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Comments
It's an old slur too, but it made my point. Why let an employer hire 40 people at 20 hours a week and avoid all benefits, instead of hiring 30 at 32 hours with benefits or 20 full-timers? Make the employee expense pro-rata at least so you can eliminate that game.
Remember when the UAW used to call for a shorter work week? Those were the days. What's Wrong with a 30-Hour Work Week? (Zmag.org)
There's no free lunch (someone, most likely the taxpayer, is running that soup kitchen).
Because people's shopping patterns are not evenly spread throughout the day.
Same with restaurants. You just don't need as many waitresses at 2:30 in the afternoon as you need at noon. Additionally, if you've ever shopped during the Christmas season, you'll notice that there are more people shopping than there are in March.
The same is true is distribution centers that supply retail stores. Some days of the week and months of the year have heavier workloads than others depending on the ordering patterns of the stores. If you don't have a variably scheduled workforce, some days the folks are working overtime till midnight and other days they're mopping the floors of the warehouse to stay busy.
Now to bring this back to UAW: What happens to your company if you have to permanently staff employees with benefits for peak demand periods, and demand falls off sharply?
Is it better to have some people of a group unemployed, and others under employed but still have some working, or better to have everyone out of work?
Speaking of slurring? Where is it written that the UAW contract is a job for life? Lay-offs are fact in America, however, the concept of employee for life is to be tested at the transplants.
What happens to your company if you have to permanently staff employees with benefits for peak demand periods, and demand falls off sharply?
The misconception of the UAW holding on to indolent duffers jobs at auto plants is just as silly. There is a progressive disciplinary (three strike) clause in labor contracts. I've spoken to many teachers/educators who also have seen the results of progressive discipline over the years and wonder where this tenure based stereotypes came/comes from. Just you show me an employee who abuses the attendance system and you most certainly will see him or her lose their job, arbitration or no arbitation. It an insult to intelligent folks intelligence that these myths continue.
Most people give up just when they're about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown.
Ross Perot
They forgot our military families that get food stamps and other assistance. So who are the stupid people here? I say the the states that waste money on a myriad of welfare programs that encourage people to be lazy rather than get out and find a job. Even if it does not pay the big bucks like a UAW job. I am a firm believer in the No work, No eat adage.
Not sure your point. There are people that either do not want to work more than 20 hours per week or are incapable of working full time. WalMart hires people as you have to know that are examples of what welfare is for. Yet WalMart has given those people a chance to be a part of society. They also give people such as my daughter that worked for them part time just the hours they want. She would have stayed working for them except they kept pushing her to work more than the 4 hours per day 5 days a week while my grandson was in school. I'm with Lokki. WalMart gets negative press many times that is very biased and not telling the whole story.
In retrospect though, 1994 was probably a cake-walk compared to someone just entering the workforce today.
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.
Henry Ford
Again that is up to the individual. I have already posted some examples of part time jobs that are advantageous to the person working. In your idea of pro rating the benefits. How many part timers would be willing to pay half of a health care premium. When I retired my company was paying $1200 per month for my health care plan with the Teamsters. Many temps and part timers get more per hour than full time to compensate for the loss of benefits. Discount tire where I got a set of tires only hires College kids to do the shop work. They are young strong and have odd hours. This manager works with them to fit their hours to the school work. He pays them $9.50 to $10 per hour. Most do not stay after graduation. It is part time work that is a win win. Getting the Feds involved would probably destroy that avenue for college students. Besides who in their right mind would want to change tires for their whole career.
Oh, I forgot about the unskilled UAW worker.
Now they are picking my pocket, as a taxpayer. These Walmarts type concerns need to be taxed in a manner that these negative externalities are offset and not a burden to the taxpayer. Just as a polluter company would be obligated to clean its mess and not some super-fund from taxpayers. You have a social responsibility as a large corporation to be a good corporate neighbor.
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
Abraham Lincoln
So those failures you think are winners that just needed a bit more time? The HHR is a cheap copy of a cheap PT cruiser. The Solstice/Sky are beautiful sporty cars with poor reliability. I'm sure they were all just months from runaway success.
The Malibu was the first GM midsized sedan in a long time to at least be in the game. Not an all-star, but in the game.
