gagrice's church friend isn't the only guy with a PhD that I know is unemployed/underemployed. My girlfriend's brother-in-law is living for free in her mother's house until he can get back on his feet. He's been there since last August.
Don't knock those girls. They can make a LOT of money. Six figures easy. Trouble is, it is a short career. They actually had an article in the paper about unemployed professional women going into the adult entertainment industry.
Don't you remember the poster from Sweden a few months back. They came to the USA for treatment not available in Sweden
And not just from Sweden. Those that can afford to pay come to the top notch facilities in this country to get the best care possible. I'm talking about heads of states, Saudi princes, those sort of people. They come to places like Johns Hopkins or the Mayo Clinic in their private planes, with (in many cases) their private, armed security force, and literally take over an entire floor of the hospital. Hopkins and Mayo make a ton on those kinds of clients.
Those that can afford to pay come to the top notch facilities in this country to get the best care possible. I'm talking about heads of states, Saudi princes, those sort of people. They come to places like Johns Hopkins or the Mayo Clinic in their private planes, with (in many cases) their private, armed security force, and literally take over an entire floor of the hospital. Hopkins and Mayo make a ton on those kinds of clients.
True, when i lived near Akron, OH, it was always on Cleveland news when some Sheik was in town for medical procedures at Cleveland Clinic which I believe is one of the top hospitals in the US for heart care.
Didn't Abe want to put an end to slavery? I guess the globalist elite want to restore slavery!
No, he wanted to preserve the UNION. Slavery was and is alive and well in most of the World. John Adams wanted to end slavery and could not convince Thomas Jefferson to give up his slaves. There are housewives in this country today that are treated like slaves. UAW workers are slaves to their Union. They have no freedom to do and think as they wish.
My girl has blonde hair and blue eyes, but she's short, thin, and very petite while I'm quite tall and husky. A picture of me and her together looks like "Land of the Giants" meets "Munchkinland."
if Japan is manipulating its currency, it is doing a very poor job
You and I agree... but it's pretty unlikely that we will change any minds here....
We also agree on bio-fuels....
One of my friends is a professor who is working on alternative fuels. After 3 years of efforts, he's abandoned bio-fuels, and is now pursuing producing gasoline from coal. (Of course that's where the funding is now, but anyhow). He had pursued many different plants as corn is simply a loser, but ultimately came to conclude that bio-fuels will never be practical on any significant scale in the states.
Rocky - (Good luck on your interview! )
Let's mix your "produce everything here in the states" idea with your "union wages and benefits for all!" and see what we find -
1. Unionization increases wages (I think we agree on this point). However increasing the wages of your workers increases prices of the goods produced. In an open economy, the market decides whether the goods are worth the extra money or not. If they are, people will pay the premium. If not, they will choose cheaper goods instead. (Examples: BMW made with unionized labor are valued enough by the market to pay premium prices. GM cars made with unionized labor are not, and people have been choosing cheaper alternatives).
2. If the market is closed and all workforces unionized, the option to choose cheaper goods is limited, and people are 'forced' to buy the higher priced goods or do without. Thus in our example, GM becomes viable, regardless of quality or value.
However, there are consequences -
2a. Since all goods are produced with higher waged employees, all prices rise. Since all prices rise, the workers' buying power is reduced. Therefore the workers demand more wages. Thus an inflationary spiral is generated, and ultimately the money is worth less and less, but the workers never catch up with their (self-generated) increasing prices.
2b. Since the market is closed, there is no incentive to increase quality or reduce prices. Competition is restricted and therefore the need for innovation to attract new customers is reduced. (Think GM whose underlying technology did not change from 1960 to 1980, except where forced by foreign competition.) Thus product variety and quality suffers.
Thus Consumers suffer from less choice of goods, less quality, and higher prices. Soviet history contains many many examples of this cycle. If you prefer, you can look at Cuba.... This has been tried again and again and it just doesn't work to the benefit of the people.
So, be very careful what you wish for. You won't be buying strawberries in December for $2 a pint anymore. They won't be imported. You won't have any flat screen TV's at all. Anyhow, you wouldn't be able to afford them. They'll be too expensive.
He had pursued many different plants as corn is simply a loser, but ultimately came to conclude that bio-fuels will never be practical on any significant scale in the states.
Corn was a joke and corporate welfare from the start. Everyone knew it and bought into it as a political concession to the Corn belt states. I still have hope for diesel from algae. Not much news lately on that front. I do not advocate the Feds getting involved as they would botch it up.
The reason that UAW folks want to believe in bio-fuels is to keep their Internal combustion cars rolling off the assembly line. I think it is pretty clear we will not be at the leading edge of electric vehicle production. China and India will dominate that emerging industry. Manufacturing battery cells in the USA is a non starter. Even GM is buying from Korea.
