Yeah, I was about to say that the railroads used to be like this. My Granddad retired back in 1974 or 1975, and gets a pretty good pension. I think he worked for the Pennyslvania Railroad. Whichever one had the train crash into Union Station in 1953. I don't think he gets social security. Things may be different nowadays though, for current railroad workers and newer retirees.
Great post, Rocky. If anything, GM was the first to pursue more fuel-efficient vehicles among the Big Three. GM radically downsized its full-size B and C bodies in 1977 and their A bodies in 1978.
I missed you guys as well tlong. My union views will never change because I'm very pro-worker tlong, and believe the U.S. prosperity and strong middle class stems from organized labor. If we had a domestic content law millions of jobs would flow back to this country and our economy here would be better off and the crap we would buy would be better made and safe for our kids. You will never convince me that this type of capitalism is good for america. I think what's good for america should come before that extra buck made and that has been over looked for far to long. If organized labor won the election for Obama, he owes them the respect to undue or amend NAFTA, currency manipulation, and impose a tariff on foreign made goods and implement a domestic contenet law. That doesn't mean your Toyota, is going away folks but that Honyota, will be made here and not just half of em' like we currently have.....I am looking forward to the bailout being passed which should get things moving on the showroom floor. I as I said had some good prospects I should turn into buyers. 62' I understand what you are saying regarding the fact that even places like Troy, one of the wealthiest area's in the U.S. aren't immune to these economic woes. I was like a foreigner visiting another country I suppose but our sister store Saturn of Troy is the #1 Saturn dealership in the U.S. As far as asking where you were at last week well I was joking about seeing you and Wagoner, while I was there. Some of my coworkers did get to meet him (Wagoner) though. Perhaps the next time I go for training in Troy, we will have to meet up?
Perception: GM has refused to undertake a needed, major restructuring.
Reality: That's baloney. But seemingly intelligent politicians such as President-elect Barack Obama have been swallowing it.
Don't blame me I voted for the other guy. I think you are seeing our new Prez moving to the center far sooner than I would have guessed. It should make you happy as it is like a third Clinton Presidency. Obama is not buying into the UAW hype. All new simpler UAW contracts are needed to salvage what is left of a Domestic Auto Industry. GM over the last 40 years has been castrated by an overly powerful UAW.
Perception: Americans have been demanding the small cars that GM and Detroit refuse to build.
Reality: That's more perceptual junk. The reality is that most American consumers seek fuel economy only when pump prices are high.
I do agree that Americans are knee jerk buyers. The imports such as Corolla and Civic are still doing even better than 2007 YTD. Corolla is up 5.6% for the year and Civic is up 4.4% with the Fit & Yaris coming on very strong this year. How is the Malibu and Aveo doing YTD? That is more important to GM surviving than how Honda or Toyota is doing. Toyota has not laid off any full time workers. Can you say that about GM? Toyota also has their people doing menial work to keep them employed. Why does GM and the other domestics not use the excess UAW people to shovel snow or mow the lawns?
Perception: All Detroit needs is deep restructuring and federal bailout money for long-term viability.
Reality: Wrong. Detroit needs what America sorely needs -- a Congress with the leadership chutzpah to devise and implement industrial and energy policies that will help to keep native manufacturing industries alive.
I do agree that the 110th Congress is the WORST in the history of the USA. Again I did not vote for any of those losers. As a taxpayer I want to see some Fiscal responsibility. GM has not shown any over the last 20 or more years. What makes you think they will do any better in the future? They have rolled over and let the UAW trample the greatest company on earth into the Michigan dirt. That, I blame on a HORRIBLE management team headed up by Wagoner. When he buckled to the UAW in 1998 he gave up the last chance at survival, to sell a few more SUVs. That was total Stupidity on Wagoner's part. He should have chained the gates and said sorry boys we are moving where we can make a decent profit. Instead he just added to an already lopsided UAW contract and over the last 10 years squandered the wealth of General Motors. The GM you see today is pathetic begging for crumbs from Congress.
I as you know voted for Obama, because he was the less of two evils. I supported Edwards and then Hillary. Obama, at least has a background with working people. I don't understand how you can blame so much on the UAW, for GM's woes!!! GM, yes made mistakes as did the UAW, but this crap wouldn't be happening if we would protect our domestic business like every other country. We are the dumbest nation on the face of the earth when it comes to shooting ourselves in the foot!!! Whenever jobs are lost and disposable income per family goes down well those folks either won't buy it or they will buy a Chinese made product because that is all they can afford because they lost their disposable income. I think that is one area that is way to often overlooked. We still can save this country if we are willing to make the neccessary changes gagrice. The question is will we ??? The UAW, is fighting each and everyday for those changes to shelter this country from shoddy made foreign goods and have been lobbying on GM, Ford, Chrysler's, behalf for content laws for years to level the playing field. The Asians and Europeans subsidize their automobile industry thus when are we going too ???
If GM had held out in the strikes to resist the UAW, American's newspaper and media types would criticize them for hurting the economy and hurting all those families out of work.
