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We've always wondered how the US would fall, I suppose this is how it goes. A slow decaying decline. I don't think workers all complaining and wanting more is the way to future prosperity.
Its one thing to say folks just are satisfied with low paying, no benefit jobs and living off the gub-ment, but quite another thing for people to just give up trying, because they don't see any reasonably-attainable path to a better existence.
There's a reason that inner-city ghetto kids continue to perpetuate the continuous cycle of high unemployment, alcohol and drug use, etc.
RE: WAGES --- if you want to say that the social safety net "discourages those knocked down from getting up again for another beating", then yeah, I'd agree that was a fair statement.
The one thing that I found surprising was that most of the inhabitants were previously employed in long-term jobs, and quite a few had owned homes/cars.
The common theme on these folks was that a major event had happened to them... Major illness, death of a supporting spouse, etc.
None of the people profiled even came close to meeting the definition of a "dead-beat" leech, just looking for handouts.
Oh, that is SOOOO close to the truth that it hurts.
Edit: A recently seen bumper sticker:
South Carolina: We're not all nuts yet, but we're working really hard to get there.
Things like unions, pensions, insurance, all are hedges against this, but certainly not a firewall.
You can be self-made, possess a "no public assistance purity", be a vet, a good citizen and BAM! still be knocked down in a minute.
Safety nets are good things to have in place.
You can be self-made, possess a "no public assistance purity", be a vet, a good citizen and BAM! still be knocked down in a minute.
Safety nets are good things to have in place.
What you are saying may be good. Is it right and is it making US a better country? I can still remember well in the early 1950s living in Portland OR and going hungry except for the food people in the church gave us. My dad worked full time at Nabisco, went to college and he sold Fuller Brushes and Rexair vacuum cleaners on the weekends. Life was not easy. But I learned you have to make it or starve. Now you can hang out at the beach all day and Pappa Big Bucks will make sure you don't starve. Welfare weakens people and enslaves them to the society. Not a good thing in my opinion. Looking back at my 1965 check stub from Pac Bell, I was making under $100 per week. Paying $17 in taxes, $7.42 medical and saving $12.20. I was supporting a wife going to college at the time. I would bet that would be considered near poverty today with all the perks that accompany that stigma. In 2013 dollars it is what people here in CA are getting for unemployment, in the Obama two year vacation package.
While no doubt there are some that do exactly that, none of the folks interviewed in the tent-city series were "enjoying" that lifestyle. It is no "day at the beach" for them.
The real problem that I see is so many people in difficult situations being painted with a broad brush.
And, IMO, all of the alleged "socialistic" measures in Europe that were put into place since WWII seem to have been pretty effective at averting any large-scale military exercise since 1945. So, in that regard, it wasn't all bad.
The US is the country where even the poor people are fat.
I think the thing that would make the US successful is to have the highest percentage of productive versus unproductive people. It's too bad our laws and policies can't look at that big picture. What I would call "distortions" are what is taking this country down. IMHO "distortions" are things like:
- obscene salaries of top management
- high fractions of the workforce getting government money rather than providing it
- creation of work that doesn't really add to our global competitiveness, but more rearranges the wealth (many of the government workers, insurance companies, many of the lawyers and financial professionals, etc.)
You take a population and then start whacking off the unproductive parts - government, lawyers, financial crooks, the entire income tax system overhead, the medical overhead (both public and private), etc., and then what do you have left? Perhaps 25% of the workforce doing things like making products, doing research, enabling tourism, providing important services such as transportation, delivery, etc., producing food, etc.
That's not a lot of the workforce doing truly productive things. That's why the US is declining. The high overhead is eating up most of our value.
When it was paid for by the employer's it was not welfare. When Obama extended it to two years with tax payer's money it became another welfare program. I know people on that welfare program today that are not interested in looking for a regular job. At least not until close to when the two years is up.
It looks like as of Dec 28th in CA we are back to the normal 26 week benefit. In CA alone the UI extensions have cost the tax payers $37.7 billion.
Well, unless Boeing already had a two-tiered pension plan, the change to the 401K plan would affect all workers, not just older ones. Older workers would not lose any defined benefits they had accumulated up to the time of the changeover - they just would not accrue any additional benefits.