And just what would you call the bailouts that are paybacks to the UAW? Looks to me like the little Walmart employees are getting is chump change to what GM and Chrysler is costing the tax payer.
Or maybe you would like to pay the Total cost to support the mentally challenged folks that WalMart has hired. How many of these individuals has your company hired? Many are barely able to function on their own. Yet WalMart has given them a little something to do. That has a very positive impact on many of their lives. We as tax payers should thank any company that lightens the tax burden that these people pose to society.
I'll bet that the inner cities would see a lot less graffiti if those on welfare were hungry and looking for food to eat. Less time for the gang bangers to screw around murdering and spray painting. Of course the powers that be in our corrupt government are conspiring to feed everybody to keep them from being really poor. This IS the country where even the poorest of people get fat. :mad:
After all, even the poor should get a living wage like the UAW so that they can have TVs and cars and golf courses. :P
I know it was obvious to you, but what in the world are you talking about?
Many part-timers have spouses who place them on their insurance plan for a moderate monthly premium...
Plus, don't forget the underlying concept...NOBODY is owed any health insurance, the companies offer them as a voluntary benefit...sure, you could argue that to attract decent full-timers, any company would be foolish NOT to offer group health, but there is no requirement...I'm just grateful that many companies do offer it at all, but I do not look upon it as an entitlement, and I am simply grateful that some companies offer it at (mostly) their expense, which obviously raises the monthly cost per employee...
And please don't tell me it is "deductible" by the employer...that means nothing...from a profitability standpoint, think how much companies could place on their bottom line if the employee portion of the premium was 100% and the employer paid nothing, except offering the discounted group rate as opposed to the individual rate...so, I am grateful that so many companies DO offer it...
One example I can think of, back from 2004 or so, may not be the same today...Waffle House...a server, from day 1 to day 365 is offered health insurance with a maximum payout of $2,000.00, just 2 thousand dollars...however, on day 366 and beyond (i.e for you liberals, that's starting their second year), they qualify for the full policy with a maximum lifetime payout of 2 million dollars, just like most corporate plans...
The commies here will whine at the lack of insurance, never stopping to think that Waffle House server turnover is probably over 100% every 3 months, there are always different people there every time, aong with a few old stalwarts...they obviously figure that anyone that stays over a years is serious, and qualifies for full benefits (I think profit sharing, too, but not sure), whereas anyone who leaves after 2 months, 6 months 8 months, was not worth giving them the extra benefits...is anyone here going to argue that someone who stays only 3 months and leaves is worth the same package as one who stays over a year???
Nobosy owes you anything except a days pay for a days work...anything else just be grateful that someone is willing to offer it, or else one has that same "UAW welfare entitlement mentality" that all the UAW whiners believe in...
Negative Externality
A negative externality occurs when an individual or firm making a decision does not have to pay the full cost of the decision. If a good has a negative externality, then the cost to society is greater than the cost consumer is paying for it. Since consumers make a decision based on where their marginal cost equals their marginal benefit, and since they don't take into account the cost of the negative externality, negative externalities result in market inefficiencies unless proper action is taken.
When a negative externality exists in an unregulated market, producers don't take responsibility for external costs that exist--these are passed on to society. Thus producers have lower marginal costs than they would otherwise have and the supply curve is effectively shifted down (to the right) of the supply curve that society faces. Because the supply curve is increased, more of the product is bought than the efficient amount--that is, too much of the product is produced and sold. Since marginal benefit is not equal to marginal cost, a deadweight welfare loss results.
http://economics.fundamentalfinance.com/negative-externality.php
Last year, health care lobbyists spent nearly a half-billion dollars wooing Congress– “an average of about $832,000 for each Senator and Representative.”
don't forget the underlying concept...NOBODY is owed any health insurance
“There is broad expert consensus that one-third to one-half of all health care expenditure is waste,”
“Talk privately with most health care professionals - physicians, hospital execs, health plan administrators, benefits managers, supply chain execs and there is reasonable agreement”
“America's largest corporations, the organizations that drive national policy through lobbying now, to galvanize to preserve the common interest. . . . What's needed is a national business coalition that collaboratively focuses on what's good public policy for the country - what's in our common short- and long-term interest. This is tough.”
Tough indeed, suggesting that the very corporations that have persuaded Congress to ignore “the common interest in favor of special interests now” get together to advise Congress on the public good.
