It was American ingenuity, first-class governance and sheer luck
Great post. I could not have said it any better. We have had a good run and now we have to compete with people that are as good if not better than we are. The engineers coming out of India are beating the socks off of our engineers. Too many of our young people feel that same entitlement that the UAW workers cling to. They go to college and party instead of get all they can get.
We saw first hand what happens when gas went to $4.50 per gallon. The country started to unravel. Well the EU has paid twice that for decades. They also pay a lot more for a car. They get taxed more and do not have the luxuries we have gotten used to. The UAW and GM made promises they cannot keep and compete. Choices will have to be made. Do we feed the retirees to the lions or cut our wages in half to take care of the past workers. $25 per hour needs to be eliminated from the UAW contracts with GM and its UAW suppliers. Who is going to give up something? Or would the UAW rather go down in flames than give anything up?
If we were to add equal tariffs to items coming into our country like other countries charge, it would level the playing field a bit.
So you think that by forcing me to pay more for an imported car, you can "persuade" me to buy a domestic. You hope to use tariffs to change my behavior. The trouble with this is that the change that you get probably won't be the change that you want. I might respond by (1) deciding to keep my old car for another couple of years to give Congress a chance to repeal the tariff, (2) buying a used car or (3) paying the higher price to get the import I really want. None of these responses will help domestic auto makers.
If tariffs don't work, why did we institute tariffs on incoming steel a few years back to try and save our domestic steel industry?
The steel tariffs were imposed early in the 1st Bush administration for purely political reasons - to reward conservative Democrats in states like West Virginia who had voted Republican in 2000. As I recall, they were rescinded after a few months, partly because GM & other domestic car makers complained that pricier steel would drive up the cost of American-made vehicles. Also, American appliance manufacturers, hurt by higher steel prices, threatened to move their production offshore if the tariffs weren't removed.
That shows you why tariffs really don't work. They help one group of workers by punishing consumers & other groups of workers.
The engineers coming out of India are beating the socks off of our engineers.
I disagree with that statement. Fact is that auto technicians are considered engineers in India. Just look at where the world sends their offspring to get educate. Its The United States of America and they pay that out of country tuition to boot. I will give you the Asian's are taking more position in some of our best schools. So goes the saying, MIT stands for Made In Taiwan.
How many more times do we need to have rammed down our throats that India and China are creaming the U.S. when it comes to the numbers of engineers that are being produced yearly? Surely it must millions a year by now, right?
Okay, I'm being sarcastic. China produced more than 600,000 engineers in 2005, and India produces nearly 500,000 technical graduates annually. But even if those numbers are greater than the numbers in the U.S., there’s another element under scrutiny: what’s the quality of the education these students are receiving in India and China?
In many cases, the quality is not very good and they are having a hard time getting hired, according to a recent report in Newsweek International. Well, it’s no wonder that’s the case if engineering students in India show up for class and there are no teachers, as the report mentions.
The report offers many interesting points, particularly on the quality of education the graduates receive. For example, corporate recruiters in both India and China say there is a shortage of qualified applicants. "Out of the huge number of engineering and science graduates that India produces, only 25 to 30 percent can be regarded as suitable," says Kiran Karnik, head of the National Association of Software and Services Companies.
The reason, the report says, is underfunding and other factors that have produced serious educational crises in India and China. The authors quote M.A. Pai, who taught at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, who warns the "lack of highly trained people at the Ph.D. level in both sciences and engineering will be a serious setback to India becoming a knowledge economy."
I’m not saying we don’t have a real problem on our hands when it comes to the numbers of engineers we’re cranking out yearly in this country compared to China and India. I just think we need to look at the high-quality technical institutions we have here, the U.S. citizens who attend them and are receiving fantastic educations, and remember that we’re looked on as a world technology leader for some very good reasons.
Let’s not become enamored with engineers educated in India and China because they have the reputation of being whiz kids in math and science. Let’s look at the whole picture.
My nephew was just accepted for the Fall semester at MIT right out of High School. He took that over the Cal Poly acceptance. He is German/Irish decent all American kid.
I was basing my view of Engineers coming from India on what a friend at HP has told me. Also 60 Minutes did a report on Engineering students from India. Of course that was probably very left slanted.
Let’s not become enamored with engineers educated in India and China because they have the reputation of being whiz kids in math and science. Let’s look at the whole picture.
I agree with you. I just see so many kids here in CA thinking they are going to make it delivering auto parts or working at a grocery store. Most living at home spending their entire paycheck on a stupid car. Most are not UAW made cars. Just the Tahoe & PU crowd drive Domestic vehicles.
If you have a country subsidizing an industry and therefore stealing jobs/work from the more efficient industry, your not doing the consumer any favors either. As we speak folks out there are playing with the supply and demand for all sorts of goods and services. Laissez faire has become an abstract at best.
If tariffs don't work, why did we institute tariffs on incoming steel a few years back to try and save our domestic steel industry?
The steel industry goes much further back in history as do farm subsidies. Textiles, steel, and now they want the auto base. This goes beyond the comparative advantage and into a world of self interested multi national corporations operating outside of the free enterprise system. Fueled by greed they seek to profit from inequities and not to compete heads up. Monopolies, oligopolies, and other forms of advanage is what they are after at the end of the day. The sure thing.
I disagree with that statement. Fact is that auto technicians are considered engineers in India. Just look at where the world sends their offspring to get educate. Its The United States of America
A wife of a very good friend of mine is a highly paid software developer for a firm out of SanFran. She told me she's required to use Indian software engineers to debug software and they're terrible. She said when the code comes back from the Indian debugers, she'll still find more bugs in a few days than the Indian engineers found after a week. The difference is she makes more in a day than a whole team of Indian software engineers probably do in a week.
IMO, Chinese and Indian engineering schools are putting out more quantity than quality. That said, we can't sit back and not worry about keeping our lead in technology.
My nephew was just accepted for the Fall semester at MIT right out of High School.
Thats fantastic, now he must finish. Be sure to put the monkey on his back to do well. Freshmen need to be inspired and given a heads up on what to be expect. As I recall at MIT the freshmen were allowed to exclude their first years grades from their GPA. If they are told the difference between high school and college, they can hit the ground running.
If you have a country subsidizing an industry and therefore stealing jobs/work from the more efficient industry, your [sic] not doing the consumer any favors either. As we speak folks out there are playing with the supply and demand for all sorts of goods and services. Laissez faire has become an abstract at best.
Sorry, DD, but this doesn't make sense. You're dancing around the fact that tariffs derive whatever effectiveness they have by punishing customers for making what tariff supporters consider to be wrong choices. You're also ignoring the fact that an industry protected from outside competition by tariffs has less incentive to make the investments & changes needed to stay competitive. In the long run, tariffs hurt more than they help.
And even if you believe that tariffs help domestic manufacturers at the low end of the market, where customer choices are largely price-driven, you have to explain how they'll change outcomes at the upper end. If an affluent customer has decided that he'd rather drive an $80K 7-series BMW than a $60K Cadillac STS, how will a tariff change his mind?
customer has decided that he'd rather drive an $80K 7-series BMW than a $60K Cadillac STS, how will a tariff change his mind?