You won't have any flat screen TV's at all. Anyhow, you wouldn't be able to afford them. They'll be too expensive
I'll give you another example. Many years ago when CD players first came out, my company bought several from Sony to dissect. These cost something in the range of $300-$400, if I remember right. We were not interested in trying to compete with Sony, but just wanted to see how they could design and mass produce a consumer product that required such high precision and tight tolerances in some areas, such as the laser positioning mechanism, and sell it for what they were.
Our conclusion was that while we could probably design and build one, we could nowhere come close to the price that Sony was selling theirs for.
Our conclusion was that while we could probably design and build one, we could nowhere come close to the price that Sony was selling theirs for.
In the mid 1960s my biological father's company ARC built one of the first audio cassette decks for a car. They went into production without any patents. When I asked him why, he said the secret is to get into production first. You can waste $1000s on patents that are easily gotten around. They were the leaders for a year maybe and then it was open season and dozens of companies got on the bandwagon. When the Japanese came to the game it was all over for the US manufacturers. They could in NO way compete with the cheaper labor even in the 1960s. The UAWs monopoly on high paying jobs for unskilled labor is coming to a close.
Oh, but it is your problem. Barry and Hillary just spent days begging the Chinese for more money to finance his grand Stimulus plan. You slap tariffs on they demand payment of $trillions of dollars and we go belly up
That's when you drop a few nukes on them.
Your ideas are very simplistic. We have interwoven ourselves into the World economy. Look at the mess we are in with Mexico. Just blocking their trucks caused a wave Obama did not expect, and he is buckling under.
He should demand more oil from Mexico, to pay for the expenses for the drug smugglers.
So we have a company building oil production equipment in the US with US labor. Mexico throws a big tariff on that equipment from US and buys from some other country. Result our people lose their jobs.
We got to start playing hard ball. We can't roll over and die at pressure.
You would think blocking truckers from Mexico would be a simple process. Nothing is simple in our global economy. The unwanted affect was to cost US manufacturers money as well as farmers.
They aren't following NAFTA so why are we rolling over to there every demand???
You are going to have to accept someday that the UAW is not competitive even in the USA with companies in the USA. Most of the cars kicking GM's butt are built in the USA. Think Camry of which most are built here. Many imports have higher US content than D3 cars and trucks.
Well the perception is Toyota good GM=Bad. If people would go look at GM's latest products that perception would change. It's going to take time.
I respectfully disagree. The Japanese do manipulate there [sic] currency and I've provided data that says it does.
So what? All central banks - the Bank of Japan, our Fed, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank - intervene in currency markets from time to time. Are they engaged in currency manipulation? Who knows? There's only one way to stop this: eliminate all central banks & allow supply & demand to set currency values. But you're a socialist, & socialists don't trust supply & demand. They want more government, not less. So I don't expect that you'll go along with this suggestion.
Anyway, I don't think that currency manipulation, real or imagined, has much of an affect on U.S. auto sales. From what I can see, people who buy Japanese cars do so not because they're cheaper - if anything, they're often more expensive than competing American brands - but because these buyers think that Japanese cars are better. Some of them will even go so far as to refuse to buy a Honda Accord built in Ohio & insist on one that was made entirely in Japan. They want a pure Japanese car - one that American workers never touched.
It comes down to perceived quality - not currency fluctuation.
We let the genie out of the bottle. I can't say I believe it would be out without the work of a few so-called fellow westerners. Eons with very little indigenous technological progress, then a jump once we open them up. No coincidence.
China appears to operate free from any type of intellectual property laws. What will stop it from making those phones or anything else and giving nothing to those who own the rights to the technology? And what can we do about it anyway? Now that China finances our economy and our ability to piss away billions on aid to Israel, Pakistan, and the rest of the parasites.
It shouldn't be a problem. No social security card, no job. Fake cards are easy to spot by anyone who has an eye for typeface discrepancies. The typeface used on the card, and the card itself, is very difficult to properly imitate. The government doesn't need to do much in this regard.
However, this would also stop GOP-leaning "businessmen" from gaining (undeserved) higher profit margins, so it meets opposition there as much as it does from the whiny PC types.
Maybe the past 8 years of dominance by well connected "businessmen" who profit from illegal labor has made the problem so bad there's no ability to fix it now...
Capitalism certainly trumps both Communism and Socialism..I've had a good time with Capitalism, however you young ones may get good dose of Socialism and loss of our precious freedoms..
Detroit is ready to upchuck and blow a hole in the UAW. Sob,Sob???
Keep buying the Toys, Hondas,and the other Asian nameplates for it will led to loss of our ability to protect ourselfs---no way to produce anything...Think the Asians will switch from cars to tanks to protect America??????
Please don't shower me with the accolades of the superior Asian cars for your excuse of owning one..In past recessions, we have always had the strong manufacturing base to pull us out, that's gone!!!!
Trouble paying your mortgage, maybe the Asians will step in and shower you with money---bailout time..
