>Not to say that Japan is as open as the US. There are tariff barriers on agricultural products, construction materials etc, but these are areas where Japan is not competitive internationally (hence the protection -
Here's what I see as a worst case scenario for Detroit and the UAW.
GM and Chrysler go bankrupt (chapter 7 or 11).
Existing contacts are voided by the bankruptcy court. Salaries are reduced significantly.
Under the reorganization (if chapter 11), existing pension benefits are assumed by the Fed (PBGC). When this happens, promised pensions are severely reduced to match PBGC max benefits. Retiree health care benefits are eliminated and retirees go onto Medicare.
All this happened not too long ago to the US Steel Industry. What makes you thing the US auto industry(and it's workers) will come out any better?
GM's pensions are supposedly fully funded and the government has said if GM goes chapter 7/11 the funds would continue to pay the GM pensions. The US PBGC is already in trouble and wants to stay out of having to pay GM's beni's. Then again the government may take the money and reduce the GM pensions and keep the extra to help pay their own deficit. Retired salaried health care is already gone and hourly is right behind it. I believe that the one large concession that the UAW will have to give by March is to allow the deletion of health care for retirees w/o GM putting much into the VEBA fund. Perhaps the government will put $1 billion or so into it instead to appease the Union?
I am pretty sure the steel industries pension funds were severely underfunded.
It would be interesting to know if the D3 pensions are really fully funded (in the sense that there is enough money in them to provide the promised pension benefits for the next 30 years or so if the D3's disappear tomorrow), whether they are just funded to the minimal accepted level as required by the govt, or something in between. Obviously, there's a big difference between the two.
I agree that the steel industries pension funds were severely underfunded, much to the dismay of their workers/retirees who thought they were in good shape.
If GM went bankrupt they would not need to increase the funding because the laid off workers would not be earning more pension ben's. It looks like they have enough to pay what they need to if that happened. BUT if they did go bankrupt I would hope they reduce the pension outlays to assure it would last longer.
When General Motors left Washington empty-handed last week, among the lingering questions was whether its huge pension fund could topple and crush the government’s pension insurance program.
United Automobile Workers members at a benefits meeting last week. Workers worry that bankruptcies in the auto industry could shred their pension plans.
When any pension fund fails, usually as part of a bankruptcy, the government takes over its assets as well as its payments to retirees. In G.M.’s case, its plan would dwarf the nation’s pension insurance fund.
Still, G.M. appears to have enough money in the pension fund to pay its more than 400,000 retirees their benefits for many years — even with the markets swooning around it. That is largely because of the conservative way G.M. has managed the fund recently, and it explains why G.M. has not joined the long list of companies pressing Congress for pension relief.
But this glimmer of hope in a bleak auto landscape could change drastically, particularly if G.M. struggles along for a few more years, only to go bankrupt. The company’s blue-collar work force is still building up new benefits with every additional hour worked, and the pension fund will have to grow smartly to keep up with those costs.
If G.M. continues paying people to retire early, the costs will grow even more, because the plan will have to pay retirees for more years than it budgeted. And G.M. is not contributing additional money to the plan right now.
Already, G.M. says it will be paying retirees about $7 billion a year for the next 10 years. The fund’s assets were worth $104 billion at the end of 2007, more than enough to cover its obligations of $85 billion. Since then, the assets have declined and the obligations have grown, each by undisclosed amounts. The company says it does not plan to add any money to the fund for the next three or four years.
Even if G.M. were forced into bankruptcy, the government might insist that it keep the fund, and cover any shortfalls with its own money.
G.M. acknowledged in its most recent annual report that from 1993 to 2007 it spent $103 billion “to fund legacy pensions and retiree health care — an average of about $7 billion a year — a dramatic competitive and cash-flow disadvantage.” During those 15 years, G.M. paid only $13 billion or so in shareholder dividends. The company has been sending far more money to its retirees than to its owners.
After falling $20 billion behind on its pension earlier this decade, G.M. doggedly put money into its plan to catch up. It has also agreed to invest more than $30 billion in a fund to cover future health-care expenses. But these efforts have starved its business.
in message 7190, i succumbed to the obviously intelligent argument that by supporting bridge loans to the BIg 3 to avoid bankruptcy and keep the plants opened, the uaw now should be required to sell its black lake family education center and golf course.
since it would be a fire sale, i suggested we all get together (your money, my connections) to buy it for about 50% of its 13 million taxable value ( and then turn it into a nice place with some real amenities and "improvements" more likely to attract a higher class of customers than those blue collar lowlifes who have used i t for 40 years.. too many damn trees and ponds over there anyway--needs more condos and some snowmobile trails. once we get rid of the overpaid 145 local employees and bring in some walmart level rates and temp visas workers--it might even start to make money.
not a single person has jumped on my offer. i don't understand--given the large numbers who share the view that the uaw should be forced to stop wasting its dues money on its members.
there goes my chance to finally turn the corner and become a good trickle down republican--oh well!
don't forget we still don't have health care coverage for 46 million americans.
You keep throwing out that phony number. It needs to be refuted. Two young ladies in our Church recently had babies. Neither had health care coverage. Both got excellent Prenatal care and delivery. They take their babies in for checkups all paid by the State of CA. The only thing they paid for is circumcision. Your argument on Canada health care is totally flawed, but I would not expect any thing different from your lifetime of brainwashing by the UAW.
Random: "General Motors workers who build the Chevrolet Malibu, one of G.M.’s most popular and important new vehicles, went on strike Monday at a plant in Kansas after they were unable to reach an agreement with the company on local work rules." (bold emphasis mine)...
Therein lies a large part of the problem...the import transplants have, according to the books I have read, virtually NO "local work rules"...if it needs to be done, anyone may be assigned to do it...so, their labor cost is lower simply by being more efficient...the books also cite various Big 3 in-house studies where they are literally watching the imports make more cars with fewer employees, hence the 1)lower overhead and 2) greater productivity, neither of which you will ever see from Big 3 UAW plants...the union work rules are simply the rot that is eating the tree alive, and it will not survive until the rot is eliminated...
I believe one example was either Toy or Honda, running a plant with 2,000 employees, making a similar number of cars as a UAW plant needing 6,000 employees...
These archaic work rules should be abolished, and the UAW along with it...the 1960s are gone, we do not own the world, and they apparently make a product as good as ours, or better, with less workers and less overhead...the UAW is the new Jurassic Park...time to go...if a transplant can do with 2000 what the Big 3 need 6000, I defy anyone to justify keeping the union and the work rules as they are...
And anyone who does try to defend the absurd, would you run a hardware store with 10 employees, if you were doing the same amount of business as your competitor down the street who sold just as much, with equal quality and service, with only 3 employees???...your labor overhead would drive you into B, just like the Big 3 are now...
Since I always try to have an open mind and always consider alternatives, I'm open to universal medical coverage if it will actually improve our medical system. I'm sick of hearing about the government needing to provide free healthcare. No matter how it's administered, it's not free.
I believe many of the statistics are misleading such as comparing life expectancy and numbers of uninsured.
I've known many people over the years who've made good wages/salary that didn't have health insurance because they didn't want it. Yes, these were young males w/o a family. But to say that every person who is uninsured, doesn't have it because they don't have access or can't afford it is not 100% true.
To my knowledge, life expectancy is based on death's per 1000 for the population. That is not a good way (IMO) to compare the effectiveness of health care systems. Every time a gang banger executes another gang member that effects mortality rates and no amount of health care can fix that. Add auto related deaths, the US is among the highest in per capita traffic fatalities. Many of our citizens are fat and generally unhealthy. This all affects our morality rates and health costs and is IMO hard if not impossible to accurately compare health care systems between nations.
While that is all debatable and off topic. I whole heartedly disagree that health care is why the big 3 is in the position they are in. Sure, the health care costs are an issue, but I just turned 38 and for as long as I can remember the big 3 have built a lot of crap as I've witnessed customer after customer choose foreign cars after a horrible experience from the D3. If management would have invested the money when they were profitable into the product to build competitive cars they would be making money today (well pre recession anyway).
I'm willing to bet the d3 would be in the same situation today if we had a national health care system over the past 30 years. Any funds these company's might have saved (granted someone would have to pay for it) would have been wasted somewhere else. Probably in the the form of a larger dividend, executive bonus's, poor acquisitions, and overly lucrative labor agreements.
more likely to attract a higher class of customers than those blue collar lowlifes who have used i t for 40 years
From the 2007 records it looks like the golf course is being used for a higher class of citizen. Probably the UAW leadership bringing all their crony lobbyist friends up for a nice vacation at UAW member expense. Out of the 13,000 rounds of golf played last year only 4000 rounds were played by UAW members and retirees. You have said the course loses money. So how much UAW money was wasted on NON MEMBERS out playing golf? How many were lowlife Republicans playing a round of golf on the Members nickel?
I have never mentioned selling the place. I have questioned if any of the money was out of a pension plan? If the the UAW had to pay $5.9 million to a pension plan last year then it would be easy to assume they borrowed money from one of the pension plans the UAW oversees. Spending interest from a strike fund for training I would consider legitimate. Spending it so some non member fat cat can go play golf would raise my eyebrows if I was a member. Then I did get involved in my Union and was on the carpet more than once for bucking the leadership's wasting money on pet projects. I can assure you I would not have worshiped Reuther any more than I would have Jess Carr. Even though I am sure they did much for organized labor.
the web researched and independently reported data i supplied on our comparative USA/Canada health care system- particularly my claim that there are 46 million americans without health insurance coverage - needs to be refuted you say. one would anticipate at least the usual carefully worded report from a right wing think tank (Cato, Heritage Foundation etc) defending the status quo and telling us that continued support for rich and powerful are the best hope for the future. (interesting how these right wing think tanks are able to write their conclusion before they do the research)
yet the refutation you supply is an anecdotal accounts of two ladies in your church who had their prenatal care and deliveries (less circumcison costs) paid for by the state of california.
ok you have "proved" to me that i am off by 2-- how about the other 45, 999,998 americans without health insurance?
i am finally beginning to understand that there are probably about that number of americans out there whose strong opinions are such that facts don't really matter.
My favorite line "I also learned what a horrible disservice it is to let people's pay outgrow their skills, so when they lose their jobs they also lose their middle-class standard of living, many permanently.
My question is would be, if the UAW members were asked to pay 50% of their income in taxes as is the case in Canada would they be so gungho for government sponsored health care? As you have pointed out. IT IS NOT FREE except for those that are on welfare and not contributing to the country. The high paid UAW workers would be some of the hardest hit in any kind of redistribution of wealth, as proposed by our new President.
Up to 31,000 jobs will go, reduce wages to levels competitive with non-union foreign carmakers by 2009, and require the UAW to accept stock in the place of half the cash payments made to its health care trust fund by 2010 are among the concessions sought.
I do not wish you, Gettelfinger, or anybody else decide what product is good for me and even less want them force me to pay up for those wonders of engineering (or anything else for that matter), so a few fat lazy guys in Midwest keep their cushy jobs and three times more old guys could have a good living in California or Florida and free Viagra prescription at my expense. Yes, MY EXPENSE. I would rather my money go to people who are actually happy with their job, make a product I (NOT YOU) deem best at price I (NOT YOU) see acceptable. I had already lived in a place where other entities claimed to know better what was good for me and don't wish it to anybody, even Gettelfinger.
Don't get me wrong - I would not care at all if those guys are slim or fat, lazy or most dedicated, if they made product that I want at price I can accept without coercion from the government or union mob. But if you think it's appropriate to coerce me into "supporting" them, I take a closer look at what I would be supporting, and I say, thanks, but no thanks.
Just as an example, if somebody thinks it was an acceptable behavior to vandalize somebody else's property just because they didn't like that choice, I would rather have my hand severed than give them a penny of my money. I would rather my money go to Mexico, Germany, Japan, or China, just for the principle.
hi gagrice: I know trying to change your open mind is probably a wast of time--am i am about ready to quit trying to bother you with facts but in the faint hope that something sticks, here it goes.