Or in my case, a BMW X5 35d built in America by non Union labor vs a Domestic built by the UAW. Plus the Domestics do not offer me a diesel SUV. Seems that is the problem most of the time the Domestics more and more are not offering what the American consumer wants to buy. I cannot think of a single vehicle built here by UAW labor that would tempt me at 40% below MSRP. That is just what many are selling for today. GM cannot continue to bleed red ink even with US printing money as fast as they waste it.
PS I take that back. A Corvette at 40% discount would be a big temptation.
Yeah one would be crazy to exercise the stock options. However, you have to know more about the Golden Parachute. They have deferred compensations as to reduce taxes. So therefore, he will be getting a steady stream of income for years to come.
Cannot exercise the stock options since they are upside down and worthless at this time. What is the deferred compensation that GM execs have? Sure would like to know what that is. And what do you think the Golden Parachute is for GM execs?
Cannot exercise the stock options since they are upside down and worthless at this time.
Generally true, depends on their structure. Many of the early Microsoft employees got stock in the form of compensation. Later on they did well. Most companies, offer stock at this days price (a year period) in the hopes that actions by that person will make the stock worth more. Hence, if it worth more later, he or she would buy all they could get/allowed/agreed to, even borrow to buy, and follow with SEC filing of the intention to sell, if required to do so.
What is the deferred compensation that GM execs have?
Its a package deal, a contract/covenant. It might have guaranteed and performance based items. It more than likely would be structured to minimize taxes. However, these are heirs to fortunates and more than likely would rather take it in the form of trusts for their family members. Each case is different and needs to be looked into. Generally speaking the amount is agreed upon and accountants, lawyers, economist, and other experts look to get the most out it. I've been party to many of these and your looking at about three days of work, by different disciplines, in structuring this compensation package. UAW does this same thing for their membership, but as a group. Here is the money, now divide it up as you see fitting. Don't leave any money on the table and be sure that your getting the full pot of beans/money. On most contracts an expert from benefits comes in days or weeks prior to negotiations to hammer out details. The internationals representative, who do this all the time are there to advise the chairman of the negotiating committee. Smaller details are addressed by committee people.
And what do you think the Golden Parachute is for GM execs?
These are golden parachutes by the nature that the concern may not be doing well and all the while they have obligations they incurred during better times. Unless you have some interest into going into money planning. I don't understand your wanting to know the manner of compensation. I find that most folks lack the skills to do their own planning.
My question. How many UAW working stiffs get to use or can afford the green fees at their own golf course?
It is obvious that the training was not aimed at making the Domestic Auto Industry viable. While I have no problem with such a facility and think that training is vital. I wonder just how useful the training was to better perform your job?
For those with a sense of progressive history, an earlier version was at Port Huron. Back in 1962, a bunch of young left activists came together at the UAW's summer camp at Port Huron and penned what became known as the Port Huron Statement, the manifesto of what would become Students for a Democratic Society and much of the early New Left in the 1960s.
It looks as though I would be opposed to the training given at the UAW center. As I believe that kind of thinking is what is wrong with America today.
Unfortunately, the business schools are teaching the no value added concept. So where do you think these folks in banks and Wall Street add value?
Agree with much of what you say. However, the need for capital and loans *is* value added and greases the entire economy. Problem is that most of the other stuff in the financial industry is smoke and mirrors that add no value. But the fundamental workings of a banking system (that could collapse due to the other crap) are critical to our entire society - more so than Circuit City, Mervyn's, or the D3. So a case can be made that the bailout of the banking industry is more important than other companies and industries.
I just wish they'd put the heads of these financial institutions on trial, and make some massive regulatory reform. I thought Sarbanes-Oxley was supposed to prevent misstatements of financial conditions in a company?
The UAW and GM made promises they cannot keep and compete. Choices will have to be made. Do we feed the retirees to the lions or cut our wages in half to take care of the past workers. $25 per hour needs to be eliminated from the UAW contracts with GM and its UAW suppliers. Who is going to give up something? Or would the UAW rather go down in flames than give anything up?
Excellent statement. The UAW and GM want it all, but that isn't going to happen. Which item is going to give? They should decide or the market will decide it for them.
Back to UAW, we speak of tariffs. In the 1980's we imposed voluntary import quotas on the Japanese. But the buying public still wanted the cars. So the J3 upped the size and content of their cars since they could not import more units. This opened up the market of larger more expensive vehicles to the J3. Not the effect that anybody (including UAW) intended. This was an example of where a protectionist attempt backfired on the D3. The best competition would be outstanding products that the consumers want to buy.
A number of execs have left Chrysler. I hav heard nothing about golden parachutes. Would we not have heard or does the auto industry do something different than other business's?
I would think any type of lucrative exit packages for execs would be if the company asks/forces them to leave. If it's voluntary I'd think they'd only be entitled to any previously vested assets.
Why would you hear? Chrysler is a privately owned company now, and does not have to make ANY financial information public. They report to the IRS only. GM and Ford are public and must make financial statements public.
that is a good read....thanks dallasdude. However, as to the product it produces, it certainly is not critical for GM. It sure is critical as an experiment, however, in labor relations.
>What stays? Jobs that no one else can do, like highly specialized manufacturing at competitive price.
The biggest folly of the capitalist market has been to share all secrets to everybody in the world in the hopes that somebody can make it cheaper and they can sell it for more profit. So what is specialized now? nothing?
The biggest folly of the capitalist market has been to share all secrets to everybody in the world in the hopes that somebody can make it cheaper and they can sell it for more profit. So what is specialized now? nothing?
I'll bet that GM has been teaching the Chinese to make Buicks.
If that were true, what makes you think people here deserve more than those living somewhere else who can do the same job for less? Who are we to deny them that opportunity? The basic idea of a capitalism is that through a constant threat that somebody else can legally come up with ways of doing it faster, better, cheaper we are forced to stay alert and better ourselves. Using presidential expressions, those who don't can cling into their illusions and what not, blame others, but it's not going to solve anything.
There is plenty of specialized technologies that can't be done by others: aerospace, heavy machinery, biotech just to name a few. Doesn't mean they'll never go somewhere else or parts of these processes haven't already gone.
Nothing is given forever - marketshare, profits, jobs, lifestyle. We may not like it, but it's a basic fact of life. Some will try to "preserve way of life" by tariffs, trade barriers. All they'll achieve is initial slowdown of the process followed by explosive acceleration at any opening). It's like soda pop. You can cork it and shake it, but one day is has to get open.
Nothing is given forever - marketshare, profits, jobs, lifestyle.
