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Rathagos' attitude is a perfect example of Tommy's Second Law of Wages----When I make good money it's good for the economy, when you make good money it causes inflation.
Tommy's First Law of Wages----I'm overworked and you're overpaid.
Tommy's Third Law of Wages----When I make good money it's a just reward, when you make good money it's greed.
Tommy's Law of Labor Relations-----What's good for me is good for you. What's good for you is bad for you.
Stop the competition. Irishtom has just posted the best post ever on C-D. I'm pretty sure he may have copied it from the Republican Party handbook though!
Walter Williams (whom I very much admire) has this comment on the unions - "A large part of the problem is the Big Three's cozy relationship with the United Auto Workers union (UAW). GM has a $73 hourly wage cost including benefits and overtime. Toyota has five major assembly plants in the U.S. Its hourly wage cost plus benefits is $48. It doesn't take rocket science to figure out which company will be at a competitive disadvantage." Bankruptcy?
Walter Williams (whom I very much admire) has this comment on the unions - "A large part of the problem is the Big Three's cozy relationship with the United Auto Workers union (UAW). GM has a $73 hourly wage cost including benefits and overtime. Toyota has five major assembly plants in the U.S. Its hourly wage cost plus benefits is $48. It doesn't take rocket science to figure out which company will be at a competitive disadvantage." Bankruptcy?
I too hope my link works...
A good argument for federal health care insurance and pensions. Also a good argument for unionization of the Toyota plants and driving up Toyota's costs.
GM has a $73 hourly wage cost including benefits and overtime
I know you were quoting an idiot, but at least YOU should know this number is not correct! It's kind of like saying that I receive $2,000/month in Social Security by counting my $1400 and adding in the $600 that my Dad receives. Actually I'm not quite old enough for SS, but you see my point, don't you?
Besides, I'm pretty sure you read my OP and its link and know that the other idiot, Mitt Romney used a bogus comparison between the Ford and Toyota, wherein the Ford actually has a LOWER price.
I've been looking at the GMC Acadia (it actually has several names among GMC, Chevrolet, Saturn and Buick) and I find it comparable to the Lexus RX (Mrs golfgod's current ride) in quality, but at a lower price. Not too sure we're ready to buy yet, the Lexus only has about 55K miles on it, but I'm pretty sure that GM will swing a deeper discount than Lexus will.
Again, going back to my OP, everyone gripes about the high cost of the "benefits" at GM, no one mentions the relatively higher cost of advertising the GM products over the foreign, and the bigger rebates. I saw an ad on TV last evening for a Cadillac Escalade that had a $12,000 REBATE on it. That's way more than the health care cost, or retiree benefits.
I am still not sure how to complete the "bail out" of Detroit. Something needs done, because there are just too many people effected by all of this.
Here is an article written by Ben Stein on Dec 9th: Bail Out Detroit - Now!
by Ben Stein
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Posted on Tuesday, December 9, 2008, 12:00AM
Usually this column is about finance. It usually is an attempt to help the reader make money and have a more comfortable life. I am well aware that I have made a lot of mistakes and that in the short run many of my suggestions have turned out badly. Believe me, I am sorry. I still believe that in the long run the investment ideas will do well, but I am terribly sad that people's hopes have been disappointed in the short run.
My best guess is that we are in a panic of sellers and market manipulators and that we will recover within a few years, but I base this on history. We may have moved into a new phase where history is irrelevant. I would be surprised if that were so, since it's never been true before, but one never knows.
However, today, let's talk about the American auto companies. They need a bailout from us taxpayers, and they have to get it yesterday. Here's why
First, we are on thin ice economically. To allow our largest heavy industrial component to fail at this delicate moment is suicidal. To put a couple of million more Americans into unemployment is just not sensible. Mr. Barack Obama is talking about public works projects to employ hundreds of thousands of Americans -bridge building, school building, airport building. These projects take time to start, disrupt local community life, and are famously wasteful.
Why not be smart about it and NOT LET AMERICANS GET UNEMPLOYED IN THE FIRST PLACE? (Please pardon the shouting.) There are millions of Americans already hard at work making great American made cars and trucks. Why not keep them on the job? Wouldn't that be smarter than allowing the whole upper Midwest to fall into oblivion and then rescue it over a fifty year period?
