem is consumers like Solcal, who would never give GM a chance. Notice, I said, it's GM's problem, not the consumers' problem. Consumers can spend their own money whichever way they like. Even if GM made the exact same cars as Toyota today (never mind it's an impossibility in production lines that they have for most models), the exact same car would still be out-competed by Toyota branded vehicles. This is not even hypothetical, look at the resale value of Chevy Prism vs. Toyota Corolla and Pontiac Vibe vs. Toyota Matrix. In an idealized world, GM should have billions to spend to win back their hearts and minds, but on planet earth, people in charge of resource allocation understand that it would be quite a waste of human and natural resources to do that when there are perfect good alternatives to place your auto industry bets; that's why GM credit rating has been dropping . . .
The UAW will always be a scapegoat for the company's and it's membership gets little or no attention for jobs well done.
Isn't that the foudamental principle of unionism? There is no difference between a job well done vs. a job done poorly. Both demand to be paid exactly the same.
I guess some americans that are elites have no respect or value for "factory rats" that build products like cars for a living.
This is a bit off-topic and getting political, but I would never call anyone "factory rats." Individuals should indeed be respected and rewarded for the contribution they make to an organization, even the ones sweeping the factory floor or make lunches for the production line workers. UAW however is an organization invented to eliminate that individual accountability, and turning decent individuals into, what you call it, anonymous "factory rats."
Perhaps this is a culture issue we americans have torwards other americans and the dollar is always the bottom line with everything we do.
The dollar being the bottom line is a tremendous strength that we Americans have. It leads to efficient allocation of human and natural resources. Thank goodness we usually do not have a policy of keeping obsolete products in production just to keep jobs, wasting human and natural resources along the way.
I wonder if you have ever designed a product to be mass produced anywhere. All capacities are not equal except in the minds of ivory tower statisticians and (former soviet and everywhere else) bureacrats. The intricacies of what product can be made where, with what kind of expected quality and yield rate is a scientific discipline in its own right.
Really is Rick Wagoner, worth/value 250+ times more per year than my father ?
The plant managers make $250,000+ a year to sit in front of a desk and make sure their supervisors are meeting production goals. I guess when it's your own private buisness you can make as much as you want.
GM isn't a privately owned buisness and many of the share holders of the company are individual UAW employees that take a small piece of the pie each. The sitting around watching TV is a thing of the past except where plants have closed and job banks are present. Those folks will soon be relocated to plants that are building products. They wouldn't be sitting around doing nothing if GM wouldn't keep losing market share. The bottom line is they need to make products people want. They could charge more if they did so. The Europeans, Japanese, all have labor unions with tighter work rules than the UAW ever dreamed of having and they still are making big profits. Why ? Good product.
I will always be favorable to GM products and hopefully the 08' CTS will be the first vehicle in a long time that gets me excited about GM again. The Velite was the first one since the Trans-Am/Camaro was canceled and now that I have a family it's a vehicle with 4 doors and gadetology that gets me excited. Sure I want it to be pretty darn fast and fuel efficient also.
sorry for the rambling...
Rocky
Rocky
I'm not sure where you get the 250-400x number for the auto industry executives. UAW workers get paid on average $65k in cash and another estimated $60k or so in benefits and retirement; even if only taking the first number, multiply by the lower limit of your 250-400, that's over 16 million! Not a single auto industry executive is being paid that much as far as I know. The upper limit of your estimate would work out to $50 million . . . pray tell who is paid that much in the auto industry?
Japanese executives get all sorts of perks in addition to their salary. Japanese executives have far more power over their employees, including frequent personal privileges. I wonder how much that would cost in the US . . . oh, wait, we have an estimate, the latest suit against former Toyota NA chief is seeking $40 million in damages and $150 million in punitive damages. That works out to be what? 2000 times a $100k salary? or 4000 times a $50k salary?
I guess when it's your own private buisness you can make as much as you want.