So what? It would not have hurt the views of most Americans. With the $72 billion that GM has pissed away over the last 4 years they could have built all new factories in states that were not so repressive as Michigan. They could have had the latest and greatest with NO worries about the UAW striking. Not all states in this country are as anti profit as the Midwestern states. Why does Indiana & Kentucky seem to attract both Union and Non Union auto makers while Michigan and Ohio do not?
think Time Magazine's Man of the Year will do that with part of the $600 million campaign funds having come from labor?
It depends just how much of a pragmatist he turns out to be. I think he is leaning toward spending billions on putting people that are currently out of work and hurting into meaningful jobs. It is hard to look at the over paid UAW workers sitting eating jelly donuts and reading the newspaper as hurting. That is a perception based on reality. Just a small part of the 2000+ pages of UAW contracts that need to be tossed in the fire. The biggest obstacle at the Big 3 for this new President will be their lack of cars that meet the new CAFE standards coming up. Do any domestics have a car for next year that meets the 35 MPG combined mandate? Why should he bail out companies that do not build what the government mandates?
this crap wouldn't be happening if we would protect our domestic business like every other country.
That is just not true. We have more tariffs on Imported vehicles than Japan. You are in denial on the global economy. I can tell you the new Congress and President are not in any way going to do anything to slow the World economy. NAFTA was signed by Bill Clinton and you can see this new administration is filled with Clinton people. The only reason the Big 3 and the UAW did well in the 1990s was the Dot.com bubble and the massive market for SUVs and PU trucks. This new President has denounced that kind of vehicle. He is pushing for smaller fuel efficient cars. The only really small car that GM has is the Aveo coming from Korea. How does that help the UAW cause?
Perception: GM does not know how to make small cars.
Reality: GM knows darn well how to make small cars. It's been doing so for decades in Europe, South America and Asia. The problem is, absent high fuel prices, GM has no earthly idea how to get Americans to buy small cars -- at a profit to GM.
What is this supposed to mean? If they know how to sell small cars at a profit in other parts of the world, how come it cannot do so in their own backyard?
I think the Corvair was one of GM's best efforts at a fuel efficient car. Too bad that hack Nader killed it for them, before they refined the handling.
> I don't understand how you can blame so much on the UAW, for GM's woes!!! GM, yes made mistakes as did the UAW.
Everybody is blaming the GM management and UAW for the mess. At least the GM management is owning up to it and willing to work for peanuts as repentance. What does UAW do? It had only 3 words......"Go !@#% Off" ?
In fact they need to harness the transplants and have them help fund the problem they have caused.
I don't understand this at all. What "problems" have the transplants caused? They've built factories here in the U.S. & hired American workers. Would you prefer that foreign manufacturers build all of the cars that they sell here in Germany & Japan?
They fixed the problems with the swing axles by 1964 and further refined it with the 1965 redesign. The 1965-69 Corvair was a beautiful car that should have been further developed. Maybe we wouldn't have had to suffer the Vega as a result. The 1968-74 Nova was another excellent small car by GM. Just about everybody I knew had one. I remember my cousin's 1971 model.
If anything, GM was the first to pursue more fuel-efficient vehicles among the Big Three. GM radically downsized its full-size B and C bodies in 1977 and their A bodies in 1978.
Agreed. That was a real engineering feat. So why couldn't GM reprise that 25 years later? That tells me that GM is not nearly as well run today as it was back in the 70s.
You've given me one more reason (as if I needed it) to believe that only Chapter 11 reorganization will save GM & restore it to its former vibrancy.
I do agree that Americans are knee jerk buyers. The imports such as Corolla and Civic are still doing even better than 2007 YTD.
But as I posted elsewhere they are both down about 70% from last year for November while GM pick ups are down only 15% or so. Gas went down, little cars plummeted.
Pensions held accountable? Really? How, especially if the funds are bad investments or fradulant. How will they be held accountable, with little or no money. Madoff did not only buy into hedge funds. He merely used other peole's money to pay off others debts as in a Ponzi Scheme. And not only greedy people. millions of life long savings of elderly trying to survive. We will wait to see how the scum Madoff held accountable. He is the greedy on, Sir.
It's the transplants' fault that GM, Ford and Chrysler built vehicles that were less desirable to a large chunk of the car-buying public. This caused their sales to fall.
It's the transplants' fault that most retail customers would rather buy Camrys and Accords than Malibus, Impalas and LaCrosses.
It's the transplants' fault that the UAW demanded, and management agreed to give, lavish pay and benefits for blue-collar workers.
It's the transplants' fault that, when faced with falling sales, declining market share and mounting losses, the domestics opted not to do anything about their uncompetitive cost structure, which stemmed in large part from this compensation package, until the last minute, which was too late.
It's the transplants' fault that the domestics ignored passenger cars until the last 2-3 years, and focused on large trucks and SUVs, in part because these vehicles generated the large profit margins necessary to support the uncompetitive cost structure.
It's the transplants' fault that GM bungled an agreement with Fiat that cost the company roughly $4 billion a few years ago.
It's the transplants' fault that GM sunk development money into the Solstice/Sky, SSR and XLR instead of high-quality subcompacts.
It's the transplants' fault that GM decided to import two cars - the Pontiac G8 and Saturn Astra - that it could never hope to make much, if any, money on in a volatile market.
Well, it's also the fault of Consumer Reports,The New York Times, Walmart, Japanese currency manipulation and the Chinese (even though they don't sell a single vehicle here)...