The public rate at the golf course is $95 ( uaw members get 20% off, and i as a uaw retiree get a 30% discount). that is a lot of money, but when my brothers and friends come up we sometimes play there since it is the best course within about 100 miles and probably one of the best in the entire state. i pay the discount but have to pick up my republican brother's full $95 rate. I have never seen these rates waived except for charity events or special fundraiser tournaments of which the center has many. ( i would be glad provide you with testimonial letters from these charities thanking the uaw golf club)
if you do some web research on the black lake golf course you will find similar golf magazine opinions calling the course spectacular and the price as "well worth it". The UAW Black Lake Course advertizes golf packages heavily for public use and tries to attract the golfing elite over from the west side of the state (harbor springs, petoskey, traverse city) and south of here (gaylord) were most of the premier courses operate. these cities are big tourist meccas with lotsa republican high rollers. it is starting to work but the course only opened in 2000.
northern michigan is a big resort area, heavily forested with hundreds of lakes. cheboygan county has more miles of waterfront land than any county in michigan. this is beautiful hemingway country but please don't spread it around. 3 of michigan's largest inland lakes(mullet, burt and black lake itself) are close by. mackinac island (big tourist mecca) is about 30 miles away. in short there are thousands of summer homes, cottages and visitors to the area and large numbers of retirees have settled here (after 5 feet of snow so far this year, some of us are having second thoughts)
i suspect that the $95 public rate generates a modest "profit" for course operations and that the uaw wants to encourage even more full rate golf to break even. . i am told that most golf courses are losing money. things have been pretty bad in michigan for a couple years with high gas prices cutting down on vacation travel and the once again proven failure of trickle down economics. the big bucks in golf courses are in resale to developers or in developing homesites around the fairways. but there are no condos or homesites at the black lake golf course. i suppose the uaw could get rid of the "overpaid" local operating engineers who maintain the course and the club house attendants and restaurant employes and bring in some walmart level employees or foreign workers under temp visas. or the uaw could end the discounts for its cheap retirees and its "overpaid" members. see i know how to let the free market work too.
i say all this because you apparently believe that there are no real "public golfers" up here but only lobbyists or uaw fatcats. How does the fact that 9000 black lake golfers didn't get the UAW discount lead you to conclude that they must all be lobbyists or uaw -corrupted politicians? are you beginning to see the absurdity of your attitude?
the uaw doesn't manage any pension plans. to the best of my knowledge there were almost no taft hartley trust funds in the uaw system. almost all uaw pension funds are managed by independent bank trustees who make all the investment decisions without any input from the uaw.
some of the right wing blogs have questioned an expense at the center listing a 5-6 million dollar contribution to a pension plan as a center expense. there are about 145 employees at the center. sometimes employers (here the uaw is an employer) decide to fund their pension plans at something other than ERISA minimum requirements. Indeed the law and common sense encourage (but do not require) that pension plans be fully funded (at full funding annual ERISA premiums used to pay the cost of PBGC insurance in the event of pension termination--are reduced). i do not know why the UAW used its members' dues money to fully fund the pension plans at its Black Lake Center--but i fail to see anything evil or sinister here.
i'm sorry but i did worship walter reuther. think of all the great ones whose inspired purpose was to advance the cause of the little guy but whose lives were ended too soon. (mlk, the kennedys, reuther etc)
there's a story about one of the right wing senator's questioning walter during the kefauver oversight hearings. like you this poor republican saw a report and made a wrong analysis more consistent with his firm opinion. you can look up the exact words in the congressional record but the senator said something like :' i see that one of our audits have discovered that the UAW spent almost half a million dollars on ammunition last year . i suppose your going to tell us that this is for self protection or recreational use but i don't thin your members dues money should be spent on ammunition and i'm sure the rest of america agree with me' reuther responded "ammuntion is the title of a booklet we publish every month that is sent to locals and members. it contains information, facts or "ammunition" to be used by local leadership to rebut the misrepresentations and half-truths put out by the right wing press and their friends in congress. I'm sure our next edition of "ammunition" will be used to recount this exchange and rebut your already written report on the 'findings' of uaw corruption you claim to have exposed.'
the hearing room burst into applause and laughter!
it is easy to get discouraged looking over these exchanges of entries from seemingly intelligent people who are like this republican senator have firm preconceived opinions and whose close minds don't wish to be cluttered with facts. i should stop wasting my time and just laugh.
lumoy: they laugh about comments like this as they watch the bus loads of american seniors crossing over to buy the same prescription drugs sold profitably in canada for less than 50% of our costs.
They laugh because they are ignorant of the fact that Americans, because they pay more, subsidize the research and development of new drugs. The profit margins aren't high enough in places like Canada to support this research and development.
Regarding the success of the Canadian system in satisfying that nation's citizens - You apparently missed the court case launched in Quebec by disgruntled citizens who wanted the opportunity to purchase private insurance, which had been banned under the then-current Canadian system. Guess what - they won. The Canadian Supreme Court agreed with their position.
Someone must have been dissatisfied with the care provided by the national Canadian system if they wanted the opportunity to purchase private insurance, and were willing to go to court to gain that opportunity.
lumoy: yes canadians wait for elective surgery--but everyone has coverage and the overall quality of care--in terms of life expectancy, favorable medical outcomes, etc exceeds the usa by a wide margin.
Life expectancy is driven by cultural factors, habits and genetics, not by whether the health care system has been nationalized. Note that the highest life expectancy is enjoyed by the citizens Andorra, a small nation in Europe with a homogenous population. It is followed by Japan, Macau, San Marino and Singapore.
Considering how well Asian nations perform, I would suggest that, if you want to boost life expectancy, have large numbers of relatively wealthy Asians immigrate to your country, and make sure that they bring their dietary and exercise habits with them.
The U.S. is also penalized because it has large numbers of immigrants from Mexico and Central America. I doubt that these people are immigrating to Canada in large numbers (given the distances involved). They pull down the aggregate expected life span within the U.S.
Anecdotal evidence - when we visted the southwestern U.S. this summer, and Texas last year, both my wife and I were struck by how heavy many of the Native Americans and Hispanics were. This has to pull down life expectancy for the U.S.
But our anecdotal experience is buttressed by a real statistic - adults in the United States have one of the highest obesity rates in the world. Nearly one-third of U.S. adults 20 years and older are obese, while about two-thirds are overweight. Seems the problem stems from less a lack of nationalized health care and more with too many trips to the all-you-can-eat buffet.
The U.S. has the resources that allow people to get fat and lazy. We have the luxury of choosing a bad lifestyle as opposed to having one imposed on us by hard times. Eating too much, smoking, consuming too much alcohol and watching television instead of working hard are activities that cost money and can occur in an affluent nation (even though, paradoxically, the citizens WITHIN the U.S. who engage in these activities to the point that it hurts their health tend to be in the lower income brackets).
Also note that the surivival rates for cancer diagnosis in the U.S. are the best in the world, which completely knocks out your claim that the medical outcomes in Canada exceed those in the U.S. by a "wide margin."
lumoy: canada spend 7 % of their gnp on a better health care system which provides universal coverage we spend 14-16% of our GNP on an inferior patchwork system with high copays and gaps with 46 million americans (mostly children) falling not between the cracks --but into the chasm
No, most children are covered by state-sponsored plans. Healthy adults in their 20s and 30s are less likely to have insurance.
lumoy: but let's put this into perspective for this debate: the same care made in canada by the same company costs $1800 less to build because they have national health care.
No doubt that is true when we compare the UAW's gold-plated plan to the Canadian nationalized plan. But let's compare benefits, too. I doubt that the Canadian plan is more generous. Let's compare what it costs to provide health care in Canada to the plans offered by the transplants in the U.S. THAT is a more relevant comparison.
Incidentally, if nationalized health care is so great, why hasn't the UAW, which you apparently have represented at the bargaining table, offered to shift retired members over to the U.S.'s nationalized health care plan for the elderly - Medicare? It would save the auto companies a ton of money, and allow the UAW to put its money where its mouth is by taking advantage of a nationalized health care system - which, after all, it has advocated.
But the UAW won't do this, because the benefits under Medicare aren't nearly as generous as those under the current company plan. Which is why the current company plan costs so much. This, of course, makes the UAW's call for nationalized health care more than a little disingenous. No national plan will provide the level of coverage provided by the current plan enjoyed by UAW members (nor do the socialized plans in other countries provide the level of benefits enjoyed by UAW members).
lumoy: i win!
Not among those of us who have actually studied this issue.
lumoy: since it would be a fire sale, i suggested we all get together (your money, my connections) to buy it for about 50% of its 13 million taxable value ( and then turn it into a nice place with some real amenities and "improvements" more likely to attract a higher class of customers than those blue collar lowlifes who have used i t for 40 years.. too many damn trees and ponds over there anyway--needs more condos and some snowmobile trails. once we get rid of the overpaid 145 local employees and bring in some walmart level rates and temp visas workers--it might even start to make money.
not a single person has jumped on my offer. i don't understand--given the large numbers who share the view that the uaw should be forced to stop wasting its dues money on its members.
Let's leave the red herrings in the water where they belong.
Just because people question the need for an organization begging for a public bailout to maintain a rather lavish golf resort, does not mean that said people want to buy and run this golf course.
Incidentally, you apparently haven't been paying too much attention to the national economy. Real estate - ESPECIALLY in Michigan - is declining in value, and likely to continue doing so for years.
I doubt that this property is a good buy at even 50 percent of its taxable value.
The demand for brand-new condos and other amenities on this property would probably be as strong as the demand for many of GM's brand new vehicles. In other words, we would have to be prepared to give them away...
Fortunately, most of us understand finance and the likelihood of a venture's success better than GM management and the UAW (neither one has had a great track record lately), so we'll pass...
can i say it just one more time in the faint hope that someone will actually start to understand:
The uaw did support the Big 3 three employer's request for a bridge loan for GM, Chrysler and possibly Ford to keep their plants open and avoid a catastrophic bankruptcy. The UAW did not ask for any money from congress to maintain its own operations. yes the uaw benefits if the Big 3 stay alive--but so does about a 25% of the employers and communities in the country. is that the nexus for taxpayer control? should congress then have the right to impose conditions on any entity or community that benefits because these plants are staying open?
Not responding specifically to your golfcourse issue. But here's what I do grasp. I and many U.S. taxpayers do not want to be involved with the "Auto Family" finances. We DON'T want to be involved. We WISH you well, and HOPE you made good choices over the years.
But what the execs, the suppliers, the UAW, GMAC ... have done and are doing is YOUR FAMILY business. Figure it out amongst yourselves instead of bringing your family issues out on the street. Figure out how to divide up your budget. The auto industry has so much coming in and needs to figure out how not to spend more. Everyone else is having to do the SAME in their family/house and company.
I want the "Auto Family" to stop being children and act like adults. Stop begging for a bigger allowance. Help yourselves. Live within your means! Figure it out, and stop bothering the rest of us!! :mad:
lumoy: can i say it just one more time in the faint hope that someone will actually start to understand:
The uaw did support the Big 3 three employer's request for a bridge loan for GM, Chrysler and possibly Ford to keep their plants open and avoid a catastrophic bankruptcy. The UAW did not ask for any money from congress to maintain its own operations.
GM will survive even if it declares bankruptcy. A reborn GM, sized to serve about 12-15 percent of the market with two divisions - Chevrolet and Cadillac - and a competitive cost structure will survive and even thrive.
The union, however, may not survive. Therefore, this bailout is designed to keep the union alive as a viable entity (and lots of the dealers, too - as GM would probably love to shed a fair amount of them in a bankruptcy proceeding) more than it is designed to save the companies themselves. What GM needs is a thorough restructuring - and that includes labor costs. Chrysler is too far gone at this point - it will likely be broken up, and the viable parts - Jeep, the minivans, the Dodge Ram - sold to another company.
If GM declares bankruptcy, in the end, the UAW will most likely have to accept wages and benefits comparable to what workers at the transplant operations receive. Ford will then demand a similar wage package.
Once this happens, UAW members may wonder just why they are paying those union dues, while workers in the transplant factories will have no desire to be represented by the UAW. The UAW will basically be toast.
So, the union wants GM and Chrysler to receive this money because it likely cannot survive without a GM and Chrysler artificially propped up by the federal government.
lumoy: yes the uaw benefits if the Big 3 stay alive--but so does about a 25% of the employers and communities in the country.
Please - 25 percent of the employers and communities in this country do not depend on GM, Ford and Chrysler.
Someone has been reading too much union propaganda.
Toyota is currently taking steps to ensure the stability of key suppliers, even if GM files for bankruptcy. So it's not as though the entire supplier base will collapse if GM files for bankruptcy.
Of course, Toyota won't do anything to help the UAW, which is the real problem here.
When you ask a bank for a mortgage, the bank (I mean normal one, not Indie or Wamu) will and should ask you what the loan is for, what is your capacity to repay it. If you satisfy their curiosity, they give the loan (of course we are talking period before CDOs). If they're not satisfied with your answers, you don't get it. Now, you have a choice of not getting ir, or entering negotiations with the bank, which means you show them how you're going to repay it. For example, you may promise lifestyle adjustments, offer larger collateral, etc.
Now back to D3. They say "give us money". Our taxpayer money custodians (Congress) ask what for and show me how and when you're going to repay it. D3 mumbles something about selling their jets and selling fuel efficient cars. Numbers don't add up. THEN we come to to conclusion - OK let's see what else you can do to pay us back. Ahhhhh, labor cost - just like the lifestyle adjustments you'd need to make to get that mortgage.
It was D3 who opened that door. They wanted the money and UAW supported the request. Once you want the money, the grantor can and actually has the duty keep asking what for and what are the guarantees. It's their due diligence to go as deep as necessary. It may hurt your feelings to hear UAW is too costly. It might not even be true (I think it is), but it was D3 who asked me Mr. Taxpayer for the money, so now they will get earful of inquiries/complaints/suggestions from custodians of my money - and I fully expect those custodians to do their job, just as a loan officer would be expected to do theirs.