I wish ;-) I can only make money when I offer products and services at market competitive rates. The law simply does not allow me to hold up the customer as hostage until I'm paid what I want, like UAW was allowed to do.
Put it another way, if say two kids fresh out of high school, both previously doing lawns for $15/hr, both applied for the job. One got it. Isn't a 27% wage increase enough for the advancement? why do you think the lucky one deserve several times that if the employer is not willing to pay?
Like I said before, union is feudalistic elitism.
The board of executives are like the our congress, they get to write their own ticket to wealth with nobody to answer to. They are all in it togeather like a bunch of rich kids, which makes them no different than the UAw, except that the UAW members get a meager broze package when compared to the Diamond package the auto executives get. It's a right, not a priveledge for executives in this country to become millionaires after working just 1 year. They are set forever. Yes some CEO's outside of the automobile buiz make $50 million a year in salary, stock options, bonus.
The bottom line still is product, customer service, are the keys to make this all go bye, bye, and then the UAW wages and auto executive salary's would be a moot issue.
Boy wouldn't that be a nice day, but then what the heck could we disagree on then. :P
Rocky
Rocky
P.S. If the rate for autoworkers like you said is so low, then why is Toyota paying more than that with benefits ??? :P
There is no "board of executives." There are executives and the board of directors supposedly watching over them. Executive compensation indeed can be a problem when the various participants form an oligarchy. That however is a different issue altogether and not all that relevent to the dire financial straits that GM is in, as the numbers bear out.
What other executives in other industries get paid is even less relevant. Talks of executive pay in the context of GM's financial problems is little more than envy talking, which has its room, in the politics forums.
Products are not designed in vaccuum. Products have to be designed and engineered to be manufacturable with the production line one has and the workers one has.
ps.
Boards and executives do get voted on everyday in the market place; it's called the stock market.
The going rate for unskilled/semi-skilled labor is a function of inflation. A person living in an economy that gets paid $50/hr to flip burgers and has to pay $50/hr for baby sitting is no better off than another living in an economy that gets paid $10/hr to flip burgers and has to pay $10/hr for baby sitting.
If the rate for autoworkers like you said is so low, then why is Toyota paying more than that with benefits ???
Toyota benefits can not begin to compare to UAW benefits. Toyota pays the amount over going rate has as much to do with worker retention rate as politics. They are generating enough profit on products to pay for it, for the time being. With the GM-UAW lesson before them, Toyota strived hard to avoid infexible labor arrangements.
Blaming the consumer is a sure-fire method to generate losses. Since this seems to be par for the course in Detroit, they are now reaping that harvest of fingerpointing.
Since GM is losing both market share and retail sales, it needs to look within itself to figure out why that is. And at this point, understanding these reasons should be a no-brainer.
Please re-read my previous post. I made an explicit statement that you cut out to make it clear that it was not blaming the consumer. Perception is a problem for GM. BMW can win comparos with a car breaking down and spinning out of control in the middle of a performance test . . . whereas GM hardly ever gets recognized for their quality improvement in recent years. It gradually reaches a point where one has to decide whether it even makes sense to put money into a brand with image problems. Like you expounded so many times on the need to cut divisions, perhaps GM carmaking/selling in the US should be put to pasture altogether, leaving the company mostly serving loyal truck and SUV base here and cars overseas where there isn't a perception problem.
Yep. And who do you believe created that perception problem? You guessed it -- GM itself. It is entirely to blame for its loss of goodwill in the marketplace. Management teams are there to fix these things when they break, not to continue to blame the customer for its hard-earned bad reputation.
Those benefits costs done by some quack economist is giving a free pass to GM for not fully funding it's pension obligations over the years and is tacking on those additional costs to every working UAW member. Even you should beable to figure that out.
There is no "board of executives." There are executives and the board of directors supposedly watching over them. Executive compensation indeed can be a problem when the various participants form an oligarchy. That however is a different issue altogether and not all that relevent to the dire financial straits that GM is in, as the numbers bear out.