Too bad about the loss of the GM and Chrysler...Had 30 yrs of great times dealing with the Auto industry, and fought the UAW for 7 yrs, so if they get cut down to size---love it.. Acorn and the Unions are on the same page..
>Our conclusion was that while we could probably design and build one, we could nowhere come close to the price that Sony was selling theirs for.
You know why this is, right?
The designer who will design this precision system, and the manufacturing person who will build this "precision" system want to be paid like millionaires for their talent. In Asia whereas it is simply work that I did for the salary I was getting working for Sony.So for the price of a regular engineer, you get precision work done.
>, they're often more expensive than competing American brands - but because these buyers think that Japanese cars are better.
I've said exactly that and have often been ridiculed by a poster for having that opinion. It takes a long time to change that perception but it is happening in some of the foreign car discussions. Problems with transmissions, vibration, shifting and other things are having people say it's their last xxx-foreign car.
"Problems with transmissions, vibration, shifting and other things are having people say it's their last xxx-foreign car"...I am one of those who, while now owning a Ford and a Dodge, believe that my Japanese cars were better cars than what I own now...wouldn't it be odd if the Japanese carmakers became as arrogant as our own UAW workers and started making bad cars???...wouldn't it be odd if people started deserting japanese cars for Big 3???
It will be awhile for the mass exodus to happen, IMO...simply because it took 20-30 years for the exodus from Big 3 to Japanese, and I do not think it will reverse so quickly...
Either way, the UAW is toast...nobody will put up with their crap any longer...they served a purpose, they served it well, but they lost it about 25 years ago...only the sheer momentum of the size of GM kept the farce going...now that Kryptonite has been discovered, Superman has lost his powers, and is now a mere mortal like the rest of us...and lug nut tighteners no longer will get $25/hour for a $10/hour job...please notice I stopped using floorsweepers, as rocky has explained that specific designation no longer exists...the fact that it did is still absurd, but now is now...
Problems with transmissions, vibration, shifting and other things are having people say it's their last xxx-foreign car.
Not where I live, although my neck of the woods, a well-off suburb of NYC, goes in for pricey German stuff, & no one expects a German car to be reliable - just cool & fun to drive.
But that wasn't the point of my post. Although I happen to believe that the best American cars, like the new Malibu, are as well made & as reliable as anything sold today, there are millions of buyers who see things differently. Instead of carrying on about "currency manipulation", which has little or no effect on car-buying decisions, Rocky & others sympathetic to the UAW should focus on winning these people over.
You can't succeed in any business unless you put pleasing the customer ahead of everything else. The customer is always right.
I like your "innocent enthusiasm" for energy but manegi is correct. My undergraduate degree is in chemistry. The energy problem is a huge one and there are no easy fixes. I would agree that nuclear is the only large and lasting viable answer. Other mid-term possibilities are wind, solar, and tidal energy but a massive effort would need to be made, and there are environmental consequences. No hydrogen or biofuels are going to solve anything. Biofuels use almost as much oil to grow as energy they produce. Hydrogen is only a carrier, not a source, of energy.
Cold fusion is widely hoped for, but has never been demonstrated as real. If it occurs it is a LONG way off.
???...wouldn't it be odd if people started deserting japanese cars for Big 3???
This is less likely than Haley's comet showing up early. People may well abandon the Japanese makers, but that doesn't mean that they will return to GM or Chrysler made cars.
They're more likely to go to someone who hasn't burned them yet... Korean cars, or -soon- Chinese cars. The French and Italian makers have never recovered their customer bases in the U.S. even though it's been decades. Renault certainly had the opportunity to reintroduce the brand through Nissan but chose not to do so.
Ford's reputation has been improving, and I think they will benefit in market share during the [demise?] bankruptcy and recovery of GM... I don't think Chrysler will be around for more than a year or two before they go down the Studebaker trail.
Finally, as Marsha7 has already pointed out... People take a long time to lose trust and abandon a brand. Mercedes has been having quality problems for most of 10 years now, but is only now showing the beginnings of tarnish on its 3-pointed halo.
This is going to be the most corrupt 4 years of any politician in my lifetime with all the political appointees who aren't qualified and aren't really running things but just serving as political puppets.
I hope you are incorrect. Certainly the previous administration was corrupt. If it is endemic then we have a bigger problem. Like fintail indicates!
What's a bigger problem is anchor babies. An illegal alien couple will cross the border to have a child and that child is automatically granted U.S. citizenship just by being born here. And we're not so nasty that we want to break-up families by deporting that baby's parents, are we?
Like most of the countries in the world.
The more illegal anchors the more pressure on US citizens' jobs. UAW is still too expensive, but at least after they lose their jobs they would have a better chance of finding another, lower-paying one.