Maybe you should be questioning your so called squeaky clean UAW leadership. You keep saying your facts are the only ones. Well a lot of people are starting to question the UAWs little secrets with regard to payouts at the Black Lake center. Reminds me of the good old days with the Teamster pensions when Hoffa was loaning the money to a lot of mobster types. If you trust the UAW to do right by you. No skin off my nose as long as they don't get any of my tax dollars.
According to Laborpains.org:
The difference between the UAW’s LM-2 and the Tax Tribunal filings amount to more than $21 million dollars, which would translate to around $770,000 in property taxes the UAW isn’t paying to Waverly Township each year, if you accept their LM-2 appraisal (the township’s treasurer advised me that the rate is around 3.6%).
That's quite a difference. It should be remembered that these taxes are used for local schools and the like, so the UAW doesn't appear to be a very good neighbor in Cheboygan County, does it?
But, according to Chet Zarko of Zarko Research and Consulting there is even more hanky panky at the resort than a mere evasion of local property taxes. It seems that there is a very large discrepancy in the reported costs of employee wages and the pension funding at the education center connected with the golf resort project.
It's that the pension fund expenses appear to be really out-of-line with overall wages. So far out of line that you have to wonder exactly who is doing the work to get pension fund contributions. There's a key piece of context here - the $5.91 million in pension fund contributions compares $3.25 million in wages. Normally, you'd expect the wages to be much higher than the pension contribution - 10 times or perhaps as little as 5-6 times. But not the other direction. And of the 3.25 million, 2.6 million is "general labor" - there is no way the room custodians and general labor are getting that gold-plated of a pension deal. The other half million is "administrative" wages - but even the hotel administrators are unlikely to be able to get away with such a self-dealing (unless they are something more than that to the union leadership).
So how does the UAW justify this "out-of-line" accounting with the educational center pension funds? Where and to whom is all this benefit money going, anyway?
It appears that there is a lot of shaky record keeping and shadowy operations connected with this Black Hills luxury golf club owned by the UAW. And, again, all the money tied up in this property is the money taken from the pockets of the hard working rank-and-file members of the American auto industry, the same industry in such dire straights this year.
i applaud your willingness to at least debate facts and keep an open mind
here' s some stuff i grabbed from wikipedia to re-respond and rebut to your points:
According to a Joint Canada/United States Survey of Health for 2002–2003, undertaken by Statistics Canada and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 87% of Canadians are somewhat or very satisfied with their overall healthcare services. Indeed, overall, the quality of life in Canada is excellent. Canadian cities surveyed all ranked within the top 20 in Mercer Human Resource Consulting's 2004 overall quality of life survey. Mercer's survey looked at 39 criteria, including social, political, economic, environmental, and health factors. The evaluation of "health" was based on factors such as personal safety, as well as the quality and availability of hospital and medical care, and medical supplies. Nonetheless, disparities exist in terms of the regional quality of care in Canada. Canada's rural and remote northern communities do not have the same level and quality of healthcare as do its southern cities. And throughout Canada, concerns regarding the level of government funding and the quality of healthcare services have led to a public debate on the healthcare system as a whole.
Government and private health and public policy analysts have compared the health care systems of Canada and the United States.[1][2][3][4] The U.S. spends much more on health care than Canada, both on a per-capita basis and as a percentage of GDP.[5]In 2006, per-capita spending for health care in the U.S. was US$6,714; in Canada, US$3,678.[5] The U.S. spent 15.3% of GDP on health care in that year; Canada spent 10.0%.[5] In 2006, almost 70% of health care spending in Canada was financed by government, versus 44.7% in the United States. Total government spending per capita in the U.S. on health care was 23% higher than Canadian government spending, and U.S. government expenditure on health care was just under 83% of total Canadian spending (public and private).[6] Studies have come to different conclusions about the result of this disparity in spending. A 2007 review of all studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the US in a Canadian peer-reviewed medical journal found that "health outcomes may be superior in patients cared for in Canada versus the United States, but differences are not consistent."[7] Life expectancy is longer in Canada, and its infant mortality rate is lower than that of the U.S., but there is debate about the underlying causes of these differences. One commonly cited comparison, the World Health Organization's ratings of "overall health service performance", published in 2000, which used a "composite measure of achievement in the level of health, the distribution of health, the level of responsiveness and fairness of financial contribution", ranked Canada 30th and the U.S. 37th among 191 member nations.. The average life expectancy for Canada was rated 12th at 72.0 years compared with 24th for the U.S. at 70.0 years.[
the comparative health care issue is really a big side track to my principal point (the uaw should not have to sell its black lake center because it supported the big 3 requests for bridge loans). i started down that road simply to point our how our obsolete health care system has put domestic mfgrs at a comparative disadvantage to foreign mfrs--using the now well documented fact that a same car built in windsor ontario car costs $1800 more to build than the same car built across the river in michigan by the same company--thanks to the difference in health care costs.
the health care debate is really over, the current system with 12-20% increases in cost per year cannot be maintained corporate america has finally seen the light. there is going to be a major change-the only question is how much the insurance carriers, drug companies, and doctors can get away with. but this is really a different matter than the auto industry bridge loans.
much of the public or at least most on this blog seems to think the current bridge loan issue is related not to the worldwide credit crunch which has forced almost every country to make similar loans to their auto industries but to the uaw. of course they have no explanation for why canada, japan and the european countries are making similar loans with no pre-conditions imposed on the workers.
i have also tried to point out the apparent hypocisy in not attaching simlar conditions to employees of wall street, bear stearns, aig, fannie mae, etc for their much much larger grants of taxpayer money. no one has even responded to that point yet.
but since i live up here i just blew my stack when fox noise and others said the uaw should sell its "posh, lavish" golf resort for uaw bigwigs at black lake.
this is a strange county. we have no apparent problem with the fact that the top 1% have upwards of 50% of the country's national wealth and at least since 1980 that the top 5% should get tax breaks in hope that it would trickle down to the rest of us. yet let a factory rat making $28-30 an hour having access with is family to a summer retreat and family education center with a golf course paid their own dues--and the right wing goes nuts.
i have for example tried to point out that the uaw is not asking the federal government to bail out its operations and help the uaw's poor financial health but no one seems to understand the distinction. the uaw benefits from the loan--along with 25% of the country--so the taxpayers should have the right to impose conditions on what the uaw should do with its dues money. even my suggestion that the alternative to the uaw black lake center could be more strike authorizations or more newly hired organizers doesn't seem help them understand their conceptual quamire..
i have come to the conclusion that most people don't want to have their pre-conceived opinions cluttered by facts. i have pointed out that the uaw black lake family education center has been around for 40 years to provide education/training/recreation to members and families. it is rustic but not lavish. it has been an asset to the community and the membership --and most important of all -- that it is up to the membership and not the taxpayers as to whether to keep it.
i had hoped that just one person would acknowledge that their concern that taxpayer funds were being used to provide a posh resort for uaw executives had been cleared up and that the right wing blogs and fox noise were wrong and evil for this disinformation campaign.
my favorite was the blog that announced the uaw big shots were celebrating the bridge loan grants at their plush black lake resort over the holidays. (we have had 5 feet of snow, it was -5 on new year's and the center has been closed, as usual, for the winter)
i have put out dozens of messages, thousands of words and hundreds of facts about the center and the uaw
we have a different read on the loans. the point i was trying to make is that if the bank money had been used to ease credit, maybe consumers would not have gone into their shells. this includes buyung vehicles from all the manufacturers. the B3 asked for the money to hopefully get through their low sales/liquidity problems until the vehicle market picks up.
2024 Ford F-150 STX, 2023 Ford Explorer ST, 91 Mustang GT vert
I want the "Auto Family" to stop being children and act like adults. Stop begging for a bigger allowance. Help yourselves. Live within your means! Figure it out, and stop bothering the rest of us!!
Great post. You've nailed my views perfectly. I'm not anti-union or anti-D3 - just anti-bailout.
i am finally beginning to understand that there are probably about that number of americans out there whose strong opinions are such that facts don't really matter.
I am finally beginning to understand that YOU do not believe in personal responsibility for yourself or others. That you believe you are entitled to be taken care of from the time you were born until you are buried. We are just diametrically opposed in our philosophy of what America is and what our Constitution guarantees. I am a firm believer in you do not work, if you are able, you do not eat.
As far as GM and that stupid health care clause you are living under. If there is NO money you are on your own. It is not the responsibility of the rest of US tax payers to guarantee your gold plated health care plan for life. In fact I would love for you to be under the Canadian plan. My cousins moved from Toronto and live now in Branson. They were so happy when they became US citizens. They were not getting good health care for my nearly blind cousin in Canada. The are now under her husband's plan he has working in Branson. She is finally getting the laser eye surgery she has needed for years. So you know where you can put the Canadian Health care plan. I don't want any part of it. Just as you believe I am following the dictates of the Conservative Right. I believe you are following the message of the Socialist left. So we will probably never see things on the same level. I think Putin has ideas to get his regime going again. Maybe you can sign up.
if you have been doing any reading of japanese auto news, it seems the local population doesn't want japanese cars anymore. probably a good thing that the B3 didn't invest a lot of money over there. if i remember correctly the total market is 3.4 million and dropping annually.
2024 Ford F-150 STX, 2023 Ford Explorer ST, 91 Mustang GT vert
My favorite line "I also learned what a horrible disservice it is to let people's pay outgrow their skills, so when they lose their jobs they also lose their middle-class standard of living, many permanently.
I see your comment went right over the heads of many here. It was a good speech and had lots of good advice for tough times. What I am seeing with the UAW is a big let down for many slightly skilled workers. When a forklift operator makes $118k per year and loses his job, that is going to be a reality check. No company in their right mind is going to pay a fork lift operator that kind of money. The individual had a base pay of $87k per year. That is so far above the average in this country that it should have never happened. But GM and their buddy, buddy contracts with the UAW did exactly that.
I know people at district level at HP that do not make $118k per year. And they work 60-80 hours per week with NO OT. Just part of the salary. They have 100s of employees under their supervision.
i said much earlier in this long list of exchanges that the taxpayers and congress have an absolute right to ask how is this going to be repaid and to ask the uaw in particular what are you doing to help restructure the industry in the long term. i have detailed what the uaw has been doing to restructure the industry in many prior exchanges which you may not have read. the 2007 contracts which already provided for new hires at $14-15 an hour with greatly reduced benefits and the huge legacy costs to be transferred to UAW Vebas are being re-opened and renegotiated as we speak. the job banks are gone!
my quarrel has been with those who accept fox noise broadcasts that the loan money is being used to finance a plush uaw resort for uaw big shots. it is not. i have tried to argue that this is a membership education facilty for uaw members and families finaced by interest from the uaw strike fund. i have tried to argue that public demands that the uaw sell the center are not the public's business.
using the now well documented fact that a same car built in windsor ontario car costs $1800 more to build than the same car built across the river in michigan by the same company--thanks to the difference in health care costs.
For me the real issue is how much more that CAW member pays in Canadian taxes, compared to his UAW brother in Michigan or Indiana. Don't forget the imports building cars here in the USA are paying at least part of the health care premiums. And why don't you hold the UAW responsible for your health care after retirement. They made the deal to carry forward the cost and tack it on the future workers shoulders.
".....I like my diesel German automobile that gets 700 miles per tank of fuel. I would LOVE to be able to purchse a Dodge Dakota pickup truck with a small detroit-diesel engine. They build them in Brazil... why cant I buy one at my local Dodge dealer??? Because the UNION contracts will not allow it!!"
Wrong, wrong WRONG!!!!! YOU can't buy one because that engine probably does not meet US Emissions standards. If it did, it could easily be built HERE!!! I doubt the UAW would say no to work. I fit does meet our standards, more than likely the management doesn't believe it will sell well here.
"The UAW was singled out for more concessions than any of the other stakeholders, including bondholders, dealers, suppliers or others, Gettelfinger said. The union is willing to help, he said. But the process is being slowed by confusing loan language and the absence of a federal point person or car czar to clarify questions, he said.
The so-called term sheet of the loan calls on the UAW to agree to competitive compensation with the Japanese transplants and more flexible work rules. What's more, it requires new multi-billion dollar trusts created by the UAW for retiree health care to be half paid with automaker stock instead of cash."
"The UAW contracts place the Big Three in a competitive vice, says Logan Robinson, a professor of law at the University of Detroit Mercy and former legal executive at Chrysler and parts suppliers Delphi, ITT Automotive and Metaldyne.
He cites the fact that all three of these OEMs are struggling in their home US market while generally doing just fine in regions across the globe where the UAW contracts are not in force.