There you go again finding excuses to blame the UAW, while giving a free pass to management. Gosh your killing me pal. :P
What other executives in other industries get paid is even less relevant. Talks of executive pay in the context of GM's financial problems is little more than envy talking, which has its room, in the politics forums.
Well since Japanese executives do work for less then perhaps they should be hired since they seem able to accomplish tasks like build relavent products with union labor without finger pointing. :P
Products are not designed in vaccuum. Products have to be designed and engineered to be manufacturable with the production line one has and the workers one has.
Well even in ununionized country's where GM has assembly plants they still build unrelavent products. I believe Socala, has braught this up in the past as a reference point.
ps.
Boards and executives do get voted on everyday in the market place; it's called the stock market.
Well if that's the case then why hasn't Bill Ford and Rick Wagoner and all the suits been fired yet ? GM stock has fallen like a rock over the last 5 years. Oh that's right it's all the UAW's fault. :confuse:
Rocky
Well the going rate is unskilled chinese labor at $0.60 an hour. If GM wants to solve all its problems then let em' ship all the plants to China so we can quit hearing blame the UAW for unfavorable products. Please ship them all GM !!!!
Toyota benefits can not begin to compare to UAW benefits. Toyota pays the amount over going rate has as much to do with worker retention rate as politics. They are generating enough profit on products to pay for it, for the time being. With the GM-UAW lesson before them, Toyota strived hard to avoid infexible labor arrangements.
Like Socala, has pointed out the labor costs for the transplants like the Japanese, is higher than it is for the domestics. What are the costs per employee in Japan for union labor ? The family's live in Toyota City and the company pretty much pays the way for basically all activity's in the community.
Rocky
yes it is. But what can be done about it? That is the going price for an executive in the US. Rock, this is our country and this is the way it is. You can complain about a few execs making more money than you but if you want to keep them you have to pay them the prevailing rate. I do not care if you think they are not doing a good job, it is the prevailing rate. I guess we could get a law to stop it.
If your father is worth that much then have him apply for the job. If you think you are good enough send in your resume.
Rocky
I realize that the quality of GM vehicles is better NOW, but being angry that the customer hasn't caught up isn't really fair either -- this low repuation got earned over many decades of passenger car neglect.
The domestics were very fat and very happy selling trucks and SUV's at fat profits. I think it was really easy back then to see that they would have big problems if (when) the cost of gas would rise, and that's pretty much what has happened.
I do agree some of the gear heads at the car mags seem a bit biased torwards performance cars.
OTOH, there is no excuse that GM can't build BMW-ish vehicles.
Rocky
Rocky
I could understand when a company is doing very well and the CEO could be compensated nicely. OTOH when is millions of dollars enough ?
Is that mommy and daddy Yale degree really worth tens of millions in salery over a decade ????
How about still getting paid that much dough when the company is losing billions in sales and huge losses in market share. The bottom line is we run our corporations like we do our government, the elites get to write there own ticket to who wants to be a millionaire and in some cases billionaire.
If your father is worth that much then have him apply for the job. If you think you are good enough send in your resume.
We both weren't blessed with "skull and bones" parents to pay for 10 years at Yale or Harvard. We both had poor union family members trying to make ends meet.
Rocky
Rocky
Rocky
We already covered the inaccuracy of this statement. Repeating it doesn't give these one-line "explanations" of yours any more credibility.
In any case, a lot of the problem rests in areas aside from reliability. Other aspects of the product such as bland or unattractive designs, inferior drivability, poor quality materials, and outdated technologies. That goes back to poor design and engineering, and to cheap parts, problems that don't get fixed by using more robots.