As a regular poster, you should know by now that when discussing the domestic auto industry, it's important to remember that nothing is ever the fault of the Big Three or the UAW.
We will wait to see how the scum Madoff held accountable.
I have nothing good to say about Madoff pronounced made off. As in made off with a lot of people's money. What you do not seem to understand is the people in charge of Pension funds can be held accountable for making bad investments. As you pointed out Madoff was selling himself to people that gave him money in the hopes of getting big profit. They were motivated by greed rather than sound investing principles. Off shore hedge funds generally do not come under the SEC protection. So when you invest you are trusting the person handling the money. BIG mistake. Trusting anyone that is not under some regulatory body can get you in trouble. I have no sympathy for someone that handed all their life savings to Madoff or any other Flim Flam man. Even name brands like Paine Webber have screwed people with poor investments. My wife's 401K was $348k in 1998 and $106k when she transferred it to a reputable broker in 2000. Many people sued PW and won for their shoddy practices. Nothing like the Madoff Ponzi scheme.
Oh, Madoff is under house arrest in his $7 million apartment. I would have chained him outside the courthouse till he died of exposure.
"They fixed the problems with the swing axles by 1964 and further refined it with the 1965 redesign. The 1965-69 Corvair was a beautiful car that should have been further developed. Maybe we wouldn't have had to suffer the Vega as a result. The 1968-74 Nova was another excellent small car by GM. Just about everybody I knew had one. I remember my cousin's 1971 model."
I have to note here that while lemko and I hardly ever agree on car style and such that I agree 100% with the above.
The Corvair was a wonderful little thing. Yes, they screwed up initially. How many people look to see that the manual specifies very different tire pressures for the back and front? My dad was actually in a Corvair rollover once, escaping unharmed. But this was hardly unique to the Corvair. It wasn't the rollover champ. That was the VW bug for exactly the same reason.
we now return you to the UAW....
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
It's the transplants' fault that Congress rejected a bailout program and forced the White House to go through with a more business-like prepackaged bankruptcy.
if I made $15 million last year and tens of millions in prior years when trucks were selling well hell I could afford to work for peanuts because working for peanuts now when you have $ 50+ million in the bank like most of these executives have well you can AFFORD to sacrifice. Remember Wagoner, made $15 million and Mualley, made $50 million in the last 2 years thus don't give me the hawg wash arguement of sacrifice. The UAW, gave away pretty much everything they worked for to help GM. This wouldn't be an issue if the economy didn't tank and we go from nearly 17 million vehicle sales down to 10 million. :confuse:
The UAW, gave away pretty much everything they worked for to help GM. This wouldn't be an issue if the economy didn't tank and we go from nearly 17 million vehicle sales down to 10 million.
The UAW has not given up enough to make GM profitable. GM lost $38 billion last year when 16.9 million vehicles were sold. So the economy is not a valid argument. They lost billions every year for the last 4 years while the imports were making billions. Wagoner and Mullaly should not have been making millions while their companies were bleeding red ink. Then you are the one defending Wagoner. When he is the guy that has run GM into the ground the last 14 years. Never made a decent profit ONE YEAR since he took over the company. How can you consider that a good CEO?
I guess you gauge performance on how much you sold out to the Union. Not how much money the company made.
"....The imports such as Corolla and Civic are still doing even better than 2007 YTD. Corolla is up 5.6% for the year and Civic is up 4.4% with the Fit & Yaris coming on very strong this year. How is the Malibu and Aveo doing YTD?"
If there were no UAW, would the fall to bankruptcy been the same, faster or non-existent?
My take is it would have happened anyway due to the structure and product issues but perhaps the products would have been built better due to higher investment in product as opposed to labor.
If there were no UAW, would the fall to bankruptcy been the same, faster or non-existent?
If there was no UAW there would not be 100s of 1000s of retirees that just keep hanging in there with their gold plated health care. The rest of US retirees are stuck with cheapo Medicare that gives minimal health care. We won't live as long. How many UAW retirees are on life support to keep that fat retirement check rolling in? Reality is most health care plans have a lifetime maximum. Our Teamster plan was a million bucks. That is about good for a kidney transplant and one hip replacement. Then you are on your own.
Without the billions spent each year on legacy costs GM would be better off. Without the super restrictive work rules GM would have been able to build state of the art factories here in the USA. Sure the workers would be making more like the average worker in the USA. But GM would not be begging for a handout from the tax payers. Think how degrading it had to be for Wagoner to drive that Volt to DC. Stopping every 40 miles to charge the batteries
Gettelfinger was interviewed by phone on Campbell Brown on Cnn which rarely watch anything on. He was reluctant to admit that during the plant shutdowns (he caused) the workers will be paid a large, almost whole, fraction of their wages. She asked him the question again. And he sort of acknowledged that. But he kept saying they had to do certain things. I assume he meant like apply for unemployment insurance. I assume their medical insurance is paid also during these shutdowns.
Of course the plants shut down already for 2 weeks during the holidays, don't they.
Gettelfinger keeps losing me with his evasion and lack of helpfulness here. I think we need federal government to eliminate the agreements that are costing so much for our home auto companies.