“How can we explain that whenever GM, Ford and Chrysler leave our shores, they compete well in foreign markets as varied as Europe, South America and China? What makes them viable competitors as soon as they cross the border?” Robinson asks in a recent Wall Street Journal column."
i think responding to you is just about over for me: i am starting to repeat myself over and over. read again please #7218 which describes what i think may be the explanation for funding the pension plan for the 145 center employees.
ok on the difference between the uaw's book value for the center of 33 million and the agreed upon (waverly township in 2007) taxable value of 12.6 million - a mobster scandal you say.
perhaps you do not know the difference between the concepts of book value and market value for tax purposes. the two value often are different. the book value on you home is different than its market value. that difference does not make you a criminal or a mobster.
i will try a last time again: the black lake property was acquired in the 60's and building began in 1967 with the center opening in 1970. construction improvements and additions continued through the years with 6 million of so being put into the golf course in 1998-99. course opened in 2000.
all of these costs amounted to what the uaw has spent--that $33 million figure represents book value.
you have a book value on your property too-- land costs plus improvement costs.
market value is not the same as book value- buildings and equipment depreciate over 40 years and lose their initial cost value. worse-- the real estate market fluctuates. demand goes down when trickle down vodoo economics is proven wrong for the upteenth time. money and credit get scarce during big recessions and a buyers market develops. property values and prices have been declining rapidly in michigan for some years with many properties, are now worth but 50% of the purchase prices that existed before the great decider rose in the pumpkin patch..
in 2007 the township assessment for the center was $13.7 million -that is what the township assessor claimed the uaw center was worth on the open market--assuming someone could be found to buy it. The UAW said that sounds too high for the market right now and appealed to the state tax tribunal- where the uaw has consistently won prior assessment disputes. the township and the uaw then agreed to use a $12.3 million value for the center's 2007 tax assessment.
perhaps, like our local drain commissioner, you believe it is wrong for the uaw to appeal its assessment. however even if you believe that the uaw, unlike any other property owner in our county, should not have the legal right to question a tax assessment. However, there is nothing corrupt or evil or illegal here and i think you should now admit that.
Gettelfinger complains that the UAW is being singled out for more concessions than other stakeholders including dealers, suppliers and bond holders.
He says the union is willing to help, but everyone needs to get on the same page.
There are close to a 1000 dealerships that have gone out of business this year. They paid the ultimate price. And especially the workers in those dealerships. Most of which did not have a fat Union pay check to start with. So far all have heard from Gettlefinger is whining. When they cut ALL the UAW workers pay back about 20% it will be a good start. The current line workers have not given up a thing. They have shoved it off on the new hires, Retirees and those that get laid off. I asked a while back when was the last time a UAW workers lost any wages in a contract? All I got was silence from the hard liners. What that tells me is no matter how bad the economy might have been the UAW got a raise or did not follow the downward trend. They are making more than their skills can support.
perhaps you do not know the difference between the concepts of book value and market value for tax purposes. the two value often are different. the book value on you home is different than its market value. that difference does not make you a criminal or a mobster.
You keep getting me mixed up with people I quote. If what I post is in Italics, it was said by someone else. Quite frankly if the UAW members want that albatross that is their business. My question was where did the Pension money come in? Was it borrowed to pay for the resort? If all the money comes from dues and strike fund that is UAW money pure and simple. I don't care if they burn it.
By the way. In CA property is taxed at the selling price. It can only go down if you can prove to the assessors that it is not worth what you paid. Depreciation is a completely different factor. Has nothing to do with property taxes anyplace that I have owned property.
i tried to explain to you once about the difference between defined benefit plans and defined contributions plans but it obviously didn't take.
let's try it this way--you can negotiate for a contribution of x dollars per hour worked to be put into a trust fund such that the trustees of that fund manage and money and provide whatever benefits they want. --that defined contribution and the way the world is going--because it gives the employer a precise, fixed cost.
the teamsters and your employer went that route and set up a taft hartley trust fund to pay the benefits.
defined benefits are very different: the parties sit down and say--ok when someone retires what should be the monthly pension and/or what health care benefits should we provide and how long should we provide them. the parties negotiate over benefit levels and coverage.
the party making the pledge to pay the benefits then gets to decide how to provide them. set us a trust fund or defer payment until joe blow retirees.
that the way the uaw and big three went. the uaw negotiated for benefits to be paid by the big 3 when the factory rat retired and these benefits continued to be in contract after contract.
it was the BIG three's choice how to provide the benefits
pensions were backed by a pension trust fund set up and funded by the employer. an independent trustee bank was selected to handle and manage contributions, the investments and send out the pension checks.
on health care Gm could have started trust funds and funded these costs over the working life of the factory rat. or hell GM by itself was so big it could have started its own health care system with clinics and doctors.
but GM chose not to fund its retiree health insurance promise and instead concluded something like "we'll still be making cars with a million employees working around the country, monthly health care costs are only about $30 a month now and even if they go up slightly the country will come to its senses and adopt national health care to stabilize these costs and stop the insurance and drug companies from robbing us blind.
well we know it didn't work out that way.
maybe the uaw should have known that the magic scare words "socialized medicine" would be used for two generations to scare us from doing what now has to (and will) be done.
but that is not the joe the plumber's's fault. he is saying hey i've got a pile of contracts and letters here telling me i would have health care during retirement. I pushed the uaw to get that for me instead of wage increases what do you mean you guys in the UAW mean that now you want to negotiate it away. will you do that to my pension too.
so you say to joe the plumber it's either negotiate it away now or lose it in bankruptcy
joe's response is probably going to be i'm not going to make that choice. you are asking me how i want to die- by my own hands or by someone else, no other options. maybe i'll die but i'm not going give you that satisfaction of making me select between those two options.
by the way, i was there with doug fraser for the chrysler loan guarantee in the late 70's. it was a billion dollars then and the government insisted upon uaw concessions. these concessions were given as they are being given now- i seem to recall going over to highland park to reopen the agreement 3-4 times in less than a year. . it was tough. it started concession bargaining in the industry which has never really stopped. the "new directions" movement sprang up from within the uaw to challenge the leadership for negotiating concessions. the canadian region even broke away from the uaw and became the independent canadian auto workers union.
history shows that the loan was repaid early, indeed the taxpayers made a nice bundle on the chrysler stock. more important the taxpayers did not have to pay the huge expenses (more than a billion) associated with guaranteeing pensions under ERISA, unemployment insurance and other safety net programs. i don't know what the community, personal bankruptcy and supplier industry losses might have been
but even more important is that fact chrysler has stayed afloat for another 30 plus years paying pensions, health insurance to thousands of retirees and providing good paying jobs to thousands of chrysler workers.
for all you out there that apparently want bankruptcy to work its magic in the market-- there is some history out there to think about.
all expenses for operations of the uaw black lake center - taxes, pension costs, wages, snow removal etc come from interest on the uaw strike fund per convention resolutions adopted by the delegates for the last upteen years.
in michigan ( and i bet california too) your property taxes are based not only on the value of the land but what you have attached to the land or the improvements you have made to the land---like a golf course. in michigan when buildings approach 40 years of age they depreciate in value.
In 2007 waverly township and the UAW agreed that the market value of the entire UAW black lake center was $12.3 dollars and the uaw paid property taxes on that value. so now what evil do you still see in the fact that the uaw has spend 33 million in acquiring the property, constructing the education center and then building a golf course with its membership's money?
I see your comment went right over the heads of many here. It was a good speech and had lots of good advice for tough times.
I won't say it went over anyone's head, but I think the truth is hard to argue.
What I am seeing with the UAW is a big let down for many slightly skilled workers. When a forklift operator makes $118k per year and loses his job, that is going to be a reality check. No company in their right mind is going to pay a fork lift operator that kind of money.
That is exactly the point. I learned to drive a fork lift in high school and got paid the equivalent today of about $10/hr. Hardly demanding work and certainly not worthy of anywhere near $100k/yr.
If the company can afford to pay those kinds of wages, then great. But don't come crying to me when the company can no longer pay you that much and you have a $2k/mo mortgage and skills that equate to $10-15hr.
I think the day's of the big 3 paying those types of wages for unskilled labor are over. Nothing wrong with tiered pay scale where skilled labor gets a good competitive wage and the guy pushing a broom is on a pay scale that relates to the job and skills of the person filling the position.
the uaw now should be required to sell its black lake family education center and golf course.
The Big Three, The International, Black Lake are all separate entities. Thats how corporations work in this country. They treated as separate people, with limited liability. So if GM goes broke, the stockholders don't lose their assets other than what they have invested in GM.
If your interested in buying from any of these separate entities? Contact them and make an offer. I'm sure they need a good laugh. Your logic in linking separate entities exposes your ignorance. As Abe said "it is wiser to remain silent and be thought a fool, then to open your mouth and remove all doubt".
this UAW forklift driver making 118k a year wouldn't be someone named joe who is afraid that restoring the reagan era tax rates on those making over 250k a year will stop him from buying GM at the bankruptcy sale?
i suspect that the facts may show your joe and the other well known joe have a lot in common-- they don't exist. average big three rates are under $30 an hour.- almost the same as the transplants.
but again notice how nobody ask about the average income for executives or salaried workers--let alone any of the wall street types, investment bankers and insurance brokers who actually got us into this mess. i guess their skills were such that they deserve their millions and their trillion dollar unconditional bailout.
I do not wish you, Gettelfinger, or anybody else decide what product is good for me and even less want them force me to pay up for those wonders of engineering (or anything else for that matter), so a few fat lazy guys in Midwest keep their cushy jobs and three times more old guys could have a good living in California or Florida and free Viagra prescription at my expense.
You have choice when you spend your money as you choose. WE would like the same consideration and believe the more choice the better for WE the consumer, not to mention the WE also get better pricing when more players are involved. Do you know how many UAW members take Viagra? How many UAW members are over weight? How many UAW members are lazy? This is nothing but a pathetic attempt to smear good hard working folks. WE would rather you go to Mexico, Germany, Japan, or China, just for the principle.
maybe the uaw should have known that the magic scare words "socialized medicine" would be used for two generations to scare us from doing what now has to (and will) be done.
I hope you are wrong, as it will bankrupt America, as the UAW has done their part to bankrupt GM and Chrysler. And if they need my tax dollars to keep going they ARE BANKRUPT. Whether they file or not.
the canadian region even broke away from the uaw and became the independent canadian auto workers union.
According to what I have read it was due to UAW unscrupulous tactics.
maybe i'll die but i'm not going give you that satisfaction of making me select between those two options.
It has to be a shock living your whole life in a dream world of Utopian wealth and to find one day it was built on sand. Reality will make the choice for you. You may have to join millions of US poor Union folks that get by with Medicare and a supplement. I was promised Medical, dental and eyecare for life also. After 20 years of expectation the reality of bankrupting our pension by giving it all to the medical industry, forced a choice on the Pension trust directors. I am glad they did not choose to bankrupt the Pension fund.
When you ask a bank for a mortgage, the bank (I mean normal one, not Indie or Wamu) will and should ask you what the loan is for, what is your capacity to repay it. If you satisfy their curiosity, they give the loan (of course we are talking period before CDOs). If they're not satisfied with your answers, you don't get it. Now, you have a choice of not getting ir, or entering negotiations with the bank, which means you show them how you're going to repay it. For example, you may promise lifestyle adjustments, offer larger collateral, etc.
Grassley seeks transparency from AIG regarding use of Fed loan dollarsWASHINGTON – Senator Chuck Grassley has asked American International Group, Inc., AIG, to disclose its expenditures so far of the $123 billion lent by the Federal Reserve Bank in order to prevent the company from filing for bankruptcy. Grassley based his inquiry on an October 30 New York Times story which is included here with his letter of inquiry. October 30, 2008 Mr. Edward M. Liddy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer American International Group, Inc. 70 Pine Street New York, NY 10270 Dear Mr. Liddy: Today, a story in The New York Times reported that the American International Group, Inc. (AIG) has already used $90 billion of the $123 billion lent to it by the Federal Reserve only one month ago. The article also notes that AIG has refused to provide the public with a detailed and transparent accounting of what that money has been used for, offering only that “some is being used to shore up its securities-lending program, some to make good on its guaranteed investment contracts, some to pay for day-to-day operations and [ ] tens of billions of dollars to post collateral with other financial institutions.” AIG’s use of the Federal Reserve loans is ofgreat interest to the American people because they are footing the bill. Moreover, some experts believe that AIG will need additional funding over and above the $123 billion the Federal Reserve has already lent it. As Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, I request that you provide a briefing to my Committee staff regarding this issue. In addition, please provide responses to the following questions: 1) Please provide a full and detailed accounting of AIG’s $90 billion (or more) in expenditures to date. 2) When does AIG anticipate using all of the $123 billion emergency loan it received?3) How much more money does AIG believe it will need to borrow in the future?4) When can American taxpayers expect AIG to repay the loan it received?
this UAW forklift driver making 118k a year wouldn't be someone named joe
You really need to quit reading those liberal blogs. You have such a hatred for Republicans that you cannot even believe the truth coming from your own UAW members. Here is a story of Oscar that filed for bankruptcy because loss of OT cut his wages down to $87,000 per year. It makes me cry for the guy each time I read it in your own liberal Detroit News. As was pointed out. Most any fork lift operator in the USA would be sitting in hog heaven making $87k per year. Not the spoiled UAW workers of Michigan. I know PHDs in San Diego that would be tickled to make that much.
over and over again: you don't read and don't absorb my messages.
health care premiums going up 15-20% per year for many years can no longer be sustained. we are already paying over 15% of our GDP and almost 46 million ( i was off by 2 i am told) have no insurance coverage.