FWIW, my company has changed the pension plan several times since I have worked there. They went through several versions of a defined benefit plan, changed over to a parallel defined benefit/defined contribution plan (cash balance) that ran from 2003-2008, and went to all cash balance for existing workers in 2008. New workers get no pension at all, only a sweetened 401K company match.
When they terminated the defined benefit plan in 2008, I still get the benefit I had accrued up to that point in time. I also have been accruing benefits under the cash balance plan.
If the company had maintained the plan the exact way it was when I started, I would have been able to retire with approximately $1,500/month more in pension than what I will now get. Each change resulted in a ratcheting down of my future retirement benefit, though I never loss any of the benefits I had accrued.
We also have a 401K for all workers, company match is 50% of the first 6% on an employee's contribution (except for those new hires I mentioned earlier).
In retirement, there is no COLA or any other type of automatic increases.
Given what's happened to other defined benefit plans (think GM or Beth Steel), I'm not sure the workers at Boeing made the right decision, given the fact tha 20,000 or so jobs were at stake.
Its all the UAW's Fault... hehehe
PS
Just got a letter from our Teamster Pension Trust. They are changing their rule of 80 where your age and service equals 80 and you can retire without penalty. That is now the Rule of 85. They are trying to keep the plan from going critical as it did a couple years ago.
Boeing is already doing what the D3 and many other companies have done. There is no way a public company can be responsible to its shareholders and allow unions to continue to hold the business hostage. Risk reductions include locating work to RTW states or out of the country. Those in unions who managed to time it correctly get great retirements, but in a competitive world with too many humans, it is unsustainable.
We never had anything like that. Earliest you could retire was age 58, no matter how many years you had worked for the company, and you took a significant hit to your defined benefit monthly benefit if you did that, which was always based on retiring at age 65.
pensions without all the health care bennies might have been sustainable.
As for moving significant production overseas, I don't think that's going to happen. Airbus is having to set up a plant here to expand North American sales and the commonality military programs for these aircraft and their derivatives generally require "buy American" provisions which require majority North American content and labor on top of security provisions. You'd initially think big deal they sell way more commercial aircraft. But those military derivative sales aren't small and absorb a big chunk of development and overhead costs helping Boeing price compete with Airbus.
pensions without all the health care bennies might have been sustainable.
Agree with you on both counts.
It's easy to make promises if the consequences aren't felt for 30 years. Too easy to kick the can down the road and by the time things go south you are feeble or dead anyway. That's been done for a long time both in business and in government. The problem is that the days of reckoning are upon us. I suspect it will get a lot worse before it gets better.
With the rise of credit and the lack of discipline, it's easy to see why neither companies nor unions nor countries can maintain their standards of living for a long time.
Truman really pushed universal HC his second term. Could not get it past the GOP controlled Congress. The big question, would we be as advanced in the medical field if it was controlled by the Federal Government? Right today my doctor at Kaiser has 67% of his charges for me to MC refused. I don't think we can keep cutting costs and get the same level of care. The Feds owe many states $billions of unpaid Medicaid services. My payment for MC has gone up several times. Our co-pays go up every year to Kaiser. I am not complaining with what I pay. I just hope the Feds don't force more doctors to refuse taking MC and Medicaid patients. Many already have.
They also have the same union issues as Seattle.
Boeing built the 787 plant in SC pretty darn fast - ground broke in Nov 2009 and first 787 was delivered in October 2012 - under 3 years. The 777X is not scheduled to enter service for seven more years. Plenty of time to choose SC for the new aircraft assembly, in a RTW state. Boeing also just bought almost 300 additional acres adjacent to the airport, so plenty of room for expansion.
If Boeing does start the 777X production in WA, I predict that they'll also create another site that can do it as well. It's a risk mitigation move, just like on the 787.
UAW Local 651 President Art Reyes said he feels like this marks the end of Delphi’s manufacturing presence in America.
“Unfortunately, there is no more Delphi (in Michigan). There’s still the engineering facility down there on Crooks Road (in Troy), but Delphi will not have any further responsibility in (Michigan) for hourly employees,” Reyes said.
http://laborunionreport.com/2013/11/02/the-contagion-continues-uaw-says-goodbye-- as-delphi-manufacturing-leaves-michigan/
Maybe that info came from the machinist's union.
Long Beach must have short memories - they are begging Boeing to come back south.