Keep buying the Toys, Hondas,and the other Asian nameplates for it will led to loss of our ability to protect ourselfs---no way to produce anything as those Asian (and European) manufacturers continue to add more plants and add more jobs for real Americans and as the D3 buy out more UAW employees, close more plants and further support the economies in places like Canada and Mexico WITH OUR TAX MONEY - then you want to scold those for buying a 'nameplate' that has a foreign sound to it???? :confuse: Scold instead those folks that just spent their hard earned dollars on those Mexican Fords..
UAW workers are slaves to their Union. They have no freedom to do and think as they wish.
And by being overpaid they have golden handcuffs which keep them from wanting to develop other skills and find alternate jobs. Then when the golden goose dies they are in big trouble. The conspiring powers that be, elitists, globalists, currency manipulators, tribal elders, handlers, smarmy types get their way again! :P
You very seldom have any problems getting surgery in Canada if it's serious like heart surgery. Some cancer treatments are delayed and a waiting time, because a lot of the hospitals do not have the equipment. For 1st class treatment you have only certain hospitals to go to and they are full. Canada's problem is the abuse of the system. People race to the emergency room for a hang nail and any small problem they have. It's free and they never see a bill of any kind and they line up outside the doors to get looked at. :sick:
An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said ok, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.
All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.
But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away; no one will try or want to succeed.
who believe that socialism is great, please leave and go where you will be happy...in socialism, everybody is equal, so nobody achieves anything...capitalism is not perfect, but it IS the best out there, if you believe in human achievement...since I see myself as a possible winner, I believe in the system that allows for losers, but always remember that the losers always can try agin and maybe succeed...
That is why I can never understand anyone who advocates socialism, unless they are one of Society's losers, and a permanent one at that... anyone who wants the chance can try and maybe succeed, and it is the possibility of success that makes this system superior to anything else...anything that stifles the human spirit is inherently bad, because then everyone is a loser and there are no winners...
It is because of the winners that we advance, whether Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or others, as their success has had a beneficial effect on most of us...300,000 employees could not create a damn thing, but with one Henry Ford the car became affordable, that is why the entrepreneur is, to me, much more important than the labor...the labor can always be found because most people are not self-motivated, but w/o the Henry Ford all 300K of them are virtually nothing...
Capitalism will have losers, but how many winners were multiple losers until they found the right product or niche???...our system allows for the process to work, and only those who have no self respect are afraid of capitalism...it becomes a case of simple envy, where the loser does not want the winner to win...
We call it the lobster theory of life...lobsters in a bucket will drag the ones who are escaping back into the bucket, rather than allow them to expereince the freedom of being outside the bucket...I am always amazed at the people who will work hard to drag others down to their level with negative thoughts and actions, rather than use that same effort to try and succeed...sadly, many of those now populate our Society, as everyone throws rocks at the winners because they cannot stand to see someone do better than them...that is a waste of human potential, and those people should be removed...
I expect to succeed and I was raised to see the bright side...that does not mean negative things have never happened to me, but, philosophically, when one door closes (failure) another door always opens (possibility of success)...people who only see the closed door are people I avoid...
UAW people live with a closed door...I remember back in the 80s, when computers were coming into the Big 3, and they were trying to retrain many workers...it was appalling how many of them would literally sit there and whine "all I can do is tighten lug nuts" as though that was ALL they could do...talk about a limited mindset...get rid of those because that attitude could only bring others down...
That is why the UAW is doomed, because they are full of envious, limited thinkers whose outlook on life is that they are owed something and limited in everything else...getting away from that childish mindset was the best thing anyone could do...
Dump the UAW, dump the negativity, and let capitalism flourish...let there be fewer losers and more winners with an open mind and a positive attitude...
This nation will, in the long run, be better off with no UAW, and getting gov't out of our lives...may the best person win, and bring many others with them (think Microsoft, WalMart, etc)...
So you want monopolies such as Walley World and Microsoft to have total control and eliminate any competition from smaller powers which could drive the next great advancement in technology??? We need more government control and unionization to keep control of some of your capitalist buddies that already have too much power.
So you want monopolies such as Walley World and Microsoft to have total control and eliminate any competition from smaller powers which could drive the next great advancement in technology???
Wow have you got THAT all backwards! IBM Computers and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) used to be huge. Dell was nobody. Sears ruled the retail world. Walmart was a small town chain. Xerox literally OWNED the copier business. RICOH made pocket calculators. Pan Am and TWA were giants in the airline industry. Southwest and Virgin each owned a couple of planes.
Do I even need to mention that GM owned almost 50% of the largest richest car market in the world, and Honda made 50 cc motorcycles? Toyota's biggest cars would fit in the trunk of your Cadillac. There were giants in those days too and the small companies replaced them and became giants. Bill Gates was a college drop-out.
We need more government control and unionization to keep control of some of your capitalist buddies that already have too much power.
I can't stop laughing! If you're serious then you have to agree that there never should have BEEN a General Motors.
Wow have you got THAT all backwards! IBM Computers and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) used to be huge. Dell was nobody. Sears ruled the retail world. Walmart was a small town chain. Xerox literally OWNED the copier business. RICOH made pocket calculators. Pan Am and TWA were giants in the airline industry. Southwest and Virgin each owned a couple of planes.