Once again, “business leaders” to lobby for “the public good.”
One piece of evidence: the vote, earlier this month, on the Medicare bill, which surprised many observers. On this blog, Bob Laszewski called the landslide House vote, which went against the insurance industry.
If my predictions prove true, and Congress stands up to both insurers and drug-makers, this will, I think, set a precedent for meaningful national healthcare reform. The lobbyists do not own our government.
Obama and the forward thinking folks will see that Americas healthcare system is but a growing cancer. Corporate America and common folk have a common interest.
Both GM (The Big Three) and the UAW (Organized Labor) have been paying for the welfare of the healthcare system. Anyone can see that this is anything but a free market healthcare system. Its pathetic that the meekest folks are the ones to be accused of welfare entitlement mentality , all the while any sane and rational person, if given the information/education, could only conclude, that an ever growing healthcare industry would engulp the nation entire GNP in the near future.
Could you provide a link for this bit of data? It sounds like something one of the LIB bloggers would make up to get you excited.
Here are the facts on Lobby money.
Washington's largest lobby racks up another banner year on Capitol Hill
Washington, June 24, 2008 – Washington's largest lobby, the pharmaceutical industry, racked up another banner year on Capitol Hill in 2007, backed by a record $168 million lobbying effort, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of federal lobbying data. Among the industry's successes: getting two controversial laws extended and thwarting congressional efforts to restrict media ads for prescription drugs.
http://projects.publicintegrity.org/rx/report.aspx?aid=985
That is a far cry from your anonymous half a billion...Here is a bit more to refute your bogus claim.
Despite an overall decline in lobbyist spending this year, a USA TODAY review of disclosure reports found 20 of the largest health insurance and drug companies and their trade groups spent nearly $35 million in the first quarter of 2009, up more than $10 million from the same period last year.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2009-06-11-lobby_N.htm
Your turn to give us some more UAW spin on reality.
here is what the doctor ordered
http://www.thedoctorweighsin.com/journal/2008/7/17/is-meaningful-health-care-or-- any-other-kind-of-reform-possib.html
Isn't that kind of chump change when you take into account that Obama by himself received $744,900,000. Sounds like a lot of people will be wanting something for that money. Or is it only the contributors you like to despise that give expecting something in return. You don't think the UAW is getting something for the $50 million they contributed this last campaign. Or do Libs only give to achieve a higher purpose. :P
Take a long hard look at the chart below, taken from an April 15th report published by OpenSecrets, which tracks the impacts money has on politics and policy, put together by the Center for Responsive Politics. In 2007, the health care industry spent $445 million lobbying Congress, providing 16 percent of the total $2.8 billion spent to sway Congressional actions, more than any other economic sector for two years running.
Of course, there's nothing new here. For decades, the health care industry has leveraged its money and influence, shaping policy to its own ends.
“If [Medicare and Medicaid’s] costs continue growing at the same rate over the next four decades [as they have over the last four decades, at 2.5%/year higher than per capita GDP], federal spending on those two programs alone would rise from 4.5% of GDP today to about 20% by 2050. That amount would represent roughly the same share of the economy as the entire federal budget does today.”
You yourself speak of UNSUSTAINABILITY !!!
Let's say that is accurate for the sake of argument. And the USA Today is accurate which is claiming a large increase by the health industry the first 3 months of 2009. Was that not a campaign promise by Barack Obama that the lobby business was going to be shut down. Looks like it is alive and well.
As far as the UAW, you have not given any good argument that they are deserving of what they are paid by the domestic auto industry. They are overpaid under educated and unskilled workers for the most part. They can easily be replaced by one of your illegal immigrants you love to speak up for. Any time there are millions of people willing to take a job and have no problem doing the job, it has too high of a pay scale. When nobody wants the job you have to raise the anti to get people interested in doing what you need done.
In fact all your arguments are deflections away from the issue. I think that is because you know that the UAW is riding on very thin ice.
You yourself speak of UNSUSTAINABILITY !!!