For some reason the UAW implants into the community some sense of "god given right". My daddy made $100,000 per year making buggy whips. I should be entitled to the same living. There is a difference between the "Pursuit of Happiness" and the "Right to Happiness". I am sure it is tough on the 21 year old that is lucky enough to get one of the UAW jobs that now pays $15 per hour. I am sure he is not thrilled that some 55 year old dude next to him is knocking down $30 per hour and has a retirement in the near future. The young UAW worker can thank Gettlefinger and the old hands for selling him down the river. They would rather he live in the ghetto. Than for them to give up any of their wages or benefits. That is the reality of the Team spirit in the UAW. The new guys would be better off working for a Non Union auto maker where they have some chance of working their way up to the top wage.
You need look no further than Gary Forsee to see why the absurdities of executive compensation rankle shareholders so much. In 2003 Forsee negotiated a pay package to join Sprint as its chief executive officer that promised to leave him rich--whether he succeeded or failed at turning around the troubled long-distance phone company.
Sprint first paid him $6.5 million in cash and stock just to leave BellSouth, where he was the number two executive. Sprint also bought Forsee's house in Atlanta before he moved to Kansas City. Once on the job Forsee was paid between $1.5 million and $5 million a year. His only real claim to fame while running Sprint was engineering the disastrous Nextel merger and watching its stock price tumble from $25 two years ago to $7.40.
At the end of 2007 he was fired "without cause." But he had negotiated well. Sprint gave him $40 million, including a $1.5 million salary through 2009, $5 million in bonuses, stock options and restricted shares worth $23 million and an $84,000-a-month pension for life. This package was structured under his contract as if he were still running the company and had met all his goals. Oh, Sprint also paid for "outplacement services" that landed him the presidency of the University of Missouri (where his annual salary and bonus amount to $500,000).
That is another in a long list of sick tales. I still get upset when I think of the Disney Ovitz parachute. That one was $140 million.
Ford's number one guy has a similar story with Home Depot.
Last year Robert Nardelli walked away from a mediocre tenure at Home Depot (nyse: HD - news - people ) with $210 million. It was too late for the compensation scolds to complain; the board's real sin was committed years before in luring Nardelli to the company from General Electric (nyse: GE - news - people ). His contract said he'd get 90% of his pay regardless of performance, plus an enormous retirement package when he left.
You wonder what kind of a deal he made with Ford.
I know I rag on the UAW a lot. And they deserve to be chastised. What these CEOs and corporate boards have been doing over the last 20+ years is criminal. And guess what our Congress is no better on either side of the aisle. Look at Frank Raines and his $100 million scammed from now bankrupt Fannie Mae. And it was his watch when it headed into the toilet. Congress knew and did nothing. These boards can read a contract or hire a cheap attorney to do it for them. No excuse is good enough for these travesties.
Sprint gave him $40 million, including a $1.5 million salary through 2009, $5 million in bonuses, stock options and restricted shares worth $23 million and an $84,000-a-month pension for life.
Any ONE of those things would leave me set for life and he got ALL of them! If I had screwed up so badly on my job, I'd be lucky if I were still living indoors!
The basic idea of a capitalism is that through a constant threat that somebody else can legally come up with ways of doing it faster, better, cheaper we are forced to stay alert and better ourselves.
You failed to mention, child labor. Is that legal also? Then are crimes against the environment legal? Whats the statute of limitation on environmental crimes in America?
I'm all for perfect competition. Unfortunately that just something for the text books. At the moment you have every industry represented in Washington. Each seeking advantage and special treatment. Why does Japan have a lobby group in Washington? Then those people who supposedly care about our health and well being, are anything but. Its no secret that the AMA, large pharmaceutical giants, managed care, and many more are more interested in money and not as concern with health care in America. If health care is the problem. Fix it. Is that not a reasonable expectation, to level this playing field, which is often cited as an out of control concern by every major corporation, partnership, and small business. So, its as if we have to fight the competition with one hand tied behind our back to boot.
WWII was won by the "Rosie the riveter" going into the once off limits factory. How ever will we be able to build a war machine, God forbid, if all of our manufacturing base is shipped overseas? If these large corporations couldn't see beyond the sub prime mess, they are thinking in the short term. Blinded by greed they are anything but patriotic and don't look past the fiscal year. What was wrong with their thinking process?
There is a reasonable argument that govt has a role in this globalization craze. Enough with the large multi nationals calling the shots. If China, with their one fifth of the future consumers, tells a corporation to jump. They don't just reply how high, but rather was that high enough? Its no secret that rocket secrets were given/sold to China. Secrets which now allow them launch satellites in addition to missiles into our country. Was that GM/Hughes/Loral? Its absurd to think that we are all going to become happy capitalist and go on our way. Bottom-line is that we are trading with the communist and they have the stick as multi nationals follow that carrot.
This all reminds me of when Mexico supported NAFTA. Once they saw the factories moving to China, they did a one eighty. The comparative advantage is fine and dandy, but only when its done in a slow methodical planned way. Can we think of any auto maker who saw and or did something about this global economic meltdown coming?
All part of the same D3. You know if one goes they all go is the story circulating. What happened to the guy from Toyota? I cannot keep track of all these over paid suits in the auto industry.
If health care is the problem. Fix it. Is that not a reasonable expectation
Health care cost has been rising higher faster than just about any part of our society. That was a campaign issue with Bill Clinton. May have gotten him elected. He had a Democrat controlled Congress and appointed Hillary to get universal Health Care done. Nothing happened then and nothing will happen now. No government in the world can afford the kind of health care people in the USA are wanting. We have as good as what Canada offers if not better. I know women that have had children on our nickel that get just as good a care as those with fully paid health coverage.
Blinded by greed they are anything but patriotic and don't look past the fiscal year. What was wrong with their thinking process?
Being blinded by greed is not just for the people on the top. It goes to the bottom of the human food chain. When one homeless guy steals another guys corner, it is based on greed. Some are just better equipped to parlay their persona into those lucrative positions. Then some of us are just fortunate to be at the right place at the right time. You have to be willing to go where your skills are needed. I just happened to have my resume on file with RCA White Alice in Alaska. When they called I said sure. I quit a good job with Pacific Telephone and took a leap of faith. It paid off. If the people in the UAW are set in Michigan or Ohio or Indiana and will not leave. Well they may be losing a chance at financial security that is not offered there. Iluv has given a great example of what is needed when a good job is lost. The smart UAW people are already looking elsewhere for employment. 26 weeks of unemployment runs out fast. With bankruptcy and NO JOBS Bank. The gravy train will leave the station with no seats for UAW members.
comes under tariffs or simply a restriction on imported steel
"If tariffs don't work, why did we institute tariffs on incoming steel a few years back to try and save our domestic steel industry? Instead of lowering our standard of living, perhaps we should hope to raise everyone's standard to a higher level?"
Back in the Reagan years, they either placed a tariff on imported steel or simply restricted it...economic analysis, with an admittedly conservative leaning, stated that for every $30,000 steelworker job we "saved" or "protected" the economic cost was actually $180,000 per job...so, if true, (don't ask me for cites, gagrice always finds the cites I need), the "nice" part is the steelworker keeping his job, but the cost to everyone else was enormous...