We also had Studebaker, Packard, etc that were smaller automobile companies that competed on a level playing field in those days. My point is these huge mult-national corporations have slowed the progress of technology. At least back in the early days the companies were paying 1st world wages and benefits and nobody had a huge advantage. How is an american based company suppose to compete with a Chinese based company??? The Chinese company in many cases is going to win because of the labor, enviromental advantages. :sick:
I can't stop laughing! If you're serious then you have to agree that there never should have BEEN a General Motors.
Laugh all you want but I personally don't think it's a laughing matter if GM goes under.
I think you have socialism mixed up with communism. It's pretty hard to teach a subject when some dumb "cotton pickin" hick is the professor and doesn't know the difference. GEEEEEEEZZZZ!!!!!!! I lived in that part of the country for 5 1/2 years thus that doesn't suprise me a bit. I felt superior in the IQ Dept among those sheeple. The only good thing about Texas Tech is there football team thanks to coach Mike Leach and they do have some hot chicks.
Some comments he makes are that he believes the US isn't interested in "nationalizing" companies, but just providing temp. relief. He thinks that the bailout monies for GM and Chrysler were "fair", as he believes other countries would do the same for their companies, and he doesn't see this crisis as a failure of capitalism, but of greed.
As for CEO compensation:
"Q: Sounds like you are a critic of high CEO compensation. Doesn't their pay reflect free-market forces?
A: A lot of Americans use that rationale. But there are only a handful of exceptional athletes who attract tens of thousands of fans, thus creating enormous revenue for the team. A star player who possesses that rare talent should receive an appropriately higher salary. It is the same for an actor who stars in a blockbuster film. It is different for the CEO of a company. Profits are created by the hard work and collaboration of the workers and other levels of management. For the top echelon to receive such high compensation, as if they alone were responsible for the profits, is unreasonable. We should possess the consideration and humility to provide all employees who work for the company with an appropriate share of the gains. That is lacking in today's capitalism or free-market economy, and its absence is responsible for the growing disparity, discrimination and injustice in society."
That is indeed a good read for Bob!!! It is what I and others have been more/less saying what the major flaw with capitalism. It boils down to personal morals and ethics.
Comments
Unless you can work UAW into the sentence
And not just from Sweden. Those that can afford to pay come to the top notch facilities in this country to get the best care possible. I'm talking about heads of states, Saudi princes, those sort of people. They come to places like Johns Hopkins or the Mayo Clinic in their private planes, with (in many cases) their private, armed security force, and literally take over an entire floor of the hospital. Hopkins and Mayo make a ton on those kinds of clients.
True, when i lived near Akron, OH, it was always on Cleveland news when some Sheik was in town for medical procedures at Cleveland Clinic which I believe is one of the top hospitals in the US for heart care.
No, he wanted to preserve the UNION. Slavery was and is alive and well in most of the World. John Adams wanted to end slavery and could not convince Thomas Jefferson to give up his slaves. There are housewives in this country today that are treated like slaves. UAW workers are slaves to their Union. They have no freedom to do and think as they wish.
if Japan is manipulating its currency, it is doing a very poor job
You and I agree... but it's pretty unlikely that we will change any minds here....
We also agree on bio-fuels....
One of my friends is a professor who is working on alternative fuels. After 3 years of efforts, he's abandoned bio-fuels, and is now pursuing producing gasoline from coal. (Of course that's where the funding is now, but anyhow). He had pursued many different plants as corn is simply a loser, but ultimately came to conclude that bio-fuels will never be practical on any significant scale in the states.
Rocky - (Good luck on your interview! )
Let's mix your "produce everything here in the states" idea with your "union wages and benefits for all!" and see what we find -
1. Unionization increases wages (I think we agree on this point). However increasing the wages of your workers increases prices of the goods produced. In an open economy, the market decides whether the goods are worth the extra money or not. If they are, people will pay the premium. If not, they will choose cheaper goods instead. (Examples: BMW made with unionized labor are valued enough by the market to pay premium prices. GM cars made with unionized labor are not, and people have been choosing cheaper alternatives).
2. If the market is closed and all workforces unionized, the option to choose cheaper goods is limited, and people are 'forced' to buy the higher priced goods or do without. Thus in our example, GM becomes viable, regardless of quality or value.
However, there are consequences -
2a. Since all goods are produced with higher waged employees, all prices rise. Since all prices rise, the workers' buying power is reduced. Therefore the workers demand more wages. Thus an inflationary spiral is generated, and ultimately the money is worth less and less, but the workers never catch up with their (self-generated) increasing prices.
2b. Since the market is closed, there is no incentive to increase quality or reduce prices. Competition is restricted and therefore the need for innovation to attract new customers is reduced. (Think GM whose underlying technology did not change from 1960 to 1980, except where forced by foreign competition.) Thus product variety and quality suffers.