Now you are seeing the light. Medicare as it is currently configured cannot keep going. That is exactly what Obama and the Dems are proposing a Medicare type health plan for everyone. They just don't know who will pay for it. Unless you got a few extra shekels to toss in. There are many places in the USA today that doctors will not accept Medicare patients. The reason is it is too hard to collect from the Federal Government. I know for a fact as a Doctor friend has stopped taking any Medicare patients. She is considering dropping the ones she has. And hers is a small country type practice. She fights getting paid by the HMOs and the Feds. She may go to a cash at the time of service only. Not worth the hassles. This is not an isolated case. This is what we all have to look forward to under a government run health care system.
Doctors Are Opting Out of Medicare
By JULIE CONNELLY
Published: April 1, 2009
EARLY this year, Barbara Plumb, a freelance editor and writer in New York who is on Medicare, received a disturbing letter. Her gynecologist informed her that she was opting out of Medicare. When Ms. Plumb asked her primary-care doctor to recommend another gynecologist who took Medicare, the doctor responded that she didn’t know any — and that if Ms. Plumb found one she liked, could she call and tell her the name?
Many people, just as they become eligible for Medicare, discover that the insurance rug has been pulled out from under them. Some doctors — often internists but also gastroenterologists, gynecologists, psychiatrists and other specialists — are no longer accepting Medicare, either because they have opted out of the insurance system or they are not accepting new patients with Medicare coverage. The doctors’ reasons: reimbursement rates are too low and paperwork too much of a hassle.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/business/retirementspecial/02health.html
All you proponents of Universal Health Care will find out just how poor health care can get under our corrupt Congress and President.
It is no wonder the UAW retirees are freaked out about going on Medicare. I am lucky being on the Kaiser Senior plan. They are one of the few well run inexpensive health providers in the USA. And they have hospitals everywhere I want to be.
Families who have a breadwinner and the other spouse can work and make extra money part-time at WM, thus not needing to go on welfare
Handicapped who can work at WM, thus not needing government aid
Greater profit of WalMart caused by efficiency, which means they pay more income taxes.
College kids who help fund their educations (jobs that would not be available part-time if full time with benefits were mandatory for all WM employees).
Etc.
It's not all negative. In fact it might be net positive.
Could make for a bit of friction.
But they can join together to ask why they are supporting all the UAW retirees.
Talk about externalities.
With the GM & C bankruptcy plan, VEBA will get a percentage of the companies. That means the health care is off the backs of the UAW workers. It is now the VEBA folks that have to figure out where the money will come from. They can always beg their benefactor in the White House to add more $billions to the fund.
positiveexternalitiesHow about all the mom and pop stores that have shut down, along with the jobs they provided. At best you have a wash.
Greater profit of WalMart caused by efficiency, which means they pay more income taxes.
Then we have to factor in the product which are made in China. A manufacturing employees are no longer paying tax on their income.
Face it Walmart is not creating jobs, they only close down the small business. I dare them to move it all overseas.
Market Retail Units Date of Entry
Mexico 1,232 November 1991
Puerto Rico 56 August 1992
Canada 312 November 1994
Brazil 347 May 1995
Argentina 29 August 1995
China (*) 252 August 1996
United Kingdom 360 July 1999
Japan 371 March 2002
Costa Rica 166 September 2005
El Salvador 76 September 2005
Guatemala 162 September 2005
Honduras 51 September 2005
Nicaragua 54 September 2005
Chile 216 January 2009
Been there, done that.
Regards,
OW
First, we have the worst obesity of any country because agribusiness and the fast, prepared and junk food industries have convinced Congress to provide concessions, ranging from corn subsidies to open-field running with advertising techniques that seduce our children.
Put warnings on all processed foods, just as we do tobacco and alcohol.
What's needed is a national business coalition that collaboratively focuses on what's good public policy for the country - what's in our common short- and long-term interest. It could both support democratic institutions and, equally important, place sanctions on rogue organizations, like Enron, that would hurt the system through excesses or very poor performance at public expense.
Some Unions such as the UAW are destructive and are now costing the US tax payer.
The other solution would require a new Congress, under new leadership, to resolve to rid itself of its lobbying cancer, and to do so in a way that is highly visible and publicized. There would be ferocious opposition from industry. Hence the need for visible, articulate leadership from key political and business leaders.
Like I said, both are improbable. But they're also key our ability to turn the nation around.
The writer of your article has an overall grasp of the problems the US faces with Health Care. The Federal Government is not well equipped to face the Health Care issues as long as they are being bought by special interest. That includes our Presidents past and present. Printing more money for grand Health Care plans, will only dilute the Dollar into obscurity.