canada and most of the countries with UNIVERSAL health care are ranked ahead of usa in terms of favorable health care outcomes by world heath organization and pay anywhere from 7-10% of GDP
what is medicare?- single payer, national health care system --government pays doctor and medical bills but with an age 65 qualification. ask a medicare covered individual to give it up because his doctor or nurse looks like a socialist.
just remove age 65 barrier.
what unscrupulous tactics?? canadian chrysler plants were part of a single international master agreement with us/ chrysler plants. canadians were on the uaw negotiating team at highland park. congress told chrysler if you want a billion re-open that agreement and eat some concessions. canadian locals said no-- us government can't dictate terms of an agreement for canadians. us government said ok but that means that the usa plants have to eat even more concessions to make up for your refusal to take any. us chrsyler membership then went thru second round of concessions to make up canadian difference. loan made, plants on both side of detroit river--including canadian plant stayed open and survived. canadian uaw chysler took no concessions; usa chrysler workers took a double hit. relations between locals in canada and local in usa soured somewhat with bob white (Canadian regional director) demanding a divorce from the UAW. Bieber agreed--gave Canadians all UAW property in canada and slice of uaw strike fund. i delivered the check personally to bob white at the airport in toronto.
i have now told you three times you were covered by a defined contribution or taft hartley trust funds plan. you were never promised lifetime benefits. prove me wrong!! you may have been told that the parties hoped the fixed money contributed would be adequate depending on good investments and stable health care costs.
you should have understood then but since you don't understand it even now--all your employer ever promised was to put XX dollars an hour per hour worked into a fund to provide your health and pension benefits. ironic that you may have got what you deserved. you didn't want "socialized medicine" so health care costs and premiums doubled every 5-6 years in the usa and the trust funds were not adequate to keep up with the 15-20% yearly cost increases for your health care. trustes stepped in and said we can't afford to pay these outrageous costs anymore so your benefits are gone
sometimes there is something called poetic justice and you apparently got exactly what you deserved and still i bet you vote against your own interests.
is it beginning to sink in that if the clinton health care plan had been put into effect you trust fund would probably have survived today .
big 3/uaw retirees were promised lifetime health care benefits and a precise monthly pension by the Big3. that is the difference between a defined benefit plan (UAW) and a defined contribution plan (teamsters). you got everything your employer promised you over your work life XX dollars per hour worked into a fund. big3 retirees had a different promise (a specific benefit) that they at least believe they earned and do not want to give back..
please reread this answer several times because i am done.
Unions are the reason people have 40 hour work weeks, health insurance, and don't get fired when they have a child. Your anecdotes (and every other one that right wing mouth breathers regurgitate when someone talks about unions) don't change the fact that one of the biggest reasons for the rise of the middle class in the US is the existence of unions. Unless you are descendant of a robber baron, you probably should be thankful for what unions have given you. Maybe Rush Limbaugh didn't tell you about that?
That doesn't mean that unions go to far in some cases or have had corruption in others, but for the most part, they've been good for average people, and bad for corporate ogligarchs
all i can do is repeat what has been widely reported - that wage rates in big three and transplant plants are almost the same----averaging about 28-29 dollars an hour. the real distinction is benefit and legacy costs.
laughed out load (thanks i needed that!) at your oxymoron phrase "liberal detroit news"
you probably did not notice the 5 year labor dispute (strike) in detroit in the 90's. detroit news hired permanent scabs to replace striking workers detroit was a labor town and was torn apart.
detroit news has been called a lot of names over the years but i can guarantee you that this is the first time anyone in the entire world ever used the word "liberal" in front of their name. . hell they make fox noise sound fair and balanced by contrast.''' thanks again
Comments
That's exactly what the US should be doing.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
GM and Chrysler go bankrupt (chapter 7 or 11).
Existing contacts are voided by the bankruptcy court. Salaries are reduced significantly.
Under the reorganization (if chapter 11), existing pension benefits are assumed by the Fed (PBGC). When this happens, promised pensions are severely reduced to match PBGC max benefits. Retiree health care benefits are eliminated and retirees go onto Medicare.
All this happened not too long ago to the US Steel Industry. What makes you thing the US auto industry(and it's workers) will come out any better?
I am pretty sure the steel industries pension funds were severely underfunded.
I agree that the steel industries pension funds were severely underfunded, much to the dismay of their workers/retirees who thought they were in good shape.
When General Motors left Washington empty-handed last week, among the lingering questions was whether its huge pension fund could topple and crush the government’s pension insurance program.
United Automobile Workers members at a benefits meeting last week. Workers worry that bankruptcies in the auto industry could shred their pension plans.
When any pension fund fails, usually as part of a bankruptcy, the government takes over its assets as well as its payments to retirees. In G.M.’s case, its plan would dwarf the nation’s pension insurance fund.
Still, G.M. appears to have enough money in the pension fund to pay its more than 400,000 retirees their benefits for many years — even with the markets swooning around it. That is largely because of the conservative way G.M. has managed the fund recently, and it explains why G.M. has not joined the long list of companies pressing Congress for pension relief.
But this glimmer of hope in a bleak auto landscape could change drastically, particularly if G.M. struggles along for a few more years, only to go bankrupt. The company’s blue-collar work force is still building up new benefits with every additional hour worked, and the pension fund will have to grow smartly to keep up with those costs.
If G.M. continues paying people to retire early, the costs will grow even more, because the plan will have to pay retirees for more years than it budgeted. And G.M. is not contributing additional money to the plan right now.
Already, G.M. says it will be paying retirees about $7 billion a year for the next 10 years. The fund’s assets were worth $104 billion at the end of 2007, more than enough to cover its obligations of $85 billion. Since then, the assets have declined and the obligations have grown, each by undisclosed amounts. The company says it does not plan to add any money to the fund for the next three or four years.
Even if G.M. were forced into bankruptcy, the government might insist that it keep the fund, and cover any shortfalls with its own money.
G.M. acknowledged in its most recent annual report that from 1993 to 2007 it spent $103 billion “to fund legacy pensions and retiree health care — an average of about $7 billion a year — a dramatic competitive and cash-flow disadvantage.” During those 15 years, G.M. paid only $13 billion or so in shareholder dividends. The company has been sending far more money to its retirees than to its owners.
After falling $20 billion behind on its pension earlier this decade, G.M. doggedly put money into its plan to catch up. It has also agreed to invest more than $30 billion in a fund to cover future health-care expenses. But these efforts have starved its business.
since it would be a fire sale, i suggested we all get together (your money, my connections) to buy it for about 50% of its 13 million taxable value ( and then turn it into a nice place with some real amenities and "improvements" more likely to attract a higher class of customers than those blue collar lowlifes who have used i t for 40 years.. too many damn trees and ponds over there anyway--needs more condos and some snowmobile trails. once we get rid of the overpaid 145 local employees and bring in some walmart level rates and temp visas workers--it might even start to make money.
not a single person has jumped on my offer. i don't understand--given the large numbers who share the view that the uaw should be forced to stop wasting its dues money on its members.
there goes my chance to finally turn the corner and become a good trickle down republican--oh well!
You keep throwing out that phony number. It needs to be refuted. Two young ladies in our Church recently had babies. Neither had health care coverage. Both got excellent Prenatal care and delivery. They take their babies in for checkups all paid by the State of CA. The only thing they paid for is circumcision. Your argument on Canada health care is totally flawed, but I would not expect any thing different from your lifetime of brainwashing by the UAW.
Random: "General Motors workers who build the Chevrolet Malibu, one of G.M.’s most popular and important new vehicles, went on strike Monday at a plant in Kansas after they were unable to reach an agreement with the company on local work rules." (bold emphasis mine)...
Therein lies a large part of the problem...the import transplants have, according to the books I have read, virtually NO "local work rules"...if it needs to be done, anyone may be assigned to do it...so, their labor cost is lower simply by being more efficient...the books also cite various Big 3 in-house studies where they are literally watching the imports make more cars with fewer employees, hence the 1)lower overhead and 2) greater productivity, neither of which you will ever see from Big 3 UAW plants...the union work rules are simply the rot that is eating the tree alive, and it will not survive until the rot is eliminated...
I believe one example was either Toy or Honda, running a plant with 2,000 employees, making a similar number of cars as a UAW plant needing 6,000 employees...
These archaic work rules should be abolished, and the UAW along with it...the 1960s are gone, we do not own the world, and they apparently make a product as good as ours, or better, with less workers and less overhead...the UAW is the new Jurassic Park...time to go...if a transplant can do with 2000 what the Big 3 need 6000, I defy anyone to justify keeping the union and the work rules as they are...
And anyone who does try to defend the absurd, would you run a hardware store with 10 employees, if you were doing the same amount of business as your competitor down the street who sold just as much, with equal quality and service, with only 3 employees???...your labor overhead would drive you into B, just like the Big 3 are now...
I believe many of the statistics are misleading such as comparing life expectancy and numbers of uninsured.
I've known many people over the years who've made good wages/salary that didn't have health insurance because they didn't want it. Yes, these were young males w/o a family. But to say that every person who is uninsured, doesn't have it because they don't have access or can't afford it is not 100% true.
To my knowledge, life expectancy is based on death's per 1000 for the population. That is not a good way (IMO) to compare the effectiveness of health care systems. Every time a gang banger executes another gang member that effects mortality rates and no amount of health care can fix that. Add auto related deaths, the US is among the highest in per capita traffic fatalities. Many of our citizens are fat and generally unhealthy. This all affects our morality rates and health costs and is IMO hard if not impossible to accurately compare health care systems between nations.
While that is all debatable and off topic. I whole heartedly disagree that health care is why the big 3 is in the position they are in. Sure, the health care costs are an issue, but I just turned 38 and for as long as I can remember the big 3 have built a lot of crap as I've witnessed customer after customer choose foreign cars after a horrible experience from the D3. If management would have invested the money when they were profitable into the product to build competitive cars they would be making money today (well pre recession anyway).
I'm willing to bet the d3 would be in the same situation today if we had a national health care system over the past 30 years. Any funds these company's might have saved (granted someone would have to pay for it) would have been wasted somewhere else. Probably in the the form of a larger dividend, executive bonus's, poor acquisitions, and overly lucrative labor agreements.
From the 2007 records it looks like the golf course is being used for a higher class of citizen. Probably the UAW leadership bringing all their crony lobbyist friends up for a nice vacation at UAW member expense. Out of the 13,000 rounds of golf played last year only 4000 rounds were played by UAW members and retirees. You have said the course loses money. So how much UAW money was wasted on NON MEMBERS out playing golf? How many were lowlife Republicans playing a round of golf on the Members nickel?
I have never mentioned selling the place. I have questioned if any of the money was out of a pension plan? If the the UAW had to pay $5.9 million to a pension plan last year then it would be easy to assume they borrowed money from one of the pension plans the UAW oversees. Spending interest from a strike fund for training I would consider legitimate. Spending it so some non member fat cat can go play golf would raise my eyebrows if I was a member. Then I did get involved in my Union and was on the carpet more than once for bucking the leadership's wasting money on pet projects. I can assure you I would not have worshiped Reuther any more than I would have Jess Carr. Even though I am sure they did much for organized labor.
yet the refutation you supply is an anecdotal accounts of two ladies in your church who had their prenatal care and deliveries (less circumcison costs) paid for by the state of california.
ok you have "proved" to me that i am off by 2-- how about the other 45, 999,998 americans without health insurance?
i am finally beginning to understand that there are probably about that number of americans out there whose strong opinions are such that facts don't really matter.
My favorite line "I also learned what a horrible disservice it is to let people's pay outgrow their skills, so when they lose their jobs they also lose their middle-class standard of living, many permanently.
My question is would be, if the UAW members were asked to pay 50% of their income in taxes as is the case in Canada would they be so gungho for government sponsored health care? As you have pointed out. IT IS NOT FREE except for those that are on welfare and not contributing to the country. The high paid UAW workers would be some of the hardest hit in any kind of redistribution of wealth, as proposed by our new President.
On health, 47 million Americans have no health insurance
Another 25 million are underinsured. (PBS)
In UAW news (you know - the topic in here), GM starts seeking concessions from UAW, bondholders (Motor Authority)
Up to 31,000 jobs will go, reduce wages to levels competitive with non-union foreign carmakers by 2009, and require the UAW to accept stock in the place of half the cash payments made to its health care trust fund by 2010 are among the concessions sought.
Don't get me wrong - I would not care at all if those guys are slim or fat, lazy or most dedicated, if they made product that I want at price I can accept without coercion from the government or union mob. But if you think it's appropriate to coerce me into "supporting" them, I take a closer look at what I would be supporting, and I say, thanks, but no thanks.
Just as an example, if somebody thinks it was an acceptable behavior to vandalize somebody else's property just because they didn't like that choice, I would rather have my hand severed than give them a penny of my money. I would rather my money go to Mexico, Germany, Japan, or China, just for the principle.
