Posted on 11/16/2008 5:22:26 AM PST by gusopol3
The election results represent an exercise in poetic justice in that Barack Obama is inheriting a set of problems largely of his own ideology's making. The kicker is that the solutions likely to emerge based on that ideology make it all too likely that the problems will remain intractable.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
I know a guy who saw a union guy installing vinyl floor squares over sawdust and wood shavings. When the guy asked him why he was doing that, the response was, "I install flooring. I DON'T sweep floors."
Pretty good article, considering where it came from... :)
- John
Cause of Death: Stupidity.
“There is one other angle to the Amtrak boondoggle. Because of the unions, Amtrak is too expensive to survive on its own, the ticket prices would be much too high. A little nugget the unions included in the beginning to insure THEIR survival was that any employee fired or terminated for any reason would receive six years severance pay.”
Your mind truly is “numbed”.
NO employee fired from Amtrak gets 6 years’ pay. Not one. If you’re fired, you’re fired.
And very very few current employees would get 6 years’ severance if their routes were terminated. I wouldn’t.
Amtrak agreement employees (that’s unionized employees who work under a contract, for the mind-numbed) got their first real raise in 8 years (yes, EIGHT YEARS) last year, after a Presidential Emergency Board (appointed by none other than the president, G.W. Bush) recommended that the employees get 100% of the back pay owed to them for that time. The Board sided with the Company in that Amtrak employees now contribute toward their medical premiums, and the price of certain benefits increased many times over (for example, some monthly-maintenence prescription drug prices increased by a factor of SIX - from $5 to $30 per item).
Yes, most of the unionized employees there voted for Obama and HATE Bush, even though it was under his tenure, and at the behest of his P.E.B., that they received the biggest (and in some cases ONLY) raise of their careers. Go figure.
At least try to know some facts before you shoot off your mouth....
- John
We’re saying the same thing. And yes, GM like every business its size pays operational costs through short-term money. They don’t have a big checking account that gets a paycheck once a week for paying bills. It’s much much more dynamic than that.
My point was that GM has no credit crunch but has a cost problem unrelated to its credit lines.
Does this not say something re union folks mindset/attitude/mentality?
That’s easy, the American auto makers were making tanks, trucks, airplanes between 1942 and 1945 - yes Ford made B-24s. They were still making producs and earning income. You knew that didn’t you; I hope. There are no ‘43, ‘44, or ‘45 autos. They halted production of ‘42s early in the run.
if GM were allowed to declare bankruptcy they could pay off their suppliers X% on the dollar but have the right to renegotiate with the unions. That would save their pathetic company.
Preach it!!!
This needs to be said repeatedly.
this is like France and renault... monopoly of Labor always kills the Industry!!
has something to do with systemic risk.
...............
I just watched Karl Levin explain why we need to bailout the unions,er... excuse me GM. He forgot to mention unions. Levin also said we(the govt.) will have to have a bigger say in running the company once taxpayers are on the hook,as Marxism/socialism marches down the assembly line of GM plants where US car makers have a 75 per hour advantage over those elsewhere who only have top pay 45 per hour. Uhhh.,.. that is an advantage isn't it?
I do not know where you all live but my East Tennessee Dealer charges $45 for an oil change and flter. It is $8 more than an oil change place charges. I had a new key made for my ‘04 Taurus and got a new remote, it required cutting a key and reprogramming everything - $74. An acquaintance out west was quoted $1000. Y’all need to move.
My local dealer also charges competitive prices for replacement parts.
Don't worry they Unions only pick on no weak kneed types, you will never be on the list. They will look for companies that are ready to get along with the left or unions,code for giving in.
Exactly,the unions have grown so far left that they will literally bankrupt or downsize a company to nothing before giving up ridiculous demands.
Gosh, political support and political financing via unions supporting the liberal machine has NOTHING to do with it, does it? /s
Detroit Automakers a Relic of the Past
Michael Barone
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Barack Obama has noted, carefully and correctly, that we have only one president at a time. Yet on at least one issue he has taken the lead and nudged the man who will soon be his predecessor in a direction that he might not have taken without prompting.