Thus Consumers suffer from less choice of goods, less quality, and higher prices. Soviet history contains many many examples of this cycle. If you prefer, you can look at Cuba.... This has been tried again and again and it just doesn't work to the benefit of the people.
So, be very careful what you wish for. You won't be buying strawberries in December for $2 a pint anymore. They won't be imported. You won't have any flat screen TV's at all. Anyhow, you wouldn't be able to afford them. They'll be too expensive.
Corn was a joke and corporate welfare from the start. Everyone knew it and bought into it as a political concession to the Corn belt states. I still have hope for diesel from algae. Not much news lately on that front. I do not advocate the Feds getting involved as they would botch it up.
The reason that UAW folks want to believe in bio-fuels is to keep their Internal combustion cars rolling off the assembly line. I think it is pretty clear we will not be at the leading edge of electric vehicle production. China and India will dominate that emerging industry. Manufacturing battery cells in the USA is a non starter. Even GM is buying from Korea.
I'll give you another example. Many years ago when CD players first came out, my company bought several from Sony to dissect. These cost something in the range of $300-$400, if I remember right. We were not interested in trying to compete with Sony, but just wanted to see how they could design and mass produce a consumer product that required such high precision and tight tolerances in some areas, such as the laser positioning mechanism, and sell it for what they were.
Our conclusion was that while we could probably design and build one, we could nowhere come close to the price that Sony was selling theirs for.
In the mid 1960s my biological father's company ARC built one of the first audio cassette decks for a car. They went into production without any patents. When I asked him why, he said the secret is to get into production first. You can waste $1000s on patents that are easily gotten around. They were the leaders for a year maybe and then it was open season and dozens of companies got on the bandwagon. When the Japanese came to the game it was all over for the US manufacturers. They could in NO way compete with the cheaper labor even in the 1960s. The UAWs monopoly on high paying jobs for unskilled labor is coming to a close.
rocky: "You aren't a executive of a large corporation and you weren't involved with Skull & Bones nor attended Yale, right???"...No, no, and no...
-Rocky
That's when you drop a few nukes on them.
Your ideas are very simplistic. We have interwoven ourselves into the World economy. Look at the mess we are in with Mexico. Just blocking their trucks caused a wave Obama did not expect, and he is buckling under.
He should demand more oil from Mexico, to pay for the expenses for the drug smugglers.
So we have a company building oil production equipment in the US with US labor. Mexico throws a big tariff on that equipment from US and buys from some other country. Result our people lose their jobs.
We got to start playing hard ball. We can't roll over and die at pressure.
You would think blocking truckers from Mexico would be a simple process. Nothing is simple in our global economy. The unwanted affect was to cost US manufacturers money as well as farmers.
They aren't following NAFTA so why are we rolling over to there every demand???
You are going to have to accept someday that the UAW is not competitive even in the USA with companies in the USA. Most of the cars kicking GM's butt are built in the USA. Think Camry of which most are built here. Many imports have higher US content than D3 cars and trucks.
Well the perception is Toyota good GM=Bad. If people would go look at GM's latest products that perception would change. It's going to take time.
-Rocky
-Rocky
So what? All central banks - the Bank of Japan, our Fed, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank - intervene in currency markets from time to time. Are they engaged in currency manipulation? Who knows? There's only one way to stop this: eliminate all central banks & allow supply & demand to set currency values. But you're a socialist, & socialists don't trust supply & demand. They want more government, not less. So I don't expect that you'll go along with this suggestion.
Anyway, I don't think that currency manipulation, real or imagined, has much of an affect on U.S. auto sales. From what I can see, people who buy Japanese cars do so not because they're cheaper - if anything, they're often more expensive than competing American brands - but because these buyers think that Japanese cars are better. Some of them will even go so far as to refuse to buy a Honda Accord built in Ohio & insist on one that was made entirely in Japan. They want a pure Japanese car - one that American workers never touched.
It comes down to perceived quality - not currency fluctuation.
-Rocky
China appears to operate free from any type of intellectual property laws. What will stop it from making those phones or anything else and giving nothing to those who own the rights to the technology? And what can we do about it anyway? Now that China finances our economy and our ability to piss away billions on aid to Israel, Pakistan, and the rest of the parasites.
However, this would also stop GOP-leaning "businessmen" from gaining (undeserved) higher profit margins, so it meets opposition there as much as it does from the whiny PC types.
Maybe the past 8 years of dominance by well connected "businessmen" who profit from illegal labor has made the problem so bad there's no ability to fix it now...
You are right about that. Same applies to food you eat on streets of India. very tasty, but you need an immune system that can handle that :shades:
Detroit is ready to upchuck and blow a hole in the UAW. Sob,Sob???
Keep buying the Toys, Hondas,and the other Asian nameplates for it will led to loss of our ability to protect ourselfs---no way to produce anything...Think the Asians will switch from cars to tanks to protect America??????