2018 430i Gran Coupe
I know trying to change your open mind is probably a wast of time--am i am about ready to quit trying to bother you with facts but in the faint hope that something sticks, here it goes.
The public rate at the golf course is $95 ( uaw members get 20% off, and i as a uaw retiree get a 30% discount). that is a lot of money, but when my brothers and friends come up we sometimes play there since it is the best course within about 100 miles and probably one of the best in the entire state. i pay the discount but have to pick up my republican brother's full $95 rate. I have never seen these rates waived except for charity events or special fundraiser tournaments of which the center has many. ( i would be glad provide you with testimonial letters from these charities thanking the uaw golf club)
if you do some web research on the black lake golf course you will find similar golf magazine opinions calling the course spectacular and the price as "well worth it". The UAW Black Lake Course advertizes golf packages heavily for public use and tries to attract the golfing elite over from the west side of the state (harbor springs, petoskey, traverse city) and south of here (gaylord) were most of the premier courses operate. these cities are big tourist meccas with lotsa republican high rollers. it is starting to work but the course only opened in 2000.
northern michigan is a big resort area, heavily forested with hundreds of lakes. cheboygan county has more miles of waterfront land than any county in michigan.
this is beautiful hemingway country but please don't spread it around. 3 of michigan's largest inland lakes(mullet, burt and black lake itself) are close by. mackinac island (big tourist mecca) is about 30 miles away. in short there are thousands of summer homes, cottages and visitors to the area and large numbers of retirees have settled here (after 5 feet of snow so far this year, some of us are having second thoughts)
i suspect that the $95 public rate generates a modest "profit" for course operations and that the uaw wants to encourage even more full rate golf to break even. . i am told that most golf courses are losing money. things have been pretty bad in michigan for a couple years with high gas prices cutting down on vacation travel and the once again proven failure of trickle down economics. the big bucks in golf courses are in resale to developers or in developing homesites around the fairways. but there are no condos or homesites at the black lake golf course. i suppose the uaw could get rid of the "overpaid" local operating engineers who maintain the course and the club house attendants and restaurant employes and bring in some walmart level employees or foreign workers under temp visas. or the uaw could end the discounts for its cheap retirees and its "overpaid" members. see i know how to let the free market work too.
i say all this because you apparently believe that there are no real "public golfers" up here but only lobbyists or uaw fatcats. How does the fact that 9000 black lake golfers didn't get the UAW discount lead you to conclude that they must all be lobbyists or uaw -corrupted politicians? are you beginning to see the absurdity of your attitude?
the uaw doesn't manage any pension plans. to the best of my knowledge there were almost no taft hartley trust funds in the uaw system. almost all uaw pension funds are managed by independent bank trustees who make all the investment decisions without any input from the uaw.
some of the right wing blogs have questioned an expense at the center listing a 5-6 million dollar contribution to a pension plan as a center expense. there are about 145 employees at the center. sometimes employers (here the uaw is an employer) decide to fund their pension plans at something other than ERISA minimum requirements. Indeed the law and common sense encourage (but do not require) that pension plans be fully funded (at full funding annual ERISA premiums used to pay the cost of PBGC insurance in the event of pension termination--are reduced). i do not know why the UAW used its members' dues money to fully fund the pension plans at its Black Lake Center--but i fail to see anything evil or sinister here.
i'm sorry but i did worship walter reuther. think of all the great ones whose inspired purpose was to advance the cause of the little guy but whose lives were ended too soon. (mlk, the kennedys, reuther etc)
there's a story about one of the right wing senator's questioning walter during the kefauver oversight hearings. like you this poor republican saw a report and made a wrong analysis more consistent with his firm opinion. you can look up the exact words in the congressional record but the senator said something like :' i see that one of our audits have discovered that the UAW spent almost half a million dollars on ammunition last year . i suppose your going to tell us that this is for self protection or recreational use but i don't thin your members dues money should be spent on ammunition and i'm sure the rest of america agree with me' reuther responded "ammuntion is the title of a booklet we publish every month that is sent to locals and members. it contains information, facts or "ammunition" to be used by local leadership to rebut the misrepresentations and half-truths put out by the right wing press and their friends in congress. I'm sure our next edition of "ammunition" will be used to recount this exchange and rebut your already written report on the 'findings' of uaw corruption you claim to have exposed.'
the hearing room burst into applause and laughter!
it is easy to get discouraged looking over these exchanges of entries from seemingly intelligent people who are like this republican senator have firm preconceived opinions and whose close minds don't wish to be cluttered with facts. i should stop wasting my time and just laugh.
They laugh because they are ignorant of the fact that Americans, because they pay more, subsidize the research and development of new drugs. The profit margins aren't high enough in places like Canada to support this research and development.
Regarding the success of the Canadian system in satisfying that nation's citizens - You apparently missed the court case launched in Quebec by disgruntled citizens who wanted the opportunity to purchase private insurance, which had been banned under the then-current Canadian system. Guess what - they won. The Canadian Supreme Court agreed with their position.
Someone must have been dissatisfied with the care provided by the national Canadian system if they wanted the opportunity to purchase private insurance, and were willing to go to court to gain that opportunity.
lumoy: yes canadians wait for elective surgery--but everyone has coverage and the overall quality of care--in terms of life expectancy, favorable medical outcomes, etc exceeds the usa by a wide margin.
Life expectancy is driven by cultural factors, habits and genetics, not by whether the health care system has been nationalized. Note that the highest life expectancy is enjoyed by the citizens Andorra, a small nation in Europe with a homogenous population. It is followed by Japan, Macau, San Marino and Singapore.
Considering how well Asian nations perform, I would suggest that, if you want to boost life expectancy, have large numbers of relatively wealthy Asians immigrate to your country, and make sure that they bring their dietary and exercise habits with them.
The U.S. is also penalized because it has large numbers of immigrants from Mexico and Central America. I doubt that these people are immigrating to Canada in large numbers (given the distances involved). They pull down the aggregate expected life span within the U.S.
Anecdotal evidence - when we visted the southwestern U.S. this summer, and Texas last year, both my wife and I were struck by how heavy many of the Native Americans and Hispanics were. This has to pull down life expectancy for the U.S.
But our anecdotal experience is buttressed by a real statistic - adults in the United States have one of the highest obesity rates in the world. Nearly one-third of U.S. adults 20 years and older are obese, while about two-thirds are overweight. Seems the problem stems from less a lack of nationalized health care and more with too many trips to the all-you-can-eat buffet.
The U.S. has the resources that allow people to get fat and lazy. We have the luxury of choosing a bad lifestyle as opposed to having one imposed on us by hard times. Eating too much, smoking, consuming too much alcohol and watching television instead of working hard are activities that cost money and can occur in an affluent nation (even though, paradoxically, the citizens WITHIN the U.S. who engage in these activities to the point that it hurts their health tend to be in the lower income brackets).
Also note that the surivival rates for cancer diagnosis in the U.S. are the best in the world, which completely knocks out your claim that the medical outcomes in Canada exceed those in the U.S. by a "wide margin."
lumoy: canada spend 7 % of their gnp on a better health care system which provides universal coverage we spend 14-16% of our GNP on an inferior patchwork system with high copays and gaps with 46 million americans (mostly children) falling not between the cracks --but into the chasm
No, most children are covered by state-sponsored plans. Healthy adults in their 20s and 30s are less likely to have insurance.
lumoy: but let's put this into perspective for this debate: the same care made in canada by the same company costs $1800 less to build because they have national health care.
No doubt that is true when we compare the UAW's gold-plated plan to the Canadian nationalized plan. But let's compare benefits, too. I doubt that the Canadian plan is more generous. Let's compare what it costs to provide health care in Canada to the plans offered by the transplants in the U.S. THAT is a more relevant comparison.
Incidentally, if nationalized health care is so great, why hasn't the UAW, which you apparently have represented at the bargaining table, offered to shift retired members over to the U.S.'s nationalized health care plan for the elderly - Medicare? It would save the auto companies a ton of money, and allow the UAW to put its money where its mouth is by taking advantage of a nationalized health care system - which, after all, it has advocated.
But the UAW won't do this, because the benefits under Medicare aren't nearly as generous as those under the current company plan. Which is why the current company plan costs so much. This, of course, makes the UAW's call for nationalized health care more than a little disingenous. No national plan will provide the level of coverage provided by the current plan enjoyed by UAW members (nor do the socialized plans in other countries provide the level of benefits enjoyed by UAW members).
lumoy: i win!
Not among those of us who have actually studied this issue.
not a single person has jumped on my offer. i don't understand--given the large numbers who share the view that the uaw should be forced to stop wasting its dues money on its members.
Let's leave the red herrings in the water where they belong.
Just because people question the need for an organization begging for a public bailout to maintain a rather lavish golf resort, does not mean that said people want to buy and run this golf course.
Incidentally, you apparently haven't been paying too much attention to the national economy. Real estate - ESPECIALLY in Michigan - is declining in value, and likely to continue doing so for years.
I doubt that this property is a good buy at even 50 percent of its taxable value.
The demand for brand-new condos and other amenities on this property would probably be as strong as the demand for many of GM's brand new vehicles. In other words, we would have to be prepared to give them away...
Fortunately, most of us understand finance and the likelihood of a venture's success better than GM management and the UAW (neither one has had a great track record lately), so we'll pass...
The uaw did support the Big 3 three employer's request for a bridge loan for GM, Chrysler and possibly Ford to keep their plants open and avoid a catastrophic bankruptcy. The UAW did not ask for any money from congress to maintain its own operations. yes the uaw benefits if the Big 3 stay alive--but so does about a 25% of the employers and communities in the country. is that the nexus for taxpayer control? should congress then have the right to impose conditions on any entity or community that benefits because these plants are staying open?
why, why is this so hard to grasp?
Not responding specifically to your golfcourse issue. But here's what I do grasp. I and many U.S. taxpayers do not want to be involved with the "Auto Family" finances. We DON'T want to be involved. We WISH you well, and HOPE you made good choices over the years.
But what the execs, the suppliers, the UAW, GMAC ... have done and are doing is YOUR FAMILY business. Figure it out amongst yourselves instead of bringing your family issues out on the street. Figure out how to divide up your budget. The auto industry has so much coming in and needs to figure out how not to spend more. Everyone else is having to do the SAME in their family/house and company.
I want the "Auto Family" to stop being children and act like adults. Stop begging for a bigger allowance. Help yourselves. Live within your means! Figure it out, and stop bothering the rest of us!! :mad:
The uaw did support the Big 3 three employer's request for a bridge loan for GM, Chrysler and possibly Ford to keep their plants open and avoid a catastrophic bankruptcy. The UAW did not ask for any money from congress to maintain its own operations.
GM will survive even if it declares bankruptcy. A reborn GM, sized to serve about 12-15 percent of the market with two divisions - Chevrolet and Cadillac - and a competitive cost structure will survive and even thrive.
The union, however, may not survive. Therefore, this bailout is designed to keep the union alive as a viable entity (and lots of the dealers, too - as GM would probably love to shed a fair amount of them in a bankruptcy proceeding) more than it is designed to save the companies themselves. What GM needs is a thorough restructuring - and that includes labor costs. Chrysler is too far gone at this point - it will likely be broken up, and the viable parts - Jeep, the minivans, the Dodge Ram - sold to another company.
If GM declares bankruptcy, in the end, the UAW will most likely have to accept wages and benefits comparable to what workers at the transplant operations receive. Ford will then demand a similar wage package.
Once this happens, UAW members may wonder just why they are paying those union dues, while workers in the transplant factories will have no desire to be represented by the UAW. The UAW will basically be toast.
So, the union wants GM and Chrysler to receive this money because it likely cannot survive without a GM and Chrysler artificially propped up by the federal government.
lumoy: yes the uaw benefits if the Big 3 stay alive--but so does about a 25% of the employers and communities in the country.
Please - 25 percent of the employers and communities in this country do not depend on GM, Ford and Chrysler.
Someone has been reading too much union propaganda.
Toyota is currently taking steps to ensure the stability of key suppliers, even if GM files for bankruptcy. So it's not as though the entire supplier base will collapse if GM files for bankruptcy.
Of course, Toyota won't do anything to help the UAW, which is the real problem here.
Now back to D3. They say "give us money". Our taxpayer money custodians (Congress) ask what for and show me how and when you're going to repay it. D3 mumbles something about selling their jets and selling fuel efficient cars. Numbers don't add up. THEN we come to to conclusion - OK let's see what else you can do to pay us back. Ahhhhh, labor cost - just like the lifestyle adjustments you'd need to make to get that mortgage.
It was D3 who opened that door. They wanted the money and UAW supported the request. Once you want the money, the grantor can and actually has the duty keep asking what for and what are the guarantees. It's their due diligence to go as deep as necessary. It may hurt your feelings to hear UAW is too costly. It might not even be true (I think it is), but it was D3 who asked me Mr. Taxpayer for the money, so now they will get earful of inquiries/complaints/suggestions from custodians of my money - and I fully expect those custodians to do their job, just as a loan officer would be expected to do theirs.
Why is THAT so hard to grasp?