Every time we try and protect someone losing their job thru capitalism (including better technology, better productivity, someone else doing it cheaper, etc) it probably costs everyone lese more in the long run...while it may be hard on the displaced worker, maintaining theior staus quo simply to minimize their psychological stress will always cost us more...
Let the UAW shrink, as we simply do not want to buy all the cars they can force the Big 3 to make, and let the automakers shrink so they can be leaner and meaner...it is what will happen over time, anyway, as their market share drops, but the billions we spend pretending nothing will change is money wasted just to keep a UAW vote for the Democrats...
gagrice, that is my point. They have a chance to take a lemon(GM, UAW, Chrysler) and make lemonade out of it. Look in to the Trade Act or TRA(Trade Readjustment Act)and see if you can make it happen. If you can make your bills where you go to school(for me it was the Ozarks of Missouri, Rolla being the small town of 25,000)then you can afford to be on U.I. while you go to school.
The more I thought about The Trade Act the more sense it made. But I couldn't live anymore in expensive western Washington state. I had to move someplace where rents were about 1/3rd of what they were in the Evergreen State. Mid-Missouri fits that bill perfectly.
Now, my wife and I also had to sell our 3BD, 1BA house in Burlington, WA, to help make our plan work. We got a great Windermere agent and a temporary cell phone plan, sold or gave away most of our belongings, got a 4' X '8 utility trailer, had a hitch installed, and filled the trailer with everything we still wanted to take to mid-MO.
Off we went in late May of 2003 for the beautiful Ozarks. We were tied to our Burlington, WA, house's mortgage payments. We were truly making a dream out for ourselves and setting out to make it work. Oh, it would work out all right. You're right, it had to work out.
The Burlington, WA, house sold in only 3 weeks! We got out of even having to pay one more mortgage payment! The sale was worked out through cell phone conversation and fax machine submittals.
To sell that house meant so much to us. We were no longer tethered to anything in Washington state. Except my family, they were still there in western Washington. That was tough, besides the tough school regimen that would start up in mid-August 2003, leaving my Dad and Mom and three sisters was not easy. It would take a long flight or drive to see them again.
I am so glad I decided to take up the Boeing Company's and Fed.Guv-Mint's offer of re-training through The Trade Act. I encourage any of you worrying you'll lose your job in the automotive industry to consider The Trade Act. Your work will be going to school as The Trade Act will pay you weekly U.I. benefits if you keep up a 'C' average in your degree program.
Do it! The payoff is immensely satisfying. It's hard work going to college and getting a degree but if I skipped it I'd never know the satisfaction of enjoying the payoff of persistence. Go for it! At least start looking in to what is required and what will be needed to enroll. It is a legitimate way out of a crisis.
We have as good as what Canada offers if not better.
“Public plans like Medicare do a better job of controlling costs,” Mr. Kirsch said. “Private insurers are always looking for ways to avoid paying claims or covering sick people. Their mission is not to provide health care, but to increase shareholders’ profits.”
Jim Press. Such an easy name to forget. I imagine he has one of those fancy contracts that will pay him the millions he did not get from that cheapo Toyota family :shades: Wonder how he will handle the UAW.
China Dumping Textiles ------------------------------- WTO has predicted that China's share of the world market in textiles and apparel will jump to 50 percent in 2007 from 17 percent in 2003 solely due to their lowly dumping strategies.
Finally - China the Anti Social -----------------------------------
I am not even sure if the west will believe the below allegation I have personally heard these reports and have seen proof before reporting it. Chinese hire men (mostly Nepalese and Bangladeshis) to drive a cycle loaded with cheap Chinese merchandise into Nepal, India and Bangladesh to sell sub standard merchandize that directly affects retailers daily in scores on thousands. This might sound really trivial but it is not to those hundreds closing their shutters down due to this incorrigible, shameful act. Don’t bother reporting it to the Chinese government, they endorse it.
There is a new sheriff in town. The UAW supported him and he will come to their aid. You may be right and you may be wrong. He did not sound that enthusiastic about the GM bailout. Remember he has the enviro whackos to please also. They are in DIRECT conflict with your UAW brethren and GM. GM has done nothing to really look GREEN. The Volt is a big joke. Their hybrids are an even bigger joke. At least Ford has leading edge hybrid technology that is on the highways. GM only has trailing edge hybrid junk to try and please the green weinies that are controlling Congressional Democrats. Remember Obama has an Escape Hybrid and a Chrysler 300 in his garage. He drives the 300 to visit the So Side of Chicago and the hybrid for all the Eco weinies to see. NO GM in the stable. He may have a non Union job ditch digging for all those out of work UAW guys. They may have to move to Louisiana or Alabama to get a job.
Go to any department store or Furniture store. Finding anything NOT made in China is a challenge. We just live with what we got. Buy old used furniture on Craigslist. You UAW guys will keep the Chinese in business shopping at Mor and WalMart. I only buy Hawaiian shirts "Made in Hawaii". I still wear pants I bought 20 years ago. Waste not want not. Besides I HATE THE CURRENT STYLES!!!! No one makes decent shorts. I will not stoop to looking like ghetto trash.
>"WWII was won by the "Rosie the riveter" going into the once off limits factory. How ever will we be able to build a war machine, God forbid, if all of our manufacturing base is shipped overseas? "
Excellent Point !
Hopefully the UAW and the manufacturers will come to workable solutions, before they all go out of business.
You failed to mention, child labor. Is that legal also? Then are crimes against the environment legal? Whats the statute of limitation on environmental crimes in America?
Child labor, uhm? Is that what took out GM and Chrysler and put Ford in trouble? Wow - you must know something I don't. Why don't you call CBS so they can make a demaskatory piece on all those children employed at Toyota's and Honda's factories and their suppliers. Pleaaaazeee :sick:
They are in DIRECT conflict with your UAW brethren and GM.
The Big Three and the UAW aren't responsible for the current economic climate. The very fact that all of the auto makers are finding it hard to sell cars is evident. The UAW is for more consumer choice, not less. However, the UAW would rather encourage buy American and buy UAW made goods/services. Its just good business. There is good reason that those so called transplants pay a competitive wage aka the prevailing wage. They don't want their workforce to opt for UAW representation. If they don't pay a livable/compatible wage, those workers will vote in the union. You seem to forget that many of these same companies migrated from the north to the south. They did so to avoid the union. It wasn't too long after, that the southern workers voted in the union/UAW for representation.
The equalization/globalization factor seems to be altogether avoided as a topic of discussion. The very same thing that occurred as factories moved below the Mason Dixon line. Many economist are now predicting that manufacturing will be moving back into the country. They see the weak dollar making American exports more attractive overseas. I'll have to see that, to believe that. Then too there is a move to unionism in China and other countries with oppressed workers. At this very moment there are labor leaders jailed in China.