As I recall the whole concept came from the airline industry during the 80s. Fact is that the Teamsters had many a contract with this same non-sense.
The two-tiered concept was born in the airline industry, said Thomas Krukowski, a Milwaukee labor attorney who represents management. In the 1970s, American Airlines, looking to cut costs, was one of the first companies to establish such a system, and the concept spread from there, he said.
"Two-tier wage systems violate the principle of equal pay for equal work, pit senior workers against new hires, have a corrosive effect on worker morale, damage productivity and create second-class citizens in the workplace," the UAW said. "For all of these reasons, they must be strongly resisted."
Wal-Mart Fails Miserable, Pulls Out of Germany
One Wal-Mart employee told the newsmagazine Der Spiegel that management had threatened to close certain stores if staff did not agree to work to working longer hours than their contracts foresaw and did not permit video surveillance of their work.
...
"We made mistakes," said Wal-Mart Germany's CEO David Wild... "Like, did you know that American pillowcases are a different size than German ones are?"
... Like, wouldn't that seem to be a detail that a multi-gazillion-dollar corporation wouldn't take for granted? And from Metafilter:
Wal-Mart also made the mistake of trying to get their German employees to take part in the Wal-Mart Cheer. German employees, apparently being more concerned about maintaining their personal dignity and less inclined to engage in public humiliation and self-abasement at the behest of their bosses, were reported to have hidden in the bathrooms to escape the ritual.
You mean the little shops that charged twice as much for any given item. I remember when they built a Yellow Front store in Lake Havasu. There was wailing and gnashing of teeth over the end of the Mom and Pop stores. Yellow Front went bust when K-Mart came in. Then WalMart shot K-Mart in the butt. Who will be next? They all sell the same Chinese junk. If we still made good products who would buy them? Only a handful of US purist old fogies.
Better look at this Congress. They have mandated the demise of the Union Light bulb workers. No more incandescent lights as of 2012. You have to use CFLs that are NOT made in the USA because of EPA regulations. I got that straight from the horses mouth at Lamps of America. The last company trying to buck EPA regulations for handling mercury. A must have element in CFL bulbs. Same Congress just started buying Chinese Condoms for the military, putting another US company out of business. More government is the problem not the answer.
This is nothing new. More than a hundred years ago - long before Walmart was born - department stores (or "chain stores", as they were called then) were squeezing out the little guys. You can't blame Walmart for this. It's a story that's as old as retailing.
Anyway, small stores that are well run - that focus on what their customers want & identify profitable niches - can not only survive but thrive in the shadow of Walmart.
Interesting, but I'm not sure that you can draw any sweeping conclusions about Walmart from this. The truth is that stores that are successful in one country can rarely duplicate their success in other countries. It's the nature of the business. Retailing is a viciously competitive industry, & the advantage usually goes to the locals, who have a detailed understanding of their customers. More often than not, outsiders fall flat on their faces.
So what the UAW leaders say, and what they do are opposing each other. Face it, they have a featherbedding society within the UAW. The last contracts have all been favoring the inner circle of old timers still on the job. The UAW took the position it is better to screw the new hires than mess with the older workers. Workers that for decades were over paid and destroying the auto industry every time they went on strike. I still go back to 1998. GM should have chained the gates and said enough is enough. You are all over paid and it is time to bust the UAW. Upper management at GM had no integrity so they continued the down hill slide caused by poor management and over bearing Union thugs. Guys like Wagoner sucking out big salaries till the money was all gone. Wagoner should have been tossed in jail not given a golden parachute by Obama.
Now the tax payers are going to continue to prop up a failed business model. I think Chrysler has a better chance if they rid themselves of all UAW factories and just import cars & trucks from Fiat and Tata. Just use the Chrysler dealer network. That is all that has any value.
A lot of those little Mom and Pop stores were also run as a side business, and not as a sole source of income. My grandmother's Aunt Carrie and Uncle Luther used to run one. However, Uncle Luther also worked for the gov't as a carpenter, and I think Aunt Carrie would mind the store while he was at work. I don't know when, exactly, they finally shut the store down. Sometime in the 40's, after WWII I think. The building is still standing...it's a house now and where I live. Nobody around here who was alive then can really remember exactly when it shut down, though.