Companies like to plan and the market conditions determine if these pension funds are over or under funded. They are just moving to greater match on the 401K. Which is fine by me. I can do better than most money managers. Fact is that many more money managers have failed to beat the S&P. Its not the cost, but rather market conditions which puts a stress during down markets.
Health spending accounts are also going to be popular for this next generation.
Municipals bonds are for the super rich, since they pay poorly, but are exempt from taxation.
AP Online 08-31-1999 Former GM Supervisors Charged
FLINT, Mich. (AP) -- Three former General Motors supervisors were charged with scheming to get more than $2 million in kickbacks and gifts from companies that did business with the automaker.
Investigators said the suspects, who no longer work for GM, told suppliers to raise prices on goods and services and submit fake bills. The suppliers were then paid by GM and kick backed a payment to the three suspects.
The vendors also gave the supervisors gifts such as trips to Las Vegas, motorcycles and a tanning salon membership to keep GM business, investigators told The Flint Journal.
"....We have more tariffs on Imported vehicles than Japan."
While that may be true, I thought the Japanese did other things like mandatory inspections of the imports, then drag their feet inspecting them, to discourage their importation.
On one radio source they said Korean automaker can import 500,000 cars here but we can only send either 2500 or 5000 into Korea. Sounds like fair trade to ME. :P
There are currently pay differences even between the U.S. auto plants owned by Toyota. Toyota workers in Georgetown, Kentucky, earn $27-$30 an hour, similar to the hourly wages of UAW workers in Michigan.
But vexed by the rise of lower-wage competitors, including Hyundai Motor in Montgomery, Alabama, and Nissan Motor in Canton, Mississippi, Toyota has been on a campaign to establish new plants that can pay lower hourly rates than its more-established U.S. plants.
Starting wages for workers at Toyota's San Antonio Tundra pickup plant, which opened in 2006, began at $15.50 an hour and are scheduled to grow to $21 an hour in 2009. And assembly workers at the company's planned Prius factory near Tupelo, Mississippi, are expected to earn $20 an hour when it opens in 2010. Yet Toyota's Corolla-Tacoma plant in Fremont, California, is a UAW-represented joint-venture with General Motors that pays national UAW rates.
I can do better than most money managers. Fact is that many more money managers have failed to beat the S&P
No doubt there. I completely avoid actively managed funds. Seems few beat the S&P like you mentioned (particularly when your limited in your choices in most 401k and 529 accounts), not to mention the higher management fees charged to get substandard returns. No thanks.
Health spending accounts/flexible spending accounts are a very nice benefit. Granted the higher your tax bracket, the more you benefit. We've used a health spending account for the past 8 years and with young kids etc, it's nice to use pretax money to pay for out of pocket medical expenses etc.
>if I made $15 million last year and tens of millions in prior years when trucks were selling well hell I could afford to work for peanuts because working for peanuts now when you have $ 50+ million in the bank like most of these executives have
Richer people have bigger expenses....There are enough examples of rich people going bankrupt.
That said, I am not pardoning them CEOs. They did get paid more than they were worth imo.
I thought the Japanese did other things like mandatory inspections of the imports, then drag their feet inspecting them, to discourage their importation.
No country does that with more regulations than the EPA. Bill Gates waited something like 2 years to get a Porsche he bought through the EPA red tape. Most cars cannot be sold here for one reason or another. We probably have the most protectionist government on the face of the planet. Japan's emissions are not as stiff as ours.
For all of 2007, GM posted a loss of $38.7 billion, the biggest ever for an automaker. The loss, equal to $68.45 a share, is about the same amount as a noncash charge of $38.3 billion that the company took in the third quarter to write down deferred tax assets, meaning that GM almost broke even otherwise, after losing $2 billion in 2006.
Gate's Porsche was impounded by Customs for 13 years.
It was impounded because there was no crash testing on it or EPA testing. Even after passage of the Show and Display law, the use of the 959 is limited. Wikipedia
Here's a good one:
"In 1949, a pamphlet was published that argued that the American auto industry should pursue a different direction. Titled "A Small Car Named Desire," the pamphlet suggested that Detroit not put all its bets on bigness, that a substantial share of American consumers would welcome smaller cars that cost less and burned fuel more efficiently.
The pamphlet's author was the research department of the United Auto Workers."
13 years is a long time for a million dollar car to sit on the docks. I believe Gates and Allen had matching 959s. It further proves that our regulations are tougher than any other countries when it comes to importing vehicles. Protectionism to the max. And GM still cannot compete.
The article had a couple interesting points. Very biased for the most part and ULTRA Liberal views. Not very factual. I don't believe there ever was a time the UAW was bigger than the Teamster's Union as he intimates. No doubt the UAW along with a lot of other Unions have kept wages higher than they would be without any Unions. And I also believe the UAW started out as a good Union. They went astray and too far left and now it is biting them in the butt. We do not want a USSR type government as the UAW envisions. What they don't realize is the UAW members could end up in the salt mines as easily as making cars if they get out of line.
dd wrote: " Municipals bonds are for the super rich, since they pay poorly, but are exempt from taxation. " Ahh the trouble with old reliable truisms and blanket generalizations. Best stay with RE dd. As is the popular term goes, we have a dislocation in muni yields . The hedge funds have been unwinding them as collateral for their mortgage swap deals as deleveraging has been forced upon them. Combined with credit crunch insanity, The average great credit muni yields + 5% for intermediate term. Taxable equivalent for the almost everybody 28% bracket is 6.94%, higher tax bracket ? Salivate. Philly muni GO's recently yielded 6% for short term and 7.5 % for long term, that would be tax free. Cal muni's recently downgraded can be had for a song. The fact is that muni's are yielding from 125-175% of treasuries and may be the single best bargain there is. Other than those that were brave enough to buy high quality equities making money currently with double digit dividend yields during the recent insanity.