Lastly, the stereotypical indolent duffer that you label UAW worker is a far cry from those I've come across. They are just ordinary people working to support their families. No different than the non union workers out there trying to make their families lot in life better. Your outlook is rather pessimistic. I'll bet there were those back in the day, when the 364 day/no weekend/no benefits/working for life's basics, also said that the end of the gravy train was over. Little did they know that consumerism would include a large middle class and not just an elite privileged few. This was far better for everyone, the companies made more profits and our standard of living was the envy of the world. Consumerism is and will be the true downfall of communism/socialism and big labor/UAW has a part in it. As those folks in China see consumer products that ordinary Americans enjoy, they will want the same. Besides, if we just didn't have the consumer society and or that consumer has no means to buy, who the hell is going to buy the goods and services produced by the corporations? I don't know if its a good or bad thing, but our nation consumes more than any other on the planet. America fuels the world economy. The Japan's/China's/India's and others seek our markets. Think about it and what the implications of shipping all of the jobs overseas. Just how much does a Walmart employee's check buy? Can they buy a new car or are they looking on the used car lot? American jobs fuel this economy and are that goose that lays the golden egg.
Apple was bailed out by Microsoft. Since then they went on to beat down the famous Sony Walkman brand and are the leader in MP3 players/IPOD's and look to get their IPHONE market going. Another IAMERICAN story of beating the odds after a bail out.
Apple was bailed out by Microsoft. Since then they went on to beat down the famous Sony Walkman brand and are the leader in MP3 players/IPOD's and look to get their IPHONE market going. Another IAMERICAN story of beating the odds after a bail out.
Please don't forget that the Microsoft-Apple transaction was not a taxpayer-funded bailout. Microsoft chose to invest $150M in Apple for reasons that made good business sense back then (1997) to Bill Gates. I had no problem with that, just as I would have no problem if, say, BMW chose to invest money in GM in return for an equity stake in Cadillac. That would be fine with me.
But I do have a big problem with the nutty idea that American taxpayers have some sort of obligation to ride to the rescue of the domestic car makers. That's not an investment. That's a state-sanctioned mugging.
Comments
Great post. I could not have said it any better. We have had a good run and now we have to compete with people that are as good if not better than we are. The engineers coming out of India are beating the socks off of our engineers. Too many of our young people feel that same entitlement that the UAW workers cling to. They go to college and party instead of get all they can get.
We saw first hand what happens when gas went to $4.50 per gallon. The country started to unravel. Well the EU has paid twice that for decades. They also pay a lot more for a car. They get taxed more and do not have the luxuries we have gotten used to. The UAW and GM made promises they cannot keep and compete. Choices will have to be made. Do we feed the retirees to the lions or cut our wages in half to take care of the past workers. $25 per hour needs to be eliminated from the UAW contracts with GM and its UAW suppliers. Who is going to give up something? Or would the UAW rather go down in flames than give anything up?
So you think that by forcing me to pay more for an imported car, you can "persuade" me to buy a domestic. You hope to use tariffs to change my behavior. The trouble with this is that the change that you get probably won't be the change that you want. I might respond by (1) deciding to keep my old car for another couple of years to give Congress a chance to repeal the tariff, (2) buying a used car or (3) paying the higher price to get the import I really want. None of these responses will help domestic auto makers.
If tariffs don't work, why did we institute tariffs on incoming steel a few years back to try and save our domestic steel industry?
The steel tariffs were imposed early in the 1st Bush administration for purely political reasons - to reward conservative Democrats in states like West Virginia who had voted Republican in 2000. As I recall, they were rescinded after a few months, partly because GM & other domestic car makers complained that pricier steel would drive up the cost of American-made vehicles. Also, American appliance manufacturers, hurt by higher steel prices, threatened to move their production offshore if the tariffs weren't removed.
That shows you why tariffs really don't work. They help one group of workers by punishing consumers & other groups of workers.
I disagree with that statement. Fact is that auto technicians are considered engineers in India. Just look at where the world sends their offspring to get educate. Its The United States of America and they pay that out of country tuition to boot. I will give you the Asian's are taking more position in some of our best schools. So goes the saying, MIT stands for Made In Taiwan.
How many more times do we need to have rammed down our throats that India and China are creaming the U.S. when it comes to the numbers of engineers that are being produced yearly? Surely it must millions a year by now, right?
Okay, I'm being sarcastic. China produced more than 600,000 engineers in 2005, and India produces nearly 500,000 technical graduates annually. But even if those numbers are greater than the numbers in the U.S., there’s another element under scrutiny: what’s the quality of the education these students are receiving in India and China?
In many cases, the quality is not very good and they are having a hard time getting hired, according to a recent report in Newsweek International. Well, it’s no wonder that’s the case if engineering students in India show up for class and there are no teachers, as the report mentions.
The report offers many interesting points, particularly on the quality of education the graduates receive. For example, corporate recruiters in both India and China say there is a shortage of qualified applicants. "Out of the huge number of engineering and science graduates that India produces, only 25 to 30 percent can be regarded as suitable," says Kiran Karnik, head of the National Association of Software and Services Companies.
The reason, the report says, is underfunding and other factors that have produced serious educational crises in India and China. The authors quote M.A. Pai, who taught at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, who warns the "lack of highly trained people at the Ph.D. level in both sciences and engineering will be a serious setback to India becoming a knowledge economy."
I’m not saying we don’t have a real problem on our hands when it comes to the numbers of engineers we’re cranking out yearly in this country compared to China and India. I just think we need to look at the high-quality technical institutions we have here, the U.S. citizens who attend them and are receiving fantastic educations, and remember that we’re looked on as a world technology leader for some very good reasons.
Let’s not become enamored with engineers educated in India and China because they have the reputation of being whiz kids in math and science. Let’s look at the whole picture.
My nephew was just accepted for the Fall semester at MIT right out of High School. He took that over the Cal Poly acceptance. He is German/Irish decent all American kid.
I was basing my view of Engineers coming from India on what a friend at HP has told me. Also 60 Minutes did a report on Engineering students from India. Of course that was probably very left slanted.
Let’s not become enamored with engineers educated in India and China because they have the reputation of being whiz kids in math and science. Let’s look at the whole picture.
I agree with you. I just see so many kids here in CA thinking they are going to make it delivering auto parts or working at a grocery store. Most living at home spending their entire paycheck on a stupid car. Most are not UAW made cars. Just the Tahoe & PU crowd drive Domestic vehicles.
If you have a country subsidizing an industry and therefore stealing jobs/work from the more efficient industry, your not doing the consumer any favors either. As we speak folks out there are playing with the supply and demand for all sorts of goods and services. Laissez faire has become an abstract at best.
If tariffs don't work, why did we institute tariffs on incoming steel a few years back to try and save our domestic steel industry?
The steel industry goes much further back in history as do farm subsidies. Textiles, steel, and now they want the auto base. This goes beyond the comparative advantage and into a world of self interested multi national corporations operating outside of the free enterprise system. Fueled by greed they seek to profit from inequities and not to compete heads up. Monopolies, oligopolies, and other forms of advanage is what they are after at the end of the day. The sure thing.