Please don't shower me with the accolades of the superior Asian cars for your excuse of owning one..In past recessions, we have always had the strong manufacturing base to pull us out, that's gone!!!!
Trouble paying your mortgage, maybe the Asians will step in and shower you with money---bailout time..
Too bad about the loss of the GM and Chrysler...Had 30 yrs of great times dealing with the Auto industry, and fought the UAW for 7 yrs, so if they get cut down to size---love it.. Acorn and the Unions are on the same page..
You know why this is, right?
The designer who will design this precision system, and the manufacturing person who will build this "precision" system want to be paid like millionaires for their talent. In Asia whereas it is simply work that I did for the salary I was getting working for Sony.So for the price of a regular engineer, you get precision work done.
I've said exactly that and have often been ridiculed by a poster for having that opinion. It takes a long time to change that perception but it is happening in some of the foreign car discussions. Problems with transmissions, vibration, shifting and other things are having people say it's their last xxx-foreign car.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
It will be awhile for the mass exodus to happen, IMO...simply because it took 20-30 years for the exodus from Big 3 to Japanese, and I do not think it will reverse so quickly...
Either way, the UAW is toast...nobody will put up with their crap any longer...they served a purpose, they served it well, but they lost it about 25 years ago...only the sheer momentum of the size of GM kept the farce going...now that Kryptonite has been discovered, Superman has lost his powers, and is now a mere mortal like the rest of us...and lug nut tighteners no longer will get $25/hour for a $10/hour job...please notice I stopped using floorsweepers, as rocky has explained that specific designation no longer exists...the fact that it did is still absurd, but now is now...
Not where I live, although my neck of the woods, a well-off suburb of NYC, goes in for pricey German stuff, & no one expects a German car to be reliable - just cool & fun to drive.
But that wasn't the point of my post. Although I happen to believe that the best American cars, like the new Malibu, are as well made & as reliable as anything sold today, there are millions of buyers who see things differently. Instead of carrying on about "currency manipulation", which has little or no effect on car-buying decisions, Rocky & others sympathetic to the UAW should focus on winning these people over.
You can't succeed in any business unless you put pleasing the customer ahead of everything else. The customer is always right.
I like your "innocent enthusiasm" for energy but manegi is correct. My undergraduate degree is in chemistry. The energy problem is a huge one and there are no easy fixes. I would agree that nuclear is the only large and lasting viable answer. Other mid-term possibilities are wind, solar, and tidal energy but a massive effort would need to be made, and there are environmental consequences. No hydrogen or biofuels are going to solve anything. Biofuels use almost as much oil to grow as energy they produce. Hydrogen is only a carrier, not a source, of energy.
Cold fusion is widely hoped for, but has never been demonstrated as real. If it occurs it is a LONG way off.
This is less likely than Haley's comet showing up early. People may well abandon the Japanese makers, but that doesn't mean that they will return to GM or Chrysler made cars.
They're more likely to go to someone who hasn't burned them yet... Korean cars, or -soon- Chinese cars. The French and Italian makers have never recovered their customer bases in the U.S. even though it's been decades. Renault certainly had the opportunity to reintroduce the brand through Nissan but chose not to do so.
Ford's reputation has been improving, and I think they will benefit in market share during the [demise?] bankruptcy and recovery of GM... I don't think Chrysler will be around for more than a year or two before they go down the Studebaker trail.
Finally, as Marsha7 has already pointed out... People take a long time to lose trust and abandon a brand. Mercedes has been having quality problems for most of 10 years now, but is only now showing the beginnings of tarnish on its 3-pointed halo.
However once people turn on them..
I hope you are incorrect. Certainly the previous administration was corrupt. If it is endemic then we have a bigger problem. Like fintail indicates!
Like most of the countries in the world.
The more illegal anchors the more pressure on US citizens' jobs. UAW is still too expensive, but at least after they lose their jobs they would have a better chance of finding another, lower-paying one.
as those Asian (and European) manufacturers continue to add more plants and add more jobs for real Americans and as the D3 buy out more UAW employees, close more plants and further support the economies in places like Canada and Mexico WITH OUR TAX MONEY - then you want to scold those for buying a 'nameplate' that has a foreign sound to it???? :confuse:
Scold instead those folks that just spent their hard earned dollars on those Mexican Fords..
And by being overpaid they have golden handcuffs which keep them from wanting to develop other skills and find alternate jobs. Then when the golden goose dies they are in big trouble. The conspiring powers that be, elitists, globalists, currency manipulators, tribal elders, handlers, smarmy types get their way again! :P
If we could only solve that "human nature" problem then all would be better.
An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said ok, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.
All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.
But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied
even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too;
so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away; no one will try or want to succeed.
They did a show on it Sunday and it was proven real without any doubts now.
-Rocky
I granted your request.