Starting Friday, all of Chrysler's manufacturing facilities (30 of them) will shut down for 4 weeks due to low demand of their products.
UAW workers idled by these shutdowns will be paid through a combination of unemployment benefits and money from Chrysler, though it will be less than what they would make if they were working.
This is an increase of two weeks over the "normal" holiday shutdown period.
No word yet on the "domino effect" this may have on suppliers, or if Ford or GM are looking to do the same.
On one radio source they said Korean automaker can import 500,000 cars here but we can only send either 2500 or 5000 into Korea. Sounds like fair trade to ME
This makes good copy, but is really not that important. The biggest market is HERE in the USA. Make desirable products that Americans want to buy. It's that simple. Nobody is going to get rich selling cars to Korea.
It's funny that in the 1970's the Japanese cars were the "cheap cars". They competed on price. Because of the D3 crying wolf about the imports, there were voluntary import quotas imposed in the 1980's. This had two effects:
1 - The Japanese makes went upscale to raise the average selling price per vehicle (you can't blame companies for wanting to make more profit). This expanded the range of products that competed with the D3. 2 - The Japanese makes started building US assembly plants.
The seeds of the D3 destruction started in their own protectionism. The D3 and UAW were whining about the competition in the 1980s, and they are still whining. Where are the products from the D3 that compete on an equal footing with the foreign nameplates? There aren't many that do.
Of course eventually the biggest market will be China. GM is doing pretty well there already with Buick.
Good post M, the escalation increases, Pay in unemployment benefits or pay in bailout. If only they titled it as a loan which does have to be paid back. Credit crunch II when the securitization of auto loans comes into question and the insurers of said as well will prove again that you deal with financial hysteria post haste . Rhetoric falls before the big bucks. If only our politicians had taken a business course or three.
That said, I am not pardoning them CEOs. They did get paid more than they were worth imo.
That's one thing we probably all agree on, regardless of our UAW views. If I had been paid over $10M for a few years I'd be willing to work for a dollar, too. :shades: :shades:
UAW gets 95% of wage while on temp layoff. HOWEVER what is not reported is that the OEM pays only part of this. The state unemployment whatever it is called in each state pays their normal part. So if the state pays 50% (I have no idea what it is today) the OEM pays 45%.
If it was possible I would think GM and Chrysler would knock out their portion during these upcoming shut downs, at least while they are not making money. Of course they would have to get union OK to break contract.
No country does that with more regulations than the EPA. Bill Gates waited something like 2 years to get a Porsche he bought through the EPA red tapei
Yeah, I remember reading about Gates and a few others who import exotic unapproved cars to the U.S. in Motortrend several years ago. I think the Jaguar X220 is another one of those cars that's tough to get here and are only allowed limited driving due to lack of safety and EPA. IIRC they call them "grey list" cars.
This whole thing is starting to look like the Cuban Missle Crisis - who is going to blink first?
The Big 2.8 and the UAW or the Federal Government? I think Chrysler just escalated things with the planned shutdown .... my question is, what happens in January when they start up again? Assuming, of course, that they do start up again.
Comments
-Rocky
Reality: That's baloney. But seemingly intelligent politicians such as President-elect Barack Obama have been swallowing it.
Don't blame me I voted for the other guy. I think you are seeing our new Prez moving to the center far sooner than I would have guessed. It should make you happy as it is like a third Clinton Presidency. Obama is not buying into the UAW hype. All new simpler UAW contracts are needed to salvage what is left of a Domestic Auto Industry. GM over the last 40 years has been castrated by an overly powerful UAW.
Perception: Americans have been demanding the small cars that GM and Detroit refuse to build.
Reality: That's more perceptual junk. The reality is that most American consumers seek fuel economy only when pump prices are high.
I do agree that Americans are knee jerk buyers. The imports such as Corolla and Civic are still doing even better than 2007 YTD. Corolla is up 5.6% for the year and Civic is up 4.4% with the Fit & Yaris coming on very strong this year. How is the Malibu and Aveo doing YTD? That is more important to GM surviving than how Honda or Toyota is doing. Toyota has not laid off any full time workers. Can you say that about GM? Toyota also has their people doing menial work to keep them employed. Why does GM and the other domestics not use the excess UAW people to shovel snow or mow the lawns?
Perception: All Detroit needs is deep restructuring and federal bailout money for long-term viability.
Reality: Wrong. Detroit needs what America sorely needs -- a Congress with the leadership chutzpah to devise and implement industrial and energy policies that will help to keep native manufacturing industries alive.