2018 430i Gran Coupe
According to Laborpains.org:
The difference between the UAW’s LM-2 and the Tax Tribunal filings amount to more than $21 million dollars, which would translate to around $770,000 in property taxes the UAW isn’t paying to Waverly Township each year, if you accept their LM-2 appraisal (the township’s treasurer advised me that the rate is around 3.6%).
That's quite a difference. It should be remembered that these taxes are used for local schools and the like, so the UAW doesn't appear to be a very good neighbor in Cheboygan County, does it?
But, according to Chet Zarko of Zarko Research and Consulting there is even more hanky panky at the resort than a mere evasion of local property taxes. It seems that there is a very large discrepancy in the reported costs of employee wages and the pension funding at the education center connected with the golf resort project.
It's that the pension fund expenses appear to be really out-of-line with overall wages. So far out of line that you have to wonder exactly who is doing the work to get pension fund contributions. There's a key piece of context here - the $5.91 million in pension fund contributions compares $3.25 million in wages. Normally, you'd expect the wages to be much higher than the pension contribution - 10 times or perhaps as little as 5-6 times. But not the other direction. And of the 3.25 million, 2.6 million is "general labor" - there is no way the room custodians and general labor are getting that gold-plated of a pension deal. The other half million is "administrative" wages - but even the hotel administrators are unlikely to be able to get away with such a self-dealing (unless they are something more than that to the union leadership).
So how does the UAW justify this "out-of-line" accounting with the educational center pension funds? Where and to whom is all this benefit money going, anyway?
It appears that there is a lot of shaky record keeping and shadowy operations connected with this Black Hills luxury golf club owned by the UAW. And, again, all the money tied up in this property is the money taken from the pockets of the hard working rank-and-file members of the American auto industry, the same industry in such dire straights this year.
http://www.thenextright.com/warner-todd-huston/uaw-floating-phantom-employees-an- d-avoiding-property-taxes-at-luxury-golf-course
here' s some stuff i grabbed from wikipedia to re-respond and rebut to your points:
According to a Joint Canada/United States Survey of Health for 2002–2003, undertaken by Statistics Canada and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 87% of Canadians are somewhat or very satisfied with their overall healthcare services.
Indeed, overall, the quality of life in Canada is excellent. Canadian cities surveyed all ranked within the top 20 in Mercer Human Resource Consulting's 2004 overall quality of life survey. Mercer's survey looked at 39 criteria, including social, political, economic, environmental, and health factors. The evaluation of "health" was based on factors such as personal safety, as well as the quality and availability of hospital and medical care, and medical supplies.
Nonetheless, disparities exist in terms of the regional quality of care in Canada. Canada's rural and remote northern communities do not have the same level and quality of healthcare as do its southern cities. And throughout Canada, concerns regarding the level of government funding and the quality of healthcare services have led to a public debate on the healthcare system as a whole.
Government and private health and public policy analysts have compared the health care systems of Canada and the United States.[1][2][3][4] The U.S. spends much more on health care than Canada, both on a per-capita basis and as a percentage of GDP.[5]In 2006, per-capita spending for health care in the U.S. was US$6,714; in Canada, US$3,678.[5] The U.S. spent 15.3% of GDP on health care in that year; Canada spent 10.0%.[5] In 2006, almost 70% of health care spending in Canada was financed by government, versus 44.7% in the United States. Total government spending per capita in the U.S. on health care was 23% higher than Canadian government spending, and U.S. government expenditure on health care was just under 83% of total Canadian spending (public and private).[6]
Studies have come to different conclusions about the result of this disparity in spending. A 2007 review of all studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the US in a Canadian peer-reviewed medical journal found that "health outcomes may be superior in patients cared for in Canada versus the United States, but differences are not consistent."[7] Life expectancy is longer in Canada, and its infant mortality rate is lower than that of the U.S., but there is debate about the underlying causes of these differences. One commonly cited comparison, the World Health Organization's ratings of "overall health service performance", published in 2000, which used a "composite measure of achievement in the level of health, the distribution of health, the level of responsiveness and fairness of financial contribution", ranked Canada 30th and the U.S. 37th among 191 member nations.. The average life expectancy for Canada was rated 12th at 72.0 years compared with 24th for the U.S. at 70.0 years.[
the comparative health care issue is really a big side track to my principal point (the uaw should not have to sell its black lake center because it supported the big 3 requests for bridge loans). i started down that road simply to point our how our obsolete health care system has put domestic mfgrs at a comparative disadvantage to foreign mfrs--using the now well documented fact that a same car built in windsor ontario car costs $1800 more to build than the same car built across the river in michigan by the same company--thanks to the difference in health care costs.
the health care debate is really over, the current system with 12-20% increases in cost per year cannot be maintained corporate america has finally seen the light. there is going to be a major change-the only question is how much the insurance carriers, drug companies, and doctors can get away with. but this is really a different matter than the auto industry bridge loans.
much of the public or at least most on this blog seems to think the current bridge loan issue is related not to the worldwide credit crunch which has forced almost every country to make similar loans to their auto industries but to the uaw. of course they have no explanation for why canada, japan and the european countries are making similar loans with no pre-conditions imposed on the workers.
i have also tried to point out the apparent hypocisy in not attaching simlar conditions to employees of wall street, bear stearns, aig, fannie mae, etc for their much much larger grants of taxpayer money. no one has even responded to that point yet.
but since i live up here i just blew my stack when fox noise and others said the uaw should sell its "posh, lavish" golf resort for uaw bigwigs at black lake.
this is a strange county. we have no apparent problem with the fact that the top 1% have upwards of 50% of the country's national wealth and at least since 1980 that the top 5% should get tax breaks in hope that it would trickle down to the rest of us. yet let a factory rat making $28-30 an hour having access with is family to a summer retreat and family education center with a golf course paid their own dues--and the right wing goes nuts.
i have for example tried to point out that the uaw is not asking the federal government to bail out its operations and help the uaw's poor financial health but no one seems to understand the distinction. the uaw benefits from the loan--along with 25% of the country--so the taxpayers should have the right to impose conditions on what the uaw should do with its dues money. even my suggestion that the alternative to the uaw black lake center could be more strike authorizations or more newly hired organizers doesn't seem help them understand their conceptual quamire..
i have come to the conclusion that most people don't want to have their pre-conceived opinions cluttered by facts. i have pointed out that the uaw black lake family education center has been around for 40 years to provide education/training/recreation to members and families. it is rustic but not lavish. it has been an asset to the community and the membership --and most important of all -- that it is up to the membership and not the taxpayers as to whether to keep it.
i had hoped that just one person would acknowledge that their concern that taxpayer funds were being used to provide a posh resort for uaw executives had been cleared up and that the right wing blogs and fox noise were wrong and evil for this disinformation campaign.
my favorite was the blog that announced the uaw big shots were celebrating the bridge loan grants at their plush black lake resort over the holidays. (we have had 5 feet of snow, it was -5 on new year's and the center has been closed, as usual, for the winter)
i have put out dozens of messages, thousands of words and hundreds of facts about the center and the uaw
the B3 asked for the money to hopefully get through their low sales/liquidity problems until the vehicle market picks up.
Great post. You've nailed my views perfectly. I'm not anti-union or anti-D3 - just anti-bailout.
I am finally beginning to understand that YOU do not believe in personal responsibility for yourself or others. That you believe you are entitled to be taken care of from the time you were born until you are buried. We are just diametrically opposed in our philosophy of what America is and what our Constitution guarantees. I am a firm believer in you do not work, if you are able, you do not eat.
As far as GM and that stupid health care clause you are living under. If there is NO money you are on your own. It is not the responsibility of the rest of US tax payers to guarantee your gold plated health care plan for life. In fact I would love for you to be under the Canadian plan. My cousins moved from Toronto and live now in Branson. They were so happy when they became US citizens. They were not getting good health care for my nearly blind cousin in Canada. The are now under her husband's plan he has working in Branson. She is finally getting the laser eye surgery she has needed for years. So you know where you can put the Canadian Health care plan. I don't want any part of it. Just as you believe I am following the dictates of the Conservative Right. I believe you are following the message of the Socialist left. So we will probably never see things on the same level. I think Putin has ideas to get his regime going again. Maybe you can sign up.
if i remember correctly the total market is 3.4 million and dropping annually.
I see your comment went right over the heads of many here. It was a good speech and had lots of good advice for tough times. What I am seeing with the UAW is a big let down for many slightly skilled workers. When a forklift operator makes $118k per year and loses his job, that is going to be a reality check. No company in their right mind is going to pay a fork lift operator that kind of money. The individual had a base pay of $87k per year. That is so far above the average in this country that it should have never happened. But GM and their buddy, buddy contracts with the UAW did exactly that.
I know people at district level at HP that do not make $118k per year. And they work 60-80 hours per week with NO OT. Just part of the salary. They have 100s of employees under their supervision.
i agree with you:
i said much earlier in this long list of exchanges that the taxpayers and congress have an absolute right to ask how is this going to be repaid and to ask the uaw in particular what are you doing to help restructure the industry in the long term. i have detailed what the uaw has been doing to restructure the industry in many prior exchanges which you may not have read. the 2007 contracts which already provided for new hires at $14-15 an hour with greatly reduced benefits and the huge legacy costs to be transferred to UAW Vebas are being re-opened and renegotiated as we speak. the job banks are gone!
my quarrel has been with those who accept fox noise broadcasts that the loan money is being used to finance a plush uaw resort for uaw big shots. it is not.
i have tried to argue that this is a membership education facilty for uaw members and families finaced by interest from the uaw strike fund. i have tried to argue that public demands that the uaw sell the center are not the public's business.
For me the real issue is how much more that CAW member pays in Canadian taxes, compared to his UAW brother in Michigan or Indiana. Don't forget the imports building cars here in the USA are paying at least part of the health care premiums. And why don't you hold the UAW responsible for your health care after retirement. They made the deal to carry forward the cost and tack it on the future workers shoulders.
Wrong, wrong WRONG!!!!! YOU can't buy one because that engine probably does not meet US Emissions standards. If it did, it could easily be built HERE!!! I doubt the UAW would say no to work. I fit does meet our standards, more than likely the management doesn't believe it will sell well here.
BREAKING: GM-UAW Talks Accelerate (KXYZ)
More details in this story:
GM and UAW begin negotiations tonite (Autonews)
"The UAW was singled out for more concessions than any of the other stakeholders, including bondholders, dealers, suppliers or others, Gettelfinger said. The union is willing to help, he said. But the process is being slowed by confusing loan language and the absence of a federal point person or car czar to clarify questions, he said.
The so-called term sheet of the loan calls on the UAW to agree to competitive compensation with the Japanese transplants and more flexible work rules. What's more, it requires new multi-billion dollar trusts created by the UAW for retiree health care to be half paid with automaker stock instead of cash."
He cites the fact that all three of these OEMs are struggling in their home US market while generally doing just fine in regions across the globe where the UAW contracts are not in force.
“How can we explain that whenever GM, Ford and Chrysler leave our shores, they compete well in foreign markets as varied as Europe, South America and China? What makes them viable competitors as soon as they cross the border?” Robinson asks in a recent Wall Street Journal column."
Supply Chain News: Is the UAW Really at the Root of US Automakers Woes?
ok on the difference between the uaw's book value for the center of 33 million and the agreed upon (waverly township in 2007) taxable value of 12.6 million - a mobster scandal you say.
perhaps you do not know the difference between the concepts of book value and market value for tax purposes. the two value often are different. the book value on you home is different than its market value. that difference does not make you a criminal or a mobster.
i will try a last time again:
the black lake property was acquired in the 60's and building began in 1967 with the center opening in 1970. construction improvements and additions continued through the years with 6 million of so being put into the golf course in 1998-99. course opened in 2000.
all of these costs amounted to what the uaw has spent--that $33 million figure represents book value.
you have a book value on your property too-- land costs plus improvement costs.
market value is not the same as book value- buildings and equipment depreciate over 40 years and lose their initial cost value. worse-- the real estate market fluctuates. demand goes down when trickle down vodoo economics is proven wrong for the upteenth time. money and credit get scarce during big recessions and a buyers market develops. property values and prices have been declining rapidly in michigan for some years with many properties, are now worth but 50% of the purchase prices that existed before the great decider rose in the pumpkin patch..
in 2007 the township assessment for the center was $13.7 million -that is what the township assessor claimed the uaw center was worth on the open market--assuming someone could be found to buy it. The UAW said that sounds too high for the market right now and appealed to the state tax tribunal- where the uaw has consistently won prior assessment disputes. the township and the uaw then agreed to use a $12.3 million value for the center's 2007 tax assessment.
perhaps, like our local drain commissioner, you believe it is wrong for the uaw to appeal its assessment. however even if you believe that the uaw, unlike any other property owner in our county, should not have the legal right to question a tax assessment. However, there is nothing corrupt or evil or illegal here and i think you should now admit that.
He says the union is willing to help, but everyone needs to get on the same page.