"In 2012, union members accounted for 16.6 percent of wage and salary workers in Michigan compared with 17.5 percent in 2011." (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
2013 numbers won't be out for a few months but the trend is clear. We're likely to follow Wisconsin's stats. (NY Times)
Rocky has a job he likes that pays about as much as the UAW jobs. Doing machine work in a non union shop. I think most expansion in the auto industry will be NON UAW.
http://www.mlive.com/business/mid-michigan/index.ssf/2013/11/delphi_flint_east_p- roduction_p.html?goback=.gde_2128301_member_5802232454089564160#!
I think Boeing has a bad rep in Long Beach. They bought out McDonnell Douglas and then pretty much buried the name and their planes. The DC9 that became the 717 was for me as a million mile flier the best airplane since the Boeing 727. I probably have half a million miles in the 737 and hate it. Another company like GM I would not shed a tear if they went belly up. No friend of the American workers. Worst part is Airbus builds some crap planes as well. Another good reason not to fly. Who wants to fly in a plane built by disgruntled workers. Ask Luvmysephia about Boeing.
gagrice remembers my Boeing rants on here...there have been many. I guess I shouldn't complain - Boeing did give my a severance check (several thousand dollars) after laying me off for the 2nd time in May 2003. I guess I should also happy that I will receive a pension from Boeing. Only I thought the earliest payout time possible was age 62, not 58. That sounds like it's from another union. I am planning on an age 62 payout - though if I waited until I was 65 I'd get about $800 dollars more a month. Since I haven't turned any paperwork in yet I might re-consider.
I'm running along OK in the Allied Healthcare field these days - I'm a Sleep Tech in training - they're telling me I should be "signed-off" by the end of 2013. That means I will be able ta work independently. Good news! But I'm now 54 and I feel I'll be ready ta get off of this roller coaster by age 62 and start collecting whatever SS check might be left and my Boeing monthly retirement pension check. Live out a good life down here in some selected spot in the country or what will probably more than likely be right here in Alamogordo, NM, or a small town around here like Tularosa, Alto, Capitan or a beautiful mountain town called Ruidoso that a lot of Texans come and retire at.
My question ta you guys is this: could Boeing be theirselves and burn us out of our retirement pay? I was a member of SPEEA - Seattle Professional Engineering Employees Association Union. To be honest, back in Willcox, AZ, one day in 2008 on a day off from work at that small hospital I started planning retirement things and called up the Retirement office at Boeing. They gave me a payout estimate about 4 times higher than I thought I was going to get. Had my SPEEA Union brethren won everyone some more payout in benefits in a walkout that I missed? Or, was this just written in to a new contract they had both agreed upon? Don't know...I really perked up my retirement ears to that new amount, though. Could Boeing cancel or sharply reduce my retirement benefits during a raspberry jelly donut and Starbuck's party at Boeing one cost-cutting day? Or isn't that illegal?
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
One interesting alternative to unions we are seeing more of, is the worker-owned collective, such as say the very successful Alvarado St. Bakery.
I don't know if this could possibly scale up to the automaker level, however.
I am thinking that since I am gone from Boeing and in another field and this union deal was made back in prior years that those agreements are signed on and done. And they can't be changed or altered. Here is where we need our Atlanta lawyer Edmunds member marsha7 to chime in. But I think that the pension amounts agreed upon then in 2003 (current contract terms) and in later agreements since then are the agreed-upon amounts that legally have ta be paid out. I'm just trying to plan a retirement out for myself, nothing covert or anything.
And Shifty, I can't be in SPEEA now, can I? I am out of the aerospace field entirely and in the Allied Healthcare field. I'm talkin' about as far as being protected and covered from their (Boeing) potential shadiness in business dealings.
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"If 500 guys in business suits say it's legal, then it's legal".
ROTFLMBO!
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The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) is a federal law that sets minimum standards for pension plans in private industry. ERISA does not require any employer to establish a pension plan. It only requires that those who establish plans must meet certain minimum standards. The law generally does not specify how much money a participant must be paid as a benefit. ERISA requires plans to regularly provide participants with information about the plan including information about plan features and funding; sets minimum standards for participation, vesting, benefit accrual and funding; requires accountability of plan fiduciaries; and gives participants the right to sue for benefits and breaches of fiduciary duty.
ERISA also guarantees payment of certain benefits through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a federally chartered corporation, if a defined plan is terminated.
I'm sure there are plenty of emaciated starving people in Africa and elsewhere who would love to have that problem.