A wife of a very good friend of mine is a highly paid software developer for a firm out of SanFran. She told me she's required to use Indian software engineers to debug software and they're terrible. She said when the code comes back from the Indian debugers, she'll still find more bugs in a few days than the Indian engineers found after a week. The difference is she makes more in a day than a whole team of Indian software engineers probably do in a week.
IMO, Chinese and Indian engineering schools are putting out more quantity than quality. That said, we can't sit back and not worry about keeping our lead in technology.
Thats fantastic, now he must finish. Be sure to put the monkey on his back to do well. Freshmen need to be inspired and given a heads up on what to be expect. As I recall at MIT the freshmen were allowed to exclude their first years grades from their GPA. If they are told the difference between high school and college, they can hit the ground running.
These days, thats better than sex. Well almost.
Sorry, DD, but this doesn't make sense. You're dancing around the fact that tariffs derive whatever effectiveness they have by punishing customers for making what tariff supporters consider to be wrong choices. You're also ignoring the fact that an industry protected from outside competition by tariffs has less incentive to make the investments & changes needed to stay competitive. In the long run, tariffs hurt more than they help.
And even if you believe that tariffs help domestic manufacturers at the low end of the market, where customer choices are largely price-driven, you have to explain how they'll change outcomes at the upper end. If an affluent customer has decided that he'd rather drive an $80K 7-series BMW than a $60K Cadillac STS, how will a tariff change his mind?
Or in my case, a BMW X5 35d built in America by non Union labor vs a Domestic built by the UAW. Plus the Domestics do not offer me a diesel SUV. Seems that is the problem most of the time the Domestics more and more are not offering what the American consumer wants to buy. I cannot think of a single vehicle built here by UAW labor that would tempt me at 40% below MSRP. That is just what many are selling for today. GM cannot continue to bleed red ink even with US printing money as fast as they waste it.
PS
I take that back. A Corvette at 40% discount would be a big temptation.
Cannot exercise the stock options since they are upside down and worthless at this time. What is the deferred compensation that GM execs have? Sure would like to know what that is. And what do you think the Golden Parachute is for GM execs?
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/29/nothings_too_good_for_the_work/i- ndex.php
Generally true, depends on their structure. Many of the early Microsoft employees got stock in the form of compensation. Later on they did well. Most companies, offer stock at this days price (a year period) in the hopes that actions by that person will make the stock worth more. Hence, if it worth more later, he or she would buy all they could get/allowed/agreed to, even borrow to buy, and follow with SEC filing of the intention to sell, if required to do so.
What is the deferred compensation that GM execs have?
Its a package deal, a contract/covenant. It might have guaranteed and performance based items. It more than likely would be structured to minimize taxes. However, these are heirs to fortunates and more than likely would rather take it in the form of trusts for their family members. Each case is different and needs to be looked into. Generally speaking the amount is agreed upon and accountants, lawyers, economist, and other experts look to get the most out it. I've been party to many of these and your looking at about three days of work, by different disciplines, in structuring this compensation package. UAW does this same thing for their membership, but as a group. Here is the money, now divide it up as you see fitting. Don't leave any money on the table and be sure that your getting the full pot of beans/money. On most contracts an expert from benefits comes in days or weeks prior to negotiations to hammer out details. The internationals representative, who do this all the time are there to advise the chairman of the negotiating committee. Smaller details are addressed by committee people.
And what do you think the Golden Parachute is for GM execs?
These are golden parachutes by the nature that the concern may not be doing well and all the while they have obligations they incurred during better times. Unless you have some interest into going into money planning. I don't understand your wanting to know the manner of compensation. I find that most folks lack the skills to do their own planning.
It is obvious that the training was not aimed at making the Domestic Auto Industry viable. While I have no problem with such a facility and think that training is vital. I wonder just how useful the training was to better perform your job?
For those with a sense of progressive history, an earlier version was at Port Huron. Back in 1962, a bunch of young left activists came together at the UAW's summer camp at Port Huron and penned what became known as the Port Huron Statement, the manifesto of what would become Students for a Democratic Society and much of the early New Left in the 1960s.
It looks as though I would be opposed to the training given at the UAW center. As I believe that kind of thinking is what is wrong with America today.
Agree with much of what you say. However, the need for capital and loans *is* value added and greases the entire economy. Problem is that most of the other stuff in the financial industry is smoke and mirrors that add no value. But the fundamental workings of a banking system (that could collapse due to the other crap) are critical to our entire society - more so than Circuit City, Mervyn's, or the D3. So a case can be made that the bailout of the banking industry is more important than other companies and industries.
I just wish they'd put the heads of these financial institutions on trial, and make some massive regulatory reform. I thought Sarbanes-Oxley was supposed to prevent misstatements of financial conditions in a company?
Excellent statement. The UAW and GM want it all, but that isn't going to happen. Which item is going to give? They should decide or the market will decide it for them.
LOL!
Back to UAW, we speak of tariffs. In the 1980's we imposed voluntary import quotas on the Japanese. But the buying public still wanted the cars. So the J3 upped the size and content of their cars since they could not import more units. This opened up the market of larger more expensive vehicles to the J3. Not the effect that anybody (including UAW) intended. This was an example of where a protectionist attempt backfired on the D3. The best competition would be outstanding products that the consumers want to buy.
We don't know since they same characters have been in charge for so many years. Perhaps we should find out? I'll nominate Wagoner!
Why would you hear? Chrysler is a privately owned company now, and does not have to make ANY financial information public. They report to the IRS only. GM and Ford are public and must make financial statements public.
The biggest folly of the capitalist market has been to share all secrets to everybody in the world in the hopes that somebody can make it cheaper and they can sell it for more profit. So what is specialized now? nothing?
I'll bet that GM has been teaching the Chinese to make Buicks.
There is plenty of specialized technologies that can't be done by others: aerospace, heavy machinery, biotech just to name a few. Doesn't mean they'll never go somewhere else or parts of these processes haven't already gone.
Nothing is given forever - marketshare, profits, jobs, lifestyle. We may not like it, but it's a basic fact of life. Some will try to "preserve way of life" by tariffs, trade barriers. All they'll achieve is initial slowdown of the process followed by explosive acceleration at any opening). It's like soda pop. You can cork it and shake it, but one day is has to get open.
2018 430i Gran Coupe
For some reason the UAW implants into the community some sense of "god given right". My daddy made $100,000 per year making buggy whips. I should be entitled to the same living. There is a difference between the "Pursuit of Happiness" and the "Right to Happiness". I am sure it is tough on the 21 year old that is lucky enough to get one of the UAW jobs that now pays $15 per hour. I am sure he is not thrilled that some 55 year old dude next to him is knocking down $30 per hour and has a retirement in the near future. The young UAW worker can thank Gettlefinger and the old hands for selling him down the river. They would rather he live in the ghetto. Than for them to give up any of their wages or benefits. That is the reality of the Team spirit in the UAW. The new guys would be better off working for a Non Union auto maker where they have some chance of working their way up to the top wage.
http://money.aol.com/bw/investing/ceo-golden-parachutes-2006
You need look no further than Gary Forsee to see why the absurdities of executive compensation rankle shareholders so much. In 2003 Forsee negotiated a pay package to join Sprint as its chief executive officer that promised to leave him rich--whether he succeeded or failed at turning around the troubled long-distance phone company.