-Rocky
That is why I can never understand anyone who advocates socialism, unless they are one of Society's losers, and a permanent one at that...
anyone who wants the chance can try and maybe succeed, and it is the possibility of success that makes this system superior to anything else...anything that stifles the human spirit is inherently bad, because then everyone is a loser and there are no winners...
It is because of the winners that we advance, whether Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or others, as their success has had a beneficial effect on most of us...300,000 employees could not create a damn thing, but with one Henry Ford the car became affordable, that is why the entrepreneur is, to me, much more important than the labor...the labor can always be found because most people are not self-motivated, but w/o the Henry Ford all 300K of them are virtually nothing...
Capitalism will have losers, but how many winners were multiple losers until they found the right product or niche???...our system allows for the process to work, and only those who have no self respect are afraid of capitalism...it becomes a case of simple envy, where the loser does not want the winner to win...
We call it the lobster theory of life...lobsters in a bucket will drag the ones who are escaping back into the bucket, rather than allow them to expereince the freedom of being outside the bucket...I am always amazed at the people who will work hard to drag others down to their level with negative thoughts and actions, rather than use that same effort to try and succeed...sadly, many of those now populate our Society, as everyone throws rocks at the winners because they cannot stand to see someone do better than them...that is a waste of human potential, and those people should be removed...
I expect to succeed and I was raised to see the bright side...that does not mean negative things have never happened to me, but, philosophically, when one door closes (failure) another door always opens (possibility of success)...people who only see the closed door are people I avoid...
UAW people live with a closed door...I remember back in the 80s, when computers were coming into the Big 3, and they were trying to retrain many workers...it was appalling how many of them would literally sit there and whine "all I can do is tighten lug nuts" as though that was ALL they could do...talk about a limited mindset...get rid of those because that attitude could only bring others down...
That is why the UAW is doomed, because they are full of envious, limited thinkers whose outlook on life is that they are owed something and limited in everything else...getting away from that childish mindset was the best thing anyone could do...
Dump the UAW, dump the negativity, and let capitalism flourish...let there be fewer losers and more winners with an open mind and a positive attitude...
This nation will, in the long run, be better off with no UAW, and getting gov't out of our lives...may the best person win, and bring many others with them (think Microsoft, WalMart, etc)...
Is this some 21st Century stuff I have to learn, like email and text messaging???...ahhhhhrrrrrggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Rocky
P.S. I sent you a friends request thus that would require you to visit yours.
-Rocky
-Rocky
-Rocky
Wow have you got THAT all backwards! IBM Computers and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) used to be huge. Dell was nobody. Sears ruled the retail world. Walmart was a small town chain. Xerox literally OWNED the copier business. RICOH made pocket calculators. Pan Am and TWA were giants in the airline industry. Southwest and Virgin each owned a couple of planes.
Do I even need to mention that GM owned almost 50% of the largest richest car market in the world, and Honda made 50 cc motorcycles? Toyota's biggest cars would fit in the trunk of your Cadillac. There were giants in those days too and the small companies replaced them and became giants. Bill Gates was a college drop-out.
We need more government control and unionization to keep control of some of your capitalist buddies that already have too much power.
I can't stop laughing! If you're serious then you have to agree that there never should have BEEN a General Motors.
We also had Studebaker, Packard, etc that were smaller automobile companies that competed on a level playing field in those days. My point is these huge mult-national corporations have slowed the progress of technology. At least back in the early days the companies were paying 1st world wages and benefits and nobody had a huge advantage. How is an american based company suppose to compete with a Chinese based company??? The Chinese company in many cases is going to win because of the labor, enviromental advantages. :sick:
I can't stop laughing! If you're serious then you have to agree that there never should have BEEN a General Motors.
Laugh all you want but I personally don't think it's a laughing matter if GM goes under.
-Rocky
-Rocky
here's an interesting read:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/advice/2009-04-19-advice-inam- ori_N.htm
Some comments he makes are that he believes the US isn't interested in "nationalizing" companies, but just providing temp. relief. He thinks that the bailout monies for GM and Chrysler were "fair", as he believes other countries would do the same for their companies, and he doesn't see this crisis as a failure of capitalism, but of greed.
As for CEO compensation:
"Q: Sounds like you are a critic of high CEO compensation. Doesn't their pay reflect free-market forces?
A: A lot of Americans use that rationale. But there are only a handful of exceptional athletes who attract tens of thousands of fans, thus creating enormous revenue for the team. A star player who possesses that rare talent should receive an appropriately higher salary. It is the same for an actor who stars in a blockbuster film. It is different for the CEO of a company. Profits are created by the hard work and collaboration of the workers and other levels of management. For the top echelon to receive such high compensation, as if they alone were responsible for the profits, is unreasonable. We should possess the consideration and humility to provide all employees who work for the company with an appropriate share of the gains. That is lacking in today's capitalism or free-market economy, and its absence is responsible for the growing disparity, discrimination and injustice in society."
-Rocky