Those were also simpler times. Many of those little stores were probably built by the owners, on the land that had been in the family for generations, so it's not like they had a lot of costs in construction, or rent. Taxes were low back then, at least around here. I found an old property tax bill from 1961 for the whopping sum of $200. Last year, I think I paid around $3200...and that's cheap for this area! Utilities were almost non-existent. Water from the well, whatever little electricity got used in that pre-a/c world, and a wood burning stove (coal burning in later years)
Shutting down Mom & Pop (M&P) stores was the greatest thing since sliced bread...I am amazed at those who think that M&P have some kind of "holy right" to own a store and rape the patrons, just because they look like Wilford Brimley and (pick a sympathethic old woman)...
They charge the highest prices for the same stuff sold at bigger stores...do you shop at a supermarket???...because of the greater choice or cheaper prices???...I don't care, because the supermarket is much better than Mom's general store ( this does not count the little farmer roadside stands, but they only sell a few items from their farms)...
I wrote previously that I needed u-shaped bulbs for my office...M&P sold them for $16.50, Home Depot sold them for $5.50...would YOU spend $165.00 for 10 of them when the same 10 cost $55.00 from HD???...don't even BEGIN to tell me you would spend $165.00, because you would stand in line for an hour to save the $110.00 at Home Depot...Mom and Pop have raped us for years, and better business methods have put them out of business...good riddance...
You only see the one side of "sentimentality" in losing M&P, dallasdude, you apparently conveniently ignore the true economic benefit of the opposite side...I saved $110.00 on 10 bulbs, so I could take my wife out to dinner, patronize the local restauranteur, add income to the server by having money to tip them, maybe get an extra tank of gas for "free" by not paying that money to M&P...
Oh, the bulbs from Home Depot were nice and clean and shiny...the one fron M&P had an inch of dust...I didn't see you volunteeriing to come to my office to clean them...
Get off this Mom & Pop kick...they belong with buggy whip makers, wagon wheel makers, and the United Auto Workers, all relics from the past that deserve to die...quickly...
They were useful in their day, and their day is GONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here is an excerpt and the link to the full article.
The union imperative is to protect as many jobs as possible, regardless of cost.
Paul Ingrassia, former Detroit bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, writes that Ford once sent a team of welding experts to a factory to provide tips on how to boost efficiency. But the initiative went nowhere because the plant’s union leaders refused to meet with the team; the union feared efficiency moves would lead to layoffs.
An auto worker I know writes that at his plant, he has been told often to “slow down.” An electrician can’t fix a water leak, even if it might take only a few seconds with a screwdriver. Instead, a pipefitter must be summoned. If too many people become too efficient, the company might not need as many employees.
That kind of workplace culture might have been viable in the 1970s, when the UAW had a de facto labor monopoly in the U.S. auto market. But not after the arrival of Toyota and Honda and others — companies that operate in largely non-union plants.
Some of the industry’s costs have been rolled back by recent amendments to the labor agreement. The UAW agreed to a wage freeze and cuts in retirement benefits, and pledged not to strike. No cuts were imposed in hourly pay, but work rules and job classifications were simplified. Chrysler and GM should emerge from bankruptcy with spruced-up balance sheets.
We’ll learn soon enough whether the overhaul was thorough enough to ensure the companies’ future. In the process, we’ll also learn whether the UAW — which will own hefty portions of both companies — can moderate its traditional goal of preserving jobs no matter what, and show greater acceptance of profit-boosting efficiencies.
If the union can do that, the remaining jobs will be more secure. Past isn’t necessarily prologue: The UAW may have played a role in Detroit’s decline, but now it has an opportunity to play a role in its potential comeback.
UAW can play role in automakers’ revival, or demise
Regards,
OW
My 13 yrs with a privately owned 3 plant operation, Michigan, Illinois, and Milwaukee, 70% automotive product line with 2 plants UAW..Surprisingly my Michigan plant was the smallest with 100 employees, and the most profitable..Great product pricing and a very simple labor contract which did not require any "legal eagles" to enforce or interpert..My long standing view of the legal profession is their ability to "run the clock" and "agree to disagree"..Just finished a "foreclosure" in Michigan, lien is good for 10 yrs., simple case, took 108 hrs of legal fees..Big bucks!!!!