Sprint first paid him $6.5 million in cash and stock just to leave BellSouth, where he was the number two executive. Sprint also bought Forsee's house in Atlanta before he moved to Kansas City. Once on the job Forsee was paid between $1.5 million and $5 million a year. His only real claim to fame while running Sprint was engineering the disastrous Nextel merger and watching its stock price tumble from $25 two years ago to $7.40.
At the end of 2007 he was fired "without cause." But he had negotiated well. Sprint gave him $40 million, including a $1.5 million salary through 2009, $5 million in bonuses, stock options and restricted shares worth $23 million and an $84,000-a-month pension for life. This package was structured under his contract as if he were still running the company and had met all his goals. Oh, Sprint also paid for "outplacement services" that landed him the presidency of the University of Missouri (where his annual salary and bonus amount to $500,000).
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0519/114.html
Ford's number one guy has a similar story with Home Depot.
Last year Robert Nardelli walked away from a mediocre tenure at Home Depot (nyse: HD - news - people ) with $210 million. It was too late for the compensation scolds to complain; the board's real sin was committed years before in luring Nardelli to the company from General Electric (nyse: GE - news - people ). His contract said he'd get 90% of his pay regardless of performance, plus an enormous retirement package when he left.
You wonder what kind of a deal he made with Ford.
I know I rag on the UAW a lot. And they deserve to be chastised. What these CEOs and corporate boards have been doing over the last 20+ years is criminal. And guess what our Congress is no better on either side of the aisle. Look at Frank Raines and his $100 million scammed from now bankrupt Fannie Mae. And it was his watch when it headed into the toilet. Congress knew and did nothing. These boards can read a contract or hire a cheap attorney to do it for them. No excuse is good enough for these travesties.
Sprint gave him $40 million, including a $1.5 million salary through 2009, $5 million in bonuses, stock options and restricted shares worth $23 million and an $84,000-a-month pension for life.
Any ONE of those things would leave me set for life and he got ALL of them! If I had screwed up so badly on my job, I'd be lucky if I were still living indoors!
Nardelli went to Chrysler from Home Depot.
Mulally left Boeing for Ford.
Topps should come out with trading cards for all these guys. Could use them on the dart boards if nothing else.
You failed to mention, child labor. Is that legal also? Then are crimes against the environment legal? Whats the statute of limitation on environmental crimes in America?
I'm all for perfect competition. Unfortunately that just something for the text books. At the moment you have every industry represented in Washington. Each seeking advantage and special treatment. Why does Japan have a lobby group in Washington? Then those people who supposedly care about our health and well being, are anything but. Its no secret that the AMA, large pharmaceutical giants, managed care, and many more are more interested in money and not as concern with health care in America. If health care is the problem. Fix it. Is that not a reasonable expectation, to level this playing field, which is often cited as an out of control concern by every major corporation, partnership, and small business. So, its as if we have to fight the competition with one hand tied behind our back to boot.
WWII was won by the "Rosie the riveter" going into the once off limits factory. How ever will we be able to build a war machine, God forbid, if all of our manufacturing base is shipped overseas? If these large corporations couldn't see beyond the sub prime mess, they are thinking in the short term. Blinded by greed they are anything but patriotic and don't look past the fiscal year. What was wrong with their thinking process?
There is a reasonable argument that govt has a role in this globalization craze. Enough with the large multi nationals calling the shots. If China, with their one fifth of the future consumers, tells a corporation to jump. They don't just reply how high, but rather was that high enough? Its no secret that rocket secrets were given/sold to China. Secrets which now allow them launch satellites in addition to missiles into our country. Was that GM/Hughes/Loral? Its absurd to think that we are all going to become happy capitalist and go on our way. Bottom-line is that we are trading with the communist and they have the stick as multi nationals follow that carrot.
This all reminds me of when Mexico supported NAFTA. Once they saw the factories moving to China, they did a one eighty. The comparative advantage is fine and dandy, but only when its done in a slow methodical planned way. Can we think of any auto maker who saw and or did something about this global economic meltdown coming?
All part of the same D3. You know if one goes they all go is the story circulating. What happened to the guy from Toyota? I cannot keep track of all these over paid suits in the auto industry.
Health care cost has been rising higher faster than just about any part of our society. That was a campaign issue with Bill Clinton. May have gotten him elected. He had a Democrat controlled Congress and appointed Hillary to get universal Health Care done. Nothing happened then and nothing will happen now. No government in the world can afford the kind of health care people in the USA are wanting. We have as good as what Canada offers if not better. I know women that have had children on our nickel that get just as good a care as those with fully paid health coverage.
Blinded by greed they are anything but patriotic and don't look past the fiscal year. What was wrong with their thinking process?
Being blinded by greed is not just for the people on the top. It goes to the bottom of the human food chain. When one homeless guy steals another guys corner, it is based on greed. Some are just better equipped to parlay their persona into those lucrative positions. Then some of us are just fortunate to be at the right place at the right time. You have to be willing to go where your skills are needed. I just happened to have my resume on file with RCA White Alice in Alaska. When they called I said sure. I quit a good job with Pacific Telephone and took a leap of faith. It paid off. If the people in the UAW are set in Michigan or Ohio or Indiana and will not leave. Well they may be losing a chance at financial security that is not offered there. Iluv has given a great example of what is needed when a good job is lost. The smart UAW people are already looking elsewhere for employment. 26 weeks of unemployment runs out fast. With bankruptcy and NO JOBS Bank. The gravy train will leave the station with no seats for UAW members.
"If tariffs don't work, why did we institute tariffs on incoming steel a few years back to try and save our domestic steel industry? Instead of lowering our standard of living, perhaps we should hope to raise everyone's standard to a higher level?"
Back in the Reagan years, they either placed a tariff on imported steel or simply restricted it...economic analysis, with an admittedly conservative leaning, stated that for every $30,000 steelworker job we "saved" or "protected" the economic cost was actually $180,000 per job...so, if true, (don't ask me for cites, gagrice always finds the cites I need), the "nice" part is the steelworker keeping his job, but the cost to everyone else was enormous...
Every time we try and protect someone losing their job thru capitalism (including better technology, better productivity, someone else doing it cheaper, etc) it probably costs everyone lese more in the long run...while it may be hard on the displaced worker, maintaining theior staus quo simply to minimize their psychological stress will always cost us more...
Let the UAW shrink, as we simply do not want to buy all the cars they can force the Big 3 to make, and let the automakers shrink so they can be leaner and meaner...it is what will happen over time, anyway, as their market share drops, but the billions we spend pretending nothing will change is money wasted just to keep a UAW vote for the Democrats...
The more I thought about The Trade Act the more sense it made. But I couldn't live anymore in expensive western Washington state. I had to move someplace where rents were about 1/3rd of what they were in the Evergreen State. Mid-Missouri fits that bill perfectly.