I do agree that the 110th Congress is the WORST in the history of the USA. Again I did not vote for any of those losers. As a taxpayer I want to see some Fiscal responsibility. GM has not shown any over the last 20 or more years. What makes you think they will do any better in the future? They have rolled over and let the UAW trample the greatest company on earth into the Michigan dirt. That, I blame on a HORRIBLE management team headed up by Wagoner. When he buckled to the UAW in 1998 he gave up the last chance at survival, to sell a few more SUVs. That was total Stupidity on Wagoner's part. He should have chained the gates and said sorry boys we are moving where we can make a decent profit. Instead he just added to an already lopsided UAW contract and over the last 10 years squandered the wealth of General Motors. The GM you see today is pathetic begging for crumbs from Congress.
-Rocky
So what? It would not have hurt the views of most Americans. With the $72 billion that GM has pissed away over the last 4 years they could have built all new factories in states that were not so repressive as Michigan. They could have had the latest and greatest with NO worries about the UAW striking. Not all states in this country are as anti profit as the Midwestern states. Why does Indiana & Kentucky seem to attract both Union and Non Union auto makers while Michigan and Ohio do not?
think Time Magazine's Man of the Year will do that with part of the $600 million campaign funds having come from labor?
It depends just how much of a pragmatist he turns out to be. I think he is leaning toward spending billions on putting people that are currently out of work and hurting into meaningful jobs. It is hard to look at the over paid UAW workers sitting eating jelly donuts and reading the newspaper as hurting. That is a perception based on reality. Just a small part of the 2000+ pages of UAW contracts that need to be tossed in the fire. The biggest obstacle at the Big 3 for this new President will be their lack of cars that meet the new CAFE standards coming up. Do any domestics have a car for next year that meets the 35 MPG combined mandate? Why should he bail out companies that do not build what the government mandates?
You are right it will be interesting.
That is just not true. We have more tariffs on Imported vehicles than Japan. You are in denial on the global economy. I can tell you the new Congress and President are not in any way going to do anything to slow the World economy. NAFTA was signed by Bill Clinton and you can see this new administration is filled with Clinton people. The only reason the Big 3 and the UAW did well in the 1990s was the Dot.com bubble and the massive market for SUVs and PU trucks. This new President has denounced that kind of vehicle. He is pushing for smaller fuel efficient cars. The only really small car that GM has is the Aveo coming from Korea. How does that help the UAW cause?
Good question.
What about the family living in the woods? One of those tribal families?
Reality: GM knows darn well how to make small cars. It's been doing so for decades in Europe, South America and Asia. The problem is, absent high fuel prices, GM has no earthly idea how to get Americans to buy small cars -- at a profit to GM.
What is this supposed to mean? If they know how to sell small cars at a profit in other parts of the world, how come it cannot do so in their own backyard?
Everybody is blaming the GM management and UAW for the mess.
At least the GM management is owning up to it and willing to work for peanuts as repentance. What does UAW do? It had only 3 words......"Go !@#% Off" ?
I don't understand this at all. What "problems" have the transplants caused? They've built factories here in the U.S. & hired American workers. Would you prefer that foreign manufacturers build all of the cars that they sell here in Germany & Japan?
Agreed. That was a real engineering feat. So why couldn't GM reprise that 25 years later? That tells me that GM is not nearly as well run today as it was back in the 70s.
You've given me one more reason (as if I needed it) to believe that only Chapter 11 reorganization will save GM & restore it to its former vibrancy.
But as I posted elsewhere they are both down about 70% from last year for November while GM pick ups are down only 15% or so. Gas went down, little cars plummeted.
Madoff did not only buy into hedge funds. He merely used other peole's money to pay off others debts as in a Ponzi Scheme. And not only greedy people. millions of life long savings of elderly trying to survive.
We will wait to see how the scum Madoff held accountable. He is the greedy on, Sir.
It's the transplants' fault that most retail customers would rather buy Camrys and Accords than Malibus, Impalas and LaCrosses.
It's the transplants' fault that the UAW demanded, and management agreed to give, lavish pay and benefits for blue-collar workers.
It's the transplants' fault that, when faced with falling sales, declining market share and mounting losses, the domestics opted not to do anything about their uncompetitive cost structure, which stemmed in large part from this compensation package, until the last minute, which was too late.
It's the transplants' fault that the domestics ignored passenger cars until the last 2-3 years, and focused on large trucks and SUVs, in part because these vehicles generated the large profit margins necessary to support the uncompetitive cost structure.
It's the transplants' fault that GM bungled an agreement with Fiat that cost the company roughly $4 billion a few years ago.
It's the transplants' fault that GM sunk development money into the Solstice/Sky, SSR and XLR instead of high-quality subcompacts.
It's the transplants' fault that GM decided to import two cars - the Pontiac G8 and Saturn Astra - that it could never hope to make much, if any, money on in a volatile market.
Well, it's also the fault of Consumer Reports, The New York Times, Walmart, Japanese currency manipulation and the Chinese (even though they don't sell a single vehicle here)...
As a regular poster, you should know by now that when discussing the domestic auto industry, it's important to remember that nothing is ever the fault of the Big Three or the UAW.