There are close to a 1000 dealerships that have gone out of business this year. They paid the ultimate price. And especially the workers in those dealerships. Most of which did not have a fat Union pay check to start with. So far all have heard from Gettlefinger is whining. When they cut ALL the UAW workers pay back about 20% it will be a good start. The current line workers have not given up a thing. They have shoved it off on the new hires, Retirees and those that get laid off. I asked a while back when was the last time a UAW workers lost any wages in a contract? All I got was silence from the hard liners. What that tells me is no matter how bad the economy might have been the UAW got a raise or did not follow the downward trend. They are making more than their skills can support.
You keep getting me mixed up with people I quote. If what I post is in Italics, it was said by someone else. Quite frankly if the UAW members want that albatross that is their business. My question was where did the Pension money come in? Was it borrowed to pay for the resort? If all the money comes from dues and strike fund that is UAW money pure and simple. I don't care if they burn it.
By the way. In CA property is taxed at the selling price. It can only go down if you can prove to the assessors that it is not worth what you paid. Depreciation is a completely different factor. Has nothing to do with property taxes anyplace that I have owned property.
i tried to explain to you once about the difference between defined benefit plans and defined contributions plans but it obviously didn't take.
let's try it this way--you can negotiate for a contribution of x dollars per hour worked to be put into a trust fund such that the trustees of that fund manage and money and provide whatever benefits they want. --that defined contribution and the way the world is going--because it gives the employer a precise, fixed cost.
the teamsters and your employer went that route and set up a taft hartley trust fund to pay the benefits.
defined benefits are very different: the parties sit down and say--ok when someone retires what should be the monthly pension and/or what health care benefits should we provide and how long should we provide them. the parties negotiate over benefit levels and coverage.
the party making the pledge to pay the benefits then gets to decide how to provide them. set us a trust fund or defer payment until joe blow retirees.
that the way the uaw and big three went. the uaw negotiated for benefits to be paid by the big 3 when the factory rat retired and these benefits continued to be in contract after contract.
it was the BIG three's choice how to provide the benefits
pensions were backed by a pension trust fund set up and funded by the employer. an independent trustee bank was selected to handle and manage contributions, the investments and send out the pension checks.
on health care Gm could have started trust funds and funded these costs over the working life of the factory rat. or hell GM by itself was so big it could have started its own health care system with clinics and doctors.
but GM chose not to fund its retiree health insurance promise and instead concluded something like "we'll still be making cars with a million employees working around the country, monthly health care costs are only about $30 a month now and even if they go up slightly the country will come to its senses and adopt national health care to stabilize these costs and stop the insurance and drug companies from robbing us blind.
well we know it didn't work out that way.
maybe the uaw should have known that the magic scare words "socialized medicine" would be used for two generations to scare us from doing what now has to (and will) be done.
but that is not the joe the plumber's's fault. he is saying hey i've got a pile of contracts and letters here telling me i would have health care during retirement. I pushed the uaw to get that for me instead of wage increases
what do you mean you guys in the UAW mean that now you want to negotiate it away. will you do that to my pension too.
so you say to joe the plumber it's either negotiate it away now or lose it in bankruptcy
joe's response is probably going to be i'm not going to make that choice. you are asking me how i want to die- by my own hands or by someone else, no other options. maybe i'll die but i'm not going give you that satisfaction of making me select between those two options.
by the way, i was there with doug fraser for the chrysler loan guarantee in the late 70's. it was a billion dollars then and the government insisted upon uaw concessions. these concessions were given as they are being given now- i seem to recall going over to highland park to reopen the agreement 3-4 times in less than a year. . it was tough. it started concession bargaining in the industry which has never really stopped. the "new directions" movement sprang up from within the uaw to challenge the leadership for negotiating concessions. the canadian region even broke away from the uaw and became the independent canadian auto workers union.
history shows that the loan was repaid early, indeed the taxpayers made a nice bundle on the chrysler stock. more important the taxpayers did not have to pay the huge expenses (more than a billion) associated with guaranteeing pensions under ERISA, unemployment insurance and other safety net programs.
i don't know what the community, personal bankruptcy and supplier industry losses might have been
but even more important is that fact chrysler has stayed afloat for another 30 plus years paying pensions, health insurance to thousands of retirees and providing good paying jobs to thousands of chrysler workers.
for all you out there that apparently want bankruptcy to work its magic in the market-- there is some history out there to think about.
the uaw has no control over pension funds--
all expenses for operations of the uaw black lake center - taxes, pension costs, wages, snow removal etc come from interest on the uaw strike fund per convention resolutions adopted by the delegates for the last upteen years.
in michigan ( and i bet california too) your property taxes are based not only on the value of the land but what you have attached to the land or the improvements you have made to the land---like a golf course. in michigan when buildings approach 40 years of age they depreciate in value.
In 2007 waverly township and the UAW agreed that the market value of the entire UAW black lake center was $12.3 dollars and the uaw paid property taxes on that value. so now what evil do you still see in the fact that the uaw has spend 33 million in acquiring the property, constructing the education center and then building a golf course with its membership's money?
I won't say it went over anyone's head, but I think the truth is hard to argue.
What I am seeing with the UAW is a big let down for many slightly skilled workers. When a forklift operator makes $118k per year and loses his job, that is going to be a reality check. No company in their right mind is going to pay a fork lift operator that kind of money.
That is exactly the point. I learned to drive a fork lift in high school and got paid the equivalent today of about $10/hr. Hardly demanding work and certainly not worthy of anywhere near $100k/yr.
If the company can afford to pay those kinds of wages, then great. But don't come crying to me when the company can no longer pay you that much and you have a $2k/mo mortgage and skills that equate to $10-15hr.
I think the day's of the big 3 paying those types of wages for unskilled labor are over. Nothing wrong with tiered pay scale where skilled labor gets a good competitive wage and the guy pushing a broom is on a pay scale that relates to the job and skills of the person filling the position.
The Big Three, The International, Black Lake are all separate entities. Thats how corporations work in this country. They treated as separate people, with limited liability. So if GM goes broke, the stockholders don't lose their assets other than what they have invested in GM.
If your interested in buying from any of these separate entities? Contact them and make an offer. I'm sure they need a good laugh. Your logic in linking separate entities exposes your ignorance. As Abe said "it is wiser to remain silent and be thought a fool, then to open your mouth and remove all doubt".
i suspect that the facts may show your joe and the other well known joe have a lot in common-- they don't exist. average big three rates are under $30 an hour.- almost the same as the transplants.
but again notice how nobody ask about the average income for executives or salaried workers--let alone any of the wall street types, investment bankers and insurance brokers who actually got us into this mess. i guess their skills were such that they deserve their millions and their trillion dollar unconditional bailout.
You have choice when you spend your money as you choose. WE would like the same consideration and believe the more choice the better for WE the consumer, not to mention the WE also get better pricing when more players are involved. Do you know how many UAW members take Viagra? How many UAW members are over weight? How many UAW members are lazy? This is nothing but a pathetic attempt to smear good hard working folks. WE would rather you go to Mexico, Germany, Japan, or China, just for the principle.
I hope you are wrong, as it will bankrupt America, as the UAW has done their part to bankrupt GM and Chrysler. And if they need my tax dollars to keep going they ARE BANKRUPT. Whether they file or not.
the canadian region even broke away from the uaw and became the independent canadian auto workers union.
According to what I have read it was due to UAW unscrupulous tactics.
maybe i'll die but i'm not going give you that satisfaction of making me select between those two options.
It has to be a shock living your whole life in a dream world of Utopian wealth and to find one day it was built on sand. Reality will make the choice for you. You may have to join millions of US poor Union folks that get by with Medicare and a supplement. I was promised Medical, dental and eyecare for life also. After 20 years of expectation the reality of bankrupting our pension by giving it all to the medical industry, forced a choice on the Pension trust directors. I am glad they did not choose to bankrupt the Pension fund.
Grassley seeks transparency from AIG regarding use of Fed loan dollarsWASHINGTON – Senator Chuck Grassley has asked American International Group, Inc., AIG, to disclose its expenditures so far of the $123 billion lent by the Federal Reserve Bank in order to prevent the company from filing for bankruptcy. Grassley based his inquiry on an October 30 New York Times story which is included here with his letter of inquiry. October 30, 2008 Mr. Edward M. Liddy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer American International Group, Inc. 70 Pine Street New York, NY 10270 Dear Mr. Liddy: Today, a story in The New York Times reported that the American International Group, Inc. (AIG) has already used $90 billion of the $123 billion lent to it by the Federal Reserve only one month ago. The article also notes that AIG has refused to provide the public with a detailed and transparent accounting of what that money has been used for, offering only that “some is being used to shore up its securities-lending program, some to make good on its guaranteed investment contracts, some to pay for day-to-day operations and [ ] tens of billions of dollars to post collateral with other financial institutions.” AIG’s use of the Federal Reserve loans is ofgreat interest to the American people because they are footing the bill. Moreover, some experts believe that AIG will need additional funding over and above the $123 billion the Federal Reserve has already lent it. As Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, I request that you provide a briefing to my Committee staff regarding this issue. In addition, please provide responses to the following questions: 1) Please provide a full and detailed accounting of AIG’s $90 billion (or more) in expenditures to date. 2) When does AIG anticipate using all of the $123 billion emergency loan it received?3) How much more money does AIG believe it will need to borrow in the future?4) When can American taxpayers expect AIG to repay the loan it received?
You really need to quit reading those liberal blogs. You have such a hatred for Republicans that you cannot even believe the truth coming from your own UAW members. Here is a story of Oscar that filed for bankruptcy because loss of OT cut his wages down to $87,000 per year. It makes me cry for the guy each time I read it in your own liberal Detroit News. As was pointed out. Most any fork lift operator in the USA would be sitting in hog heaven making $87k per year. Not the spoiled UAW workers of Michigan. I know PHDs in San Diego that would be tickled to make that much.
http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0509/18/A01-318432.htm
Perhaps they should organize and have the UAW represent them. Are you sure they have a PHD? Maybe the said GED from MIT????
health care premiums going up 15-20% per year for many years can no longer be sustained. we are already paying over 15% of our GDP and almost 46 million ( i was off by 2 i am told) have no insurance coverage.
canada and most of the countries with UNIVERSAL health care are ranked ahead of usa in terms of favorable health care outcomes by world heath organization and pay anywhere from 7-10% of GDP
what is medicare?- single payer, national health care system --government pays doctor and medical bills but with an age 65 qualification. ask a medicare covered individual to give it up because his doctor or nurse looks like a socialist.
just remove age 65 barrier.
what unscrupulous tactics?? canadian chrysler plants were part of a single international master agreement with us/ chrysler plants. canadians were on the uaw negotiating team at highland park. congress told chrysler if you want a billion re-open that agreement and eat some concessions. canadian locals said no-- us government can't dictate terms of an agreement for canadians. us government said ok but that means that the usa plants have to eat even more concessions to make up for your refusal to take any. us chrsyler membership then went thru second round of concessions to make up canadian difference. loan made, plants on both side of detroit river--including canadian plant stayed open and survived. canadian uaw chysler took no concessions; usa chrysler workers took a double hit. relations between locals in canada and local in usa soured somewhat with bob white (Canadian regional director) demanding a divorce from the UAW. Bieber agreed--gave Canadians all UAW property in canada and slice of uaw strike fund. i delivered the check personally to bob white at the airport in toronto.
i have now told you three times you were covered by a defined contribution or taft hartley trust funds plan. you were never promised lifetime benefits. prove me wrong!! you may have been told that the parties hoped the fixed money contributed would be adequate depending on good investments and stable health care costs.
you should have understood then but since you don't understand it even now--all your employer ever promised was to put XX dollars an hour per hour worked into a fund to provide your health and pension benefits. ironic that you may have got what you deserved. you didn't want "socialized medicine" so health care costs and premiums doubled every 5-6 years in the usa and the trust funds were not adequate to keep up with the 15-20% yearly cost increases for your health care.
trustes stepped in and said we can't afford to pay these outrageous costs anymore so your benefits are gone
sometimes there is something called poetic justice and you apparently got exactly what you deserved and still i bet you vote against your own interests.
is it beginning to sink in that if the clinton health care plan had been put into effect you trust fund would probably have survived today .
big 3/uaw retirees were promised lifetime health care benefits and a precise monthly pension by the Big3. that is the difference between a defined benefit plan (UAW) and a defined contribution plan (teamsters). you got everything your employer promised you over your work life XX dollars per hour worked into a fund. big3 retirees had a different promise (a specific benefit) that they at least believe they earned and do not want to give back..
please reread this answer several times because i am done.
That doesn't mean that unions go to far in some cases or have had corruption in others, but for the most part, they've been good for average people, and bad for corporate ogligarchs
laughed out load (thanks i needed that!) at your oxymoron phrase "liberal detroit news"
you probably did not notice the 5 year labor dispute (strike) in detroit in the 90's. detroit news hired permanent scabs to replace striking workers detroit was a labor town and was torn apart.
detroit news has been called a lot of names over the years but i can guarantee you that this is the first time anyone in the entire world ever used the word "liberal" in front of their name.
. hell they make fox noise sound fair and balanced by contrast.'''
thanks again