Second, I get sick when I hear about how this or that professor says we cannot have bailouts in a free market. Really? How about the bailouts the professors get because gifts to colleges are tax free? How about the bailout they get because if they have to teach six hours a week they feel overwhelmed, while the guy on the line in Dearborn works a grueling forty and doesn't whine about it?
Somehow, we can give bailouts to investment banks where the top dogs make hundreds of millions a year for running the company into the ditch and wrecking the whole credit picture in America. Somehow we can have bailouts for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose bosses were trading on the credit of the taxpayers to make themselves rich while pumping up a serious housing bubble.
Amazingly, we can have whole fleets of C-130's fly to remote areas of Iraq and Afghanistan with pallets of hundred dollar bills piled from floor to ceiling. Then we can pass them out to warlords who make tea for our soldiers one hour and blow their guts out the next. We can send CIA operatives into Somalia and give millions, maybe hundreds of millions, to warlords to fight other killers.
But we cannot find it in our hearts to save our fellow Americans in Ohio and Michigan and Indiana who make the cars and trucks that about half of us buy? We can send billions to Germany and Japan to bail them out after they bombed us and killed our POWs and killed six million Jews. But we cannot help the children and grandchildren of the men and women who fought our war and made us the arsenal of democracy?
Something is very wrong here.
And please don't tell me how GM and Ford and Chrysler have made bad cars that people don't want. I drive only American cars, only GM cars actually, and they are the best, coolest cars I have ever driven: my 1962 Red Corvette, my mighty Cadillacs whose potent engines and super brakes have saved my life many times on the freeway. Yes, the cool people in DC and New York don't drive American cars. But a lot of other good people do and we love them. And my Cadillac dealer down here in the desert, Jessup Motors, gives me a lot better service than my Mercedes, Porsche, BMW, Jaguar, or Acura dealers ever did. I would trust my life to Detroit iron any time.
And why are we so angry at the car companies' executives? They get miserable pay by Wall Street standards and have much harder jobs. Why are we so angry at the unions? They negotiated their deals in good faith. It's not their fault that roller coaster gasoline prices messed up their world. They are our brothers and sisters. They fight our wars. They maintain our middle class lives. Maybe they get paid a lot, but they have been giving back for years. When will it ever be enough? And what about the retirees? They get the benefits they were promised. If those can be taken away, then whose benefits are safe? And do you think it will be cheaper if the government takes on those costs directly?
Let's stop the Depression before it starts. Let's show some fairness and good faith to our own. Let's bail out the Big Three, help them slim down, shape up, and keep making great cars and trucks. The Big Three are us and if we cannot help ourselves, who can we help?
Rathagos' attitude is a perfect example of Tommy's Second Law of Wages----When I make good money it's good for the economy, when you make good money it causes inflation.
Wow... didn't know I had an "attitude" in my writing. I need to think more seriously of a job as a writer, I guess.
My point was that there's a cycle between CEO and Union greed. It reminds me of that old Dr. Seuss cartoon and book about the Sneetches. Some had stars on their chests and some didn't. Those that had stars thought and acted like they were better than those that didn't. So, someone invented a machine to put stars on chests. All those that didn't have stars, paid to have them put on. After a while, they all had stars and couldn't tell who was better than who. So, the original Sneetches who had stars paid the same person who made the first machine to build another to take their stars off. Then they all have them removed. Now there was a difference again - and, again, an air of superiority. Then all the Sneetches continued running through machine after machine until it was so mixed up they couldn't tell who the originals with stars were and who weren't. And there was one very rich guy sitting back smilling.
I see that analogy very fitting to the greed of Union bosses and corporate executives. Now they are finally done running through those machines and don't know who is who anymore, all they know is they blew all the money.
Don't misquote me or get me wrong. I think unions were very needed in an industry that was primarily focused on management earnings on the backs of individuals who received little to nothing for mostly their hard work. But, there are many companies today who hire on, have people do the work, provide benefits and pensions (or compensatory entitlements like 401k's), and don't have unions (I work for one).
Pointing fingers all day long at who's fault it is will waste more time than it's worth. The bottom line is to fix it, and point fingers later. Left or right? Union or management? Conservatives or Liberals? Does it matter? The problem exists and won't be fixed by throwing money at it (see the Sneetches above). Fixing the system is the first step, and if neither management nor the union is willing to make the necessary concessions, then let them fail. Not having a job is far worse an idea to me than less pay. But if they can't make that simple a decision, then how can we expect people to make the right ones in negotiations?
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