I have nothing good to say about Madoff pronounced made off. As in made off with a lot of people's money. What you do not seem to understand is the people in charge of Pension funds can be held accountable for making bad investments. As you pointed out Madoff was selling himself to people that gave him money in the hopes of getting big profit. They were motivated by greed rather than sound investing principles. Off shore hedge funds generally do not come under the SEC protection. So when you invest you are trusting the person handling the money. BIG mistake. Trusting anyone that is not under some regulatory body can get you in trouble. I have no sympathy for someone that handed all their life savings to Madoff or any other Flim Flam man. Even name brands like Paine Webber have screwed people with poor investments. My wife's 401K was $348k in 1998 and $106k when she transferred it to a reputable broker in 2000. Many people sued PW and won for their shoddy practices. Nothing like the Madoff Ponzi scheme.
Oh, Madoff is under house arrest in his $7 million apartment. I would have chained him outside the courthouse till he died of exposure.
I have to note here that while lemko and I hardly ever agree on car style and such that I agree 100% with the above.
The Corvair was a wonderful little thing. Yes, they screwed up initially. How many people look to see that the manual specifies very different tire pressures for the back and front? My dad was actually in a Corvair rollover once, escaping unharmed. But this was hardly unique to the Corvair. It wasn't the rollover champ. That was the VW bug for exactly the same reason.
we now return you to the UAW....
It's the transplants' fault that Congress rejected a bailout program and forced the White House to go through with a more business-like prepackaged bankruptcy.
Regards,
OW
-Rocky
The UAW has not given up enough to make GM profitable. GM lost $38 billion last year when 16.9 million vehicles were sold. So the economy is not a valid argument. They lost billions every year for the last 4 years while the imports were making billions. Wagoner and Mullaly should not have been making millions while their companies were bleeding red ink. Then you are the one defending Wagoner. When he is the guy that has run GM into the ground the last 14 years. Never made a decent profit ONE YEAR since he took over the company. How can you consider that a good CEO?
I guess you gauge performance on how much you sold out to the Union. Not how much money the company made.
11/08 11/07 y/08 y/07
Yaris (I) ........................................ 4,545 5,448 97,911 79,322
Fit (I)............................................. 4,909 5,361 74,755 51,314
Aveo (I) ........................................ 3,321 5,185 53,103 60,705
Total Civic..................................... 17,690 25,141 321,987 303,905
up for the yr, but down significantly for the month
Total Corolla/Matrix ..................... 21,807 25,012 328,878 342,808
same here
Cobalt........................................... 6,319 13,629 175,259 183,029
down for both
Malibu.......................................... 9,469 7,210 160,898 116,140
UP for both
Total Accord................................. 17,430 28,161 350,441 360,976
DOWN for both, but high sales anyway
Total Camry.................................. 25,224 35,409 411,342 434,277
same here
My take is it would have happened anyway due to the structure and product issues but perhaps the products would have been built better due to higher investment in product as opposed to labor.
Regards,
OW
The Big 3 probably would have been hurting but not in bailout territory yet.
If there was no UAW there would not be 100s of 1000s of retirees that just keep hanging in there with their gold plated health care. The rest of US retirees are stuck with cheapo Medicare that gives minimal health care. We won't live as long. How many UAW retirees are on life support to keep that fat retirement check rolling in? Reality is most health care plans have a lifetime maximum. Our Teamster plan was a million bucks. That is about good for a kidney transplant and one hip replacement. Then you are on your own.
Without the billions spent each year on legacy costs GM would be better off. Without the super restrictive work rules GM would have been able to build state of the art factories here in the USA. Sure the workers would be making more like the average worker in the USA. But GM would not be begging for a handout from the tax payers. Think how degrading it had to be for Wagoner to drive that Volt to DC. Stopping every 40 miles to charge the batteries
I wonder how he got back. Drove? Commercial? Luxury jet?
Of course the plants shut down already for 2 weeks during the holidays, don't they.
Gettelfinger keeps losing me with his evasion and lack of helpfulness here. I think we need federal government to eliminate the agreements that are costing so much for our home auto companies.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Health spending accounts are also going to be popular for this next generation.
Municipals bonds are for the super rich, since they pay poorly, but are exempt from taxation.
RIGHT
AP Online
08-31-1999
Former GM Supervisors Charged
FLINT, Mich. (AP) -- Three former General Motors supervisors were charged with scheming to get more than $2 million in kickbacks and gifts from companies that did business with the automaker.
Investigators said the suspects, who no longer work for GM, told suppliers to raise prices on goods and services and submit fake bills. The suppliers were then paid by GM and kick backed a payment to the three suspects.
The vendors also gave the supervisors gifts such as trips to Las Vegas, motorcycles and a tanning salon membership to keep GM business, investigators told The Flint Journal.
While that may be true, I thought the Japanese did other things like mandatory inspections of the imports, then drag their feet inspecting them, to discourage their importation.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
But vexed by the rise of lower-wage competitors, including Hyundai Motor in Montgomery, Alabama, and Nissan Motor in Canton, Mississippi, Toyota has been on a campaign to establish new plants that can pay lower hourly rates than its more-established U.S. plants.
Starting wages for workers at Toyota's San Antonio Tundra pickup plant, which opened in 2006, began at $15.50 an hour and are scheduled to grow to $21 an hour in 2009. And assembly workers at the company's planned Prius factory near Tupelo, Mississippi, are expected to earn $20 an hour when it opens in 2010. Yet Toyota's Corolla-Tacoma plant in Fremont, California, is a UAW-represented joint-venture with General Motors that pays national UAW rates.
http://www.autonews.com/article/20081212/COPY/312129865/1197
I'm looking at their income statement, and it appears that $36 billion was in accounting charges.