Chrysler is a real mess and Fiat, maker of pure junk, will be the receipent of our tax $$$$s, that is a crime...GM is screwed to the wall with a bunch of lackies, and political hacks milking the taxpayers for billions which will get funneled back to the Democrats to perpetuate the money trail to keep their cronies in power..
We have a very committed anti-free enterprise, anti-American,and anti-freedom group of elected officals running the show in Washington..Our military strength will slowly disappear with our manufacturing decline, this will be evident by the 2010 election and by the 2012 our military will assume the role of keeping our general population in hand.. The current military budget is needed to fund the "social programs" such as health care, welfare, unemployment, and the doubling of our government.
Yep!!!! I am an old fogie, been there and done that..It was a ball, lots of freedom and many choices, opportunities galore, and don't forget, "elections have consequences"... Maybe you will care the next time you vote..
September 16, 2008 was a day that the financial markets exploded, and nobody said anything, except,all at once the FDIC was insuring our bank accounts to 250,000..to stop a run on withdrawing $$$ from the banks..It started overseas with some 20 institutions involved..Obama's buddies and the IMF..It sank the "Reserve", taking until mid-January 2009 to disperse funds in Money market federal funds account. On 9/15/08 there was a flight to treasury funds and the Reserve ran out of cash, been there and had it happen..
This was a planned panic by the power brokers to start the economic downside before Nov. election and back to the left-wing mantra, "it's all about the economy, stupid". Sound familiar????
If the opposition doesn't like it, they are free to do something about it. But they didn't seem to be able to produce viable competition, last fall or now. Funny how those bitter over November are unable to put up or shut up when it comes to an alternative.
"Democrats to perpetuate the money trail to keep their cronies in power.. "
Like starting a war based on lies and false pretenses for the sole benefit of military contractors?
Remember, if you complain about the economy, you are a "whiner".
And remember who got the modern globalization ball rolling...it wasn't the aimless donkeys...
It's amazing how your UAW plant did a good job. I thought from all the smears here that every UAW member was evil, lazy, etc., and only good to be a floor sweeper.
As for the 108 hours of legal profession... the joke about St. Peter at the Pearly Gates finding an attorney complaining he was only43 but had been chosen for "his time to die." St. Peter said, "Based on your billing hours, we thought you were 83."
The legal profession infiltrates the state governments and sets up the rules to mandate everything be done by attorneys that could be done by an individual to guarantee jobs for life. The legal.zoom websites must be giving them fits.
The comparison with UAW members comes to mind: are some attorneys just floor sweepers at $350 bucks per hour while a few are actually worth their salt as are a few UAW members or are most UAW members (and attorneys) worthwhile folk and a few of them and the leadership tainted?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
My first exposure to the Union mentality was the spouse of a coworker. She told me that her husband (an accountant) could not carry a 3 inch stack of computer printouts to another floor in the building. A union person had to be called or a union grievance would be filed. Carrying that paper would endanger the union job. That's when I first realized how stupid and damaging the union environment was to this country.
It must have been the POWERS THAT BE! :P
Are you saying two wrongs make a right? Or are you just flinging the argument to another profession?
I would suggest that NOBODY can define the myriad interactions that a company like Walmart has on the economy. Jobs are created and destroyed. Products are made overseas. Taxes are paid due to high profitability. Some employees are paid low with no benefits, but other college students are able to finish degrees with part-time jobs and then be very productive members of society. Mom and Pop fail due to WM and then start a different business that may be more successful, or they become productive employees elsewhere.
ANYBODY who thinks they can predict all of that is kidding themselves. So why not move on and let's figure out what the UAW should be doing to help save the US auto industry? Nobody is going to change globalism or where the world is going. So should we whine or get competitive?
I think there's a difference though. Lawyers tend to eat their young and their weak. The bad lawyers aren't pulling $350 per hour. At least, not on a consistent basis. Heck, one of my friends used to work part time for a lawyer, but lost that job when the guy went bankrupt. His specialty? Bankruptcy! :P
You should also keep in mind that (1) almost all of the retailing giants began as tiny single-store operations - Walmart started life as a mom & pop variety store in the boonies - & (2) the smartest, shrewdest mom & pop merchants always find a way to survive & make money.