It is an issue, moreover, that points up the tension between Obama’s appeal to young voters and his calls for creating a new America on the one hand and, on the other, policies that he backs which seem designed to freeze in place the America we have.
The issue is whether the federal government should bail out, with a capital injection the size of what would have been unthinkable four months ago, General Motors and perhaps the other two U.S.-based auto manufacturers, Ford and Chrysler.
As one born and raised in Detroit and its suburbs, who once lived next door to Big Three factory workers and later went to school with the children of Big Three executives, I have mixed feelings about this proposal. My native Michigan is ailing, with the highest unemployment in the nation, plummeting housing values and cascading foreclosures. Its economy, despite the efforts of two previous governors — Democrat Jim Blanchard and Republican John Engler — is dangerously dependent on what used to be called the Big Three and are now called the Detroit Three.
The bankruptcy of one or more of them would deeply impact the personal lives and dash the seemingly reasonable expectations of those who, directly or indirectly, have depended on them. I can’t help but think of these people when the issue is raised.
And yet the implications of a bailout are frightening. The Detroit Three were unprofitable well before the current financial crisis hit, and GM is reportedly hemorrhaging $1 billion a month. The huge cost of lavish employee and retiree health care benefits, negotiated with the United Auto Workers (UAW), makes it impossible for the companies to sell for a profit anything but the big cars and SUVs that, after gas prices hit $4 a gallon last spring, almost no one wants to buy.
No one in the private sector is willing to pony up a dime for this business plan. GM stock is below its 1946 price, and one investment house has priced it at zero.
The Detroit Three are taking advantage of the passage of the $700 billion financial bailout to argue that they, too, need government money to go on. But as Megan McArdle of The Atlantic argues, the finance firms are different. If credit coagulates, everyone suffers, while if the Detroit Three go bankrupt, their shareholders lose their stake, employee and retiree pay and benefits are cut, and real estate values go down in areas where the companies and their suppliers operate — but life for most of us goes on.
McArdle, native of a similarly bedraggled industrial area (Upstate New York) and an Obama supporter, further argues that the capital invested in keeping the hulk of the Detroit Three operating pretty much as they are, unprofitably, will not be available to those whose startups could morph into the Microsofts and FedExes of the future. We don’t know who today’s Bill Gateses and Fred Smiths are, but markets sure have a better chance of finding them than the federal government.
Obama’s presidential campaign was an entrepreneurial enterprise whose success owed much to harnessing individual initiative through an innovative management structure and creatively using emerging technology. The campaign, as well as the candidate, helped inspire under-30 voters, who preferred Obama by an unprecedented 66 percent to 32 percent margin — as opposed to his 50 percent to 49 percent margin in those 30 and over.
But keeping the Detroit Three in their present form, with their extravagant health care benefits and the union’s 5,000 pages of work rules, is an exercise in preserving in amber the America of the past.
And of course the Detroit Three will not be the last flagging enterprises to line up for government subsidy. Michigan is not the only state that has a talented congressional delegation capable of enlisting allies on relevant committees and from states with economic stakes in failing companies. Other unions, noting the UAW’s success in maintaining benefits, will be standing in line.
George W. Bush may well acquiesce in a Detroit Three bailout. GM could run out of cash over Christmastime (Big Three plants don’t operate between Christmas and New Year’s), well before Jan. 20. If so, I will feel happy for the respite provided my friends and relatives in Michigan. But I will wonder if in preserving the past we are giving up the chance to get to a better future.
I was kind of wanting to be first in line so I could make a national spectacle about it. I think it would have an impact on the rest of America to see a small business ‘FIGHTING’ against this crap. Because I mean we will physically throw them out in the street. I don’t care if I go to jail on assault charges, but it might let others have the courage to do the same.
You are right though, they will be going after bigger companies primarily to drag in bigger union dollars. The trouble is most of the bigger companies in my industry up north are already unionized. My company is big enough, and well known enough, to be subject to their attention. Frankly the unions know that their wages drive up costs for the company, and letting small shops be more competitive, cuts their throats in the long run. I am in a specialized industry and there aren’t many of us around for them to ignore me for very long. Many smaller shops have gone out of business in the last 6 months.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.