It doesn't add up to me, but they show a loss of about $4.4 billion, and paying $37.2 billion in income taxes.
No doubt there. I completely avoid actively managed funds. Seems few beat the S&P like you mentioned (particularly when your limited in your choices in most 401k and 529 accounts), not to mention the higher management fees charged to get substandard returns. No thanks.
Health spending accounts/flexible spending accounts are a very nice benefit. Granted the higher your tax bracket, the more you benefit. We've used a health spending account for the past 8 years and with young kids etc, it's nice to use pretax money to pay for out of pocket medical expenses etc.
Richer people have bigger expenses....There are enough examples of rich people going bankrupt.
That said, I am not pardoning them CEOs. They did get paid more than they were worth imo.
No country does that with more regulations than the EPA. Bill Gates waited something like 2 years to get a Porsche he bought through the EPA red tape. Most cars cannot be sold here for one reason or another. We probably have the most protectionist government on the face of the planet. Japan's emissions are not as stiff as ours.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/12/business/gm.php
If they are lying I say throw Wagoner and his bunch of losers in jail. Toss Gettlefinger in with them. I am sure he is a big fat liar as well.
It was impounded because there was no crash testing on it or EPA testing. Even after passage of the Show and Display law, the use of the 959 is limited. Wikipedia
Here's a good one:
"In 1949, a pamphlet was published that argued that the American auto industry should pursue a different direction. Titled "A Small Car Named Desire," the pamphlet suggested that Detroit not put all its bets on bigness, that a substantial share of American consumers would welcome smaller cars that cost less and burned fuel more efficiently.
The pamphlet's author was the research department of the United Auto Workers."
Destroying what the UAW built (AZ Republic/Washington Post)
The article had a couple interesting points. Very biased for the most part and ULTRA Liberal views. Not very factual. I don't believe there ever was a time the UAW was bigger than the Teamster's Union as he intimates. No doubt the UAW along with a lot of other Unions have kept wages higher than they would be without any Unions. And I also believe the UAW started out as a good Union. They went astray and too far left and now it is biting them in the butt. We do not want a USSR type government as the UAW envisions. What they don't realize is the UAW members could end up in the salt mines as easily as making cars if they get out of line.
I don't know if they matched, but they both had one, as did Jerry Seinfield.
" Municipals bonds are for the super rich, since they pay poorly, but are exempt from taxation. "
Ahh the trouble with old reliable truisms and blanket generalizations.
Best stay with RE dd. As is the popular term goes, we have a dislocation in muni yields . The hedge funds have been unwinding them as collateral for their mortgage swap deals as deleveraging has been forced upon them. Combined with credit crunch insanity, The average great credit muni yields + 5% for intermediate term. Taxable equivalent for the almost everybody 28% bracket is 6.94%, higher tax bracket ? Salivate. Philly muni GO's recently yielded 6% for short term and 7.5 % for long term, that would be tax free. Cal muni's recently downgraded can be had for a song. The fact is that muni's are yielding from 125-175% of treasuries and may be the single best bargain there is. Other than those that were brave enough to buy high quality equities making money currently with double digit dividend yields during the recent insanity.
UAW workers idled by these shutdowns will be paid through a combination of unemployment benefits and money from Chrysler, though it will be less than what they would make if they were working.
This is an increase of two weeks over the "normal" holiday shutdown period.
No word yet on the "domino effect" this may have on suppliers, or if Ford or GM are looking to do the same.
This makes good copy, but is really not that important. The biggest market is HERE in the USA. Make desirable products that Americans want to buy. It's that simple. Nobody is going to get rich selling cars to Korea.
It's funny that in the 1970's the Japanese cars were the "cheap cars". They competed on price. Because of the D3 crying wolf about the imports, there were voluntary import quotas imposed in the 1980's. This had two effects:
1 - The Japanese makes went upscale to raise the average selling price per vehicle (you can't blame companies for wanting to make more profit). This expanded the range of products that competed with the D3.
2 - The Japanese makes started building US assembly plants.
The seeds of the D3 destruction started in their own protectionism. The D3 and UAW were whining about the competition in the 1980s, and they are still whining. Where are the products from the D3 that compete on an equal footing with the foreign nameplates? There aren't many that do.
Of course eventually the biggest market will be China. GM is doing pretty well there already with Buick.
That's one thing we probably all agree on, regardless of our UAW views. If I had been paid over $10M for a few years I'd be willing to work for a dollar, too. :shades: :shades:
If it was possible I would think GM and Chrysler would knock out their portion during these upcoming shut downs, at least while they are not making money. Of course they would have to get union OK to break contract.
Yeah, I remember reading about Gates and a few others who import exotic unapproved cars to the U.S. in Motortrend several years ago. I think the Jaguar X220 is another one of those cars that's tough to get here and are only allowed limited driving due to lack of safety and EPA. IIRC they call them "grey list" cars.
The Big 2.8 and the UAW or the Federal Government? I think Chrysler just escalated things with the planned shutdown .... my question is, what happens in January when they start up again? Assuming, of course, that they do start up again.
The drama continues ...