Rocky
The magnitude of executive compensation can not begin to compare to the amount being paid out to "buy out" the privileges that UAW members have. That is cold hard fact. $70k x 47k = 3300 million! Your refusal to deal with numbers in any detail does not speak confidence for you assessment on what economists estimate for GM pensions. As for under-funding, GM's problem can not compare to what the federal government faces with its employees. That's the natural result of pie-in-the-sky demands made by unions.
Well since Japanese executives do work for less then perhaps they should be hired since they seem able to accomplish tasks like build relavent products with union labor without finger pointing.
Isn't that what's precisely happening with consumers giving market share to Japanese carmakers?
Well even in ununionized country's where GM has assembly plants they still build unrelavent products. I believe Socala, has braught this up in the past as a reference point. Who do you blame then ?
Please mention the specifics, Socala has not been a reliable source of info or valid opinion so far; being quoted second-hand makes the point even more suspect.
Well if that's the case then why hasn't Bill Ford and Rick Wagoner and all the suits been fired yet ? GM stock has fallen like a rock over the last 5 years. Oh that's right it's all the UAW's fault.
Who do you suppose would replace them with? Us yahoos on the edmunds' forum? ;-) Wagoner did try improve quality and efficiency back in the late 90's; he was stopped by UAW.
Like where? I must missed it.
That goes back to poor design and engineering, and to cheap parts, problems that don't get fixed by using more robots.
Robotics makes for consistent output. When output consistent, you can design and engineer for much tighter tolerance. You'd know that if you had designed or engineered anything for mass production.
Numerical accuracy is apparently not in vogue here. The GM production line China pays about $2-5/hr, at currently exchange rate. In any case, it is indeed worthwhile to ship production there. Socal's beloved Toyota and Honda are doing the same thing, along with MB, BMW and Audi. If someone else can do a job more inexpensively, why do you want to do it? do you make your own clothes or hire a local tailor for it? Obviously for most people it's neither . . . they just want clothese, cheaper (which makes their own effective income higher); cars are the same.
Like Socala, has pointed out the labor costs for the transplants like the Japanese, is higher than it is for the domestics.
Like I said, SocalA4 is not a reliable source of information. The bulk of GM labor cost is benefits and pensions. The transplats never locked themselves into such carte blanche arrangement.
The family's live in Toyota City and the company pretty much pays the way for basically all activity's in the community.
Toyota City was built like a sweatshop/dormitory, at a time when a dollar bought 300 yen or so. When Henry Ford tried something like that some 30 years earlier, he had a workers' riot on his hand within a few years. Carmaking in Japan is no longer price-competitive today with a dollar buying 115yen. That's why some Japanese are bemoaning about job loss to India and China just like some of us do :-)
Rocky
Rocky
Rocky
Union families are not poor; one single UAW job at $65k today puts the whole family in the top-20% for income. Two at $65k each makes the family close to top 5% cut-off line at $140k. That's today. It was even higer in relative terms a couple decades ago. Your grandpa was paid $20-40k award checks, college was only $5k a year or less back then. In other words, you are from a family of privilege.
I'd go further. If GM management can't compete with BMW in some way, shape or form (perhaps not directly, but in some other premium segment), then they need to be fired.
Some progress is being made with Cadillac, but it's simply too slow. At this stage, GM doesn't need a gradual progression, but a quantum leap forward.
Saab, on the other hand, has failed in its endeavor. Leave it to GM management to try to leverage Saab's prime differentiation (the quirky Swede) by selling rebadged Subarus and GM SUV's. I'll tell you, these guys just aren't very smart.
http://www.saabnet.com/tsn/press/060509A.html
12% sales increase in the US (retail sales up 17%) and 24% worldwide!
Perhaps the critics are just too wound up in their own rhetorics to see the numbers.
Like Uncle Donald says "your fired" would be the best news ever. :mad:
Rocky
Rocky
P.S. Grandpa on my moms side was worth a few four letter words, but was very intellegent and yes made very good money living inside and offering suggestions inside GM's Kalamazoo Mi. plant that is now closed.
Rocky
Rocky