Now, my wife and I also had to sell our 3BD, 1BA house in Burlington, WA, to help make our plan work. We got a great Windermere agent and a temporary cell phone plan, sold or gave away most of our belongings, got a 4' X '8 utility trailer, had a hitch installed, and filled the trailer with everything we still wanted to take to mid-MO.
Off we went in late May of 2003 for the beautiful Ozarks. We were tied to our Burlington, WA, house's mortgage payments. We were truly making a dream out for ourselves and setting out to make it work. Oh, it would work out all right. You're right, it had to work out.
The Burlington, WA, house sold in only 3 weeks! We got out of even having to pay one more mortgage payment! The sale was worked out through cell phone conversation and fax machine submittals.
To sell that house meant so much to us. We were no longer tethered to anything in Washington state. Except my family, they were still there in western Washington. That was tough, besides the tough school regimen that would start up in mid-August 2003, leaving my Dad and Mom and three sisters was not easy. It would take a long flight or drive to see them again.
I am so glad I decided to take up the Boeing Company's and Fed.Guv-Mint's offer of re-training through The Trade Act. I encourage any of you worrying you'll lose your job in the automotive industry to consider The Trade Act. Your work will be going to school as The Trade Act will pay you weekly U.I. benefits if you keep up a 'C' average in your degree program.
Do it! The payoff is immensely satisfying. It's hard work going to college and getting a degree but if I skipped it I'd never know the satisfaction of enjoying the payoff of persistence. Go for it! At least start looking in to what is required and what will be needed to enroll. It is a legitimate way out of a crisis.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
Jim Press is still at Chrysler, but two other execs are leaving:
Two recent high-profile Chrysler hires, now departing
“Public plans like Medicare do a better job of controlling costs,” Mr. Kirsch said. “Private insurers are always looking for ways to avoid paying claims or covering sick people. Their mission is not to provide health care, but to increase shareholders’ profits.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/17/us/politics/17health.html
It goes to the bottom of the human food chain.
Worry not, Obama is the tide of change. There is a new sheriff in town. The UAW supported him and he will come to their aid.
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WTO has predicted that China's share of the world market in textiles and apparel will jump to 50 percent in 2007 from 17 percent in 2003 solely due to their lowly dumping strategies.
http://seoul.usembassy.gov/9_mar_05.html
China Dumping in Manufacturing Industries
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http://www.manufacturing.gov/news/033007_CVD.asp
China Dumping Silicon
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Court rejects China silicon appeal - anti-dumping case
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3MKT/is_n72_v100/ai_12132825
Finally - China the Anti Social
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I am not even sure if the west will believe the below allegation I have personally heard these reports and have seen proof before reporting it.
Chinese hire men (mostly Nepalese and Bangladeshis) to drive a cycle loaded with cheap Chinese merchandise into Nepal, India and Bangladesh to sell sub standard merchandize that directly affects retailers daily in scores on thousands. This might sound really trivial but it is not to those hundreds closing their shutters down due to this incorrigible, shameful act. Don’t bother reporting it to the Chinese government, they endorse it.
You may be right and you may be wrong. He did not sound that enthusiastic about the GM bailout. Remember he has the enviro whackos to please also. They are in DIRECT conflict with your UAW brethren and GM. GM has done nothing to really look GREEN. The Volt is a big joke. Their hybrids are an even bigger joke. At least Ford has leading edge hybrid technology that is on the highways. GM only has trailing edge hybrid junk to try and please the green weinies that are controlling Congressional Democrats. Remember Obama has an Escape Hybrid and a Chrysler 300 in his garage. He drives the 300 to visit the So Side of Chicago and the hybrid for all the Eco weinies to see. NO GM in the stable. He may have a non Union job ditch digging for all those out of work UAW guys. They may have to move to Louisiana or Alabama to get a job.
Excellent Point !
Hopefully the UAW and the manufacturers will come to workable solutions, before they all go out of business.
Kip
Child labor, uhm? Is that what took out GM and Chrysler and put Ford in trouble? Wow - you must know something I don't. Why don't you call CBS so they can make a demaskatory piece on all those children employed at Toyota's and Honda's factories and their suppliers. Pleaaaazeee :sick:
2018 430i Gran Coupe
The Big Three and the UAW aren't responsible for the current economic climate. The very fact that all of the auto makers are finding it hard to sell cars is evident. The UAW is for more consumer choice, not less. However, the UAW would rather encourage buy American and buy UAW made goods/services. Its just good business. There is good reason that those so called transplants pay a competitive wage aka the prevailing wage. They don't want their workforce to opt for UAW representation. If they don't pay a livable/compatible wage, those workers will vote in the union. You seem to forget that many of these same companies migrated from the north to the south. They did so to avoid the union. It wasn't too long after, that the southern workers voted in the union/UAW for representation.
The equalization/globalization factor seems to be altogether avoided as a topic of discussion. The very same thing that occurred as factories moved below the Mason Dixon line. Many economist are now predicting that manufacturing will be moving back into the country. They see the weak dollar making American exports more attractive overseas. I'll have to see that, to believe that. Then too there is a move to unionism in China and other countries with oppressed workers. At this very moment there are labor leaders jailed in China.
Lastly, the stereotypical indolent duffer that you label UAW worker is a far cry from those I've come across. They are just ordinary people working to support their families. No different than the non union workers out there trying to make their families lot in life better. Your outlook is rather pessimistic. I'll bet there were those back in the day, when the 364 day/no weekend/no benefits/working for life's basics, also said that the end of the gravy train was over. Little did they know that consumerism would include a large middle class and not just an elite privileged few. This was far better for everyone, the companies made more profits and our standard of living was the envy of the world. Consumerism is and will be the true downfall of communism/socialism and big labor/UAW has a part in it. As those folks in China see consumer products that ordinary Americans enjoy, they will want the same. Besides, if we just didn't have the consumer society and or that consumer has no means to buy, who the hell is going to buy the goods and services produced by the corporations? I don't know if its a good or bad thing, but our nation consumes more than any other on the planet. America fuels the world economy. The Japan's/China's/India's and others seek our markets. Think about it and what the implications of shipping all of the jobs overseas. Just how much does a Walmart employee's check buy? Can they buy a new car or are they looking on the used car lot? American jobs fuel this economy and are that goose that lays the golden egg.
Apple was bailed out by Microsoft. Since then they went on to beat down the famous Sony Walkman brand and are the leader in MP3 players/IPOD's and look to get their IPHONE market going. Another IAMERICAN story of beating the odds after a bail out.
Please don't forget that the Microsoft-Apple transaction was not a taxpayer-funded bailout. Microsoft chose to invest $150M in Apple for reasons that made good business sense back then (1997) to Bill Gates. I had no problem with that, just as I would have no problem if, say, BMW chose to invest money in GM in return for an equity stake in Cadillac. That would be fine with me.
But I do have a big problem with the nutty idea that American taxpayers have some sort of obligation to ride to the rescue of the domestic car makers. That's not an investment. That's a state-sanctioned mugging.