Boeing wants to move from pension plans to 401Ks for newer union workers (not existing). They also want to cap the growth of HC costs for retirement and have the union pay a bigger share. Boeing's offers are still well above the national averages for both areas. They are still offering retirement HC. The IAM union thinks Boeing can't live without them and is bluffing, so they voted 2:1 against the proposal! Speculation is that Boeing with that kind of a vote will definitely not start 777x production in WA. Most likely Charleston or perhaps Huntsville AL. And the Japanese have offered to make the composite wings for Boeing, which now seems very likely.
The difference between Boeing and GM is that Boeing is actively going to fight the union by moving. The D3 just bent over and look where it got them. Boeing doesn't appear to be so dumb.
If some poor fellow was in the auto industry and the company moved to Mexico because NAFTA made it more profitable. Well we have some responsibility in those rare cases. In the case where a person was making good money and mortgaged themselves to the limit. I don't feel we should be supporting them when the bottom falls out. Welfare should not offer a better standard of living than a person struggling at a low paying job.
Mitsubishi is the maker of those 777X wings, too, BTW. I would bet money that Mitsubishi would make the wings properly. I guess you couldn't blame Boeing if the subs they have now can't make the sub-assemblies correct, they need excellent quality work done.
gagrice...I honestly don't know if our Boeing pension plan is owned by Boeing or by the Union. I'll have to research it. Shouldn't be tough to find out. I still think that, especially if Boeing owns and controls the pension plans, they are indeed responsible for paying out all agreed-upon benefits from the pool of funds. And they can't by law alter that agreement. If SPEEA runs it, perhaps there could be a problem down the road?
Of course, an unlikely Boeing bankruptcy could severely affect pension payouts. As much as I get sick of how Boeing treats individuals - including myself, I don't have any reason to think they won't pay out on all agreed-upon pensions, I am just thinking about how things seem to go now and then.
And raspberry jelly donuts, Starbuck's coffee and people in grey suits. And those silly lawyers.
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Worn out liberal Cliches' and Buzz-Words do NOT address the unsustainable road the US is headed down.
We needed leadership in 2008 like FDR. With all his faults FDR was not afraid to go against his base to get the job done. Those $billions wasted in the stimulus could have supported a program like the WPA. That Works Program put over 3 million people to work. And paid them less than we wasted on welfare and extended unemployment benefits. The wages paid in 1935-1940 would be about $325 a month in 2013 dollars. Ooops, that won't fly with unions like the SEIU and UAW. Well I say let the Unions pay the cost of welfare then.
In traveling the backroads of the USA I see beautiful buildings that were built by REAL Craftsmen making $19-$30 per month plus beans and a tent. Without leadership to say you want to work or starve, we will continue down the current road to ruin.
Here is a good example of what Americans in the 1930s built. This beautiful Fish Hatchery in the Sierras.
"Southern politicians say they fear a successful UAW organization of the Volkswagen plant would hurt the region's ability to attract future investment, and that it could lead to the spread of organized labor to other foreign car makers.
But labor leaders like Bernd Osterloh, head of the Volkswagen's global works councils and a member of the company's supervisory board, stress that the Chattanooga plant is alone among major Volkswagen facilities around the world in that it does not have formal worker representation."
US union vote won't affect VW plans (Arizona Daily Star)
I know you are joking of course. The money spent on infrastructure to date is 3% to 7% of the $787 billion. Depending on who's lies you believe. Most of the stimulus was welfare handouts buying votes for the next go around. Much of the stimulus allocated for infrastructure is waiting for projects to spend it on. Such as the $8 billion set aside for High Speed Rail. Which is all but dead.
Interestingly enough many of the jobs in CA were given to Union Contractors. They in turn handed them to minority contractors. And on down to the illegals that actually did the few projects here in So CA. So the tax payers paid some fat cat Davis Bacon wages and the workers were lucky to get a fraction of the money spent. The only Stimulus project done near me was using a rag tag bunch of men, with no safety gear like hard hats or bright reflective vests. Dump trucks without license plates. But we had a big sign saying looky here what Obama is doing for your area.
If the unions managed to take over the automakers in the south, and if they were militant enough, you would see a long term trend of those jobs leaving the country. It's a math problem for a corporation. When the cost of the union becomes greater than the cost of production offshore with re-importation, then away those jobs go...