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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
...why they're fighting a package that leaves Detroit as ill-equipped to compete with their home-state factories' products as before
I think there are multiple players with different agendas here. The southern GOP senators may be getting manipulated by other people who can play a deeper strategy: Get the rednecks fired up and let them think they're kicking ass when they're really shooting themselves in the foot.
How much of your own paychecks are each of you willing to give up to make this happen?
Don't you think Corker and Colby'd be getting phone calls from the folks at Toyota and Nissan, advising them to let Congress leave GM's wages right where they are? The notion that someone's being manipulated just because they're not making sense...maybe. What do you see as the deeper strategy of those dark actors doing the manipulating?
Tom, are you sure about the foreign factories paying better than UAW? That's sure the first I've heard of that.
Precisely because it has the highest number of UAW jobs of all the states. It also has an insane tax policy, causing business to flee.
Timbuktom, German workers may make more money, but look at the perpetually high unemployment rates in the European socialist countries. If you're lucky enough to have a job, great. (Great if you like a 78% tax rate.) But if you're unlucky enough to not be able to land a job, tough nuts.
Germany has realized this is a problem and is gradually deregulating its industries, lowering the unemployement rate from around 11% (that's in good economic times) to about 7.5% in the last quarter, still way higher than U.S. rates.
Auto execs are certainly guilty of stupid decisions, but the bulk of Detroit's problems can be laid squarely at the feet of the UAW and their demands that make Big 3 cars uncompetitive.
Besides, they make crap cars. After years of owning Toyotas, I thought I'd give Detroit a chance again and bought a Jeep. I had to have the differential rebuilt twice in less than 60,000 miles. The transfer case is always leaking. Piece of crap. I"ll never buy a Detroit car again.
Convenient to blame Republicans, especially those who aren't going to be around in a month. Congress COULD pass this today and Bush would sign it tomorrow (he's been a Big Government tax and waster since he was governor of Texas).
Truth will out: the problem (doesn't everyone know this?) is that the Dems don't have 60 votes in the Senate. That means the Republicans will filibuster. That's their threat.
I know if feels good to spew, and spew, and spew, but your ignorance is offensive.
What do you see as the deeper strategy of those dark actors doing the manipulating?
There are plenty of people who would like to see unions reduced to insignificance or eliminated. Cheap overseas labor is nice, but shipping costs cut into profits, particularly when oil prices go crazy. Those overseas wages won't stay low forever when the standard of living is going up in the countries where the work is being sent. It might be nicer to have cheap labor here in the U.S., but unions often stand in the way.
What gets me is the blind assumption that granting this bailout will either stop job losses or create more jobs. When was the last time any large corporation created new jobs? The overt trend is always to merge and shed workforce. When was the. If allowed, Big Auto will swallow this drop in a bucket and beg for more before the Valentines Day. They will take these billions, cut another 20% of their workforce in the US, and continue to drag their feet on alternative fuel technology. CEO compensation is the biggest problem existing. Putting that much money into payroll expenses distorts thinking, and rationality flies out the window. It's not the unions that are breaking the Big Three, that's utter nonsense; it the CEO packages the sycophantic boards keep handing out. With the bailout billions they are contemplating, it would be cheaper for the government just to send a stimulus check of a quarter-million USD to every household. Now THAT"S a stimulus check. Stop giving the money to the corporate fat rats. Skip those sticky-fingered greedy middlemen and stimulate the economy by direct application of cash. EVERYBODY would be able to buy a new car, would stop worrying about surviving the winter/summer/spring/fall, could amend their funky mortgages to reasonable rates, could send their children on to college. People with money would BUY CARS from the corporations who would then sell the efficient models they already make for foreign markets and thereby help keep these same corporations afloat in a highly competitive global economy. They can boost production in their foreign plants (helping those local economies) while they retool here; they could send teams from the US plants (creating some good jobs) to those locations to observe and emulate this different business philosophy, building cars that get good gas mileage. Corporations would still have product on the market (keeping salesmen and repairmen employed), it would be a product the people want (generating high levels of customer interest and spawning heavy internet involvement), and as soon as they got retooled stateside (bunch of jobs there), hey presto, jobs galore!
And, they have great health care and pensions. At our middle level (my wife's and mine), we see German colleagues who have nifty new cars and six weeks of vacation, who cannot be fired, because of their country's laws and traditions. But they still make money for their companies, and they do a great job.
I will look up some www references for the factory workers.
I agree that the the "crisis" at hand is caused by the economic downturn. But the Big Three have been losing market share for years, in particular to domestic Japanese competitors. The whole point of the bailout is really just to tide them over through a 9-month recession, so they can start sucking again at a usual level and losing market share at their normal, gradual pace.
As for wage and benefit differentials, let me just say this. I live in the industrial midwest and have acquaintances in both union and non-union auto plants, as well as union and non-union steel, both foreign and domestic. The differences are really quite noticeable, and I'm certainly no polyanna for the Japanese. For one thing, the non-union and/or foreign work forces are by definition younger (thus, much less health and retiree benefits). The Japanese also are much more ruthless, in my observation, in cutting people out -- e.g., firing 61 year olds (whether in management or on the line) on pretextual reasons before they can collect full pensions.
The reason I compare this to the Goths and the Romans is that it is not at all clear that Japanese incursions will be good for the country, over the long term. But once they are here, and dominating the market, how are you going to stop it? Taxpayer subsidies for the losing business model? Some sort of internal tariff?
The only reason I'm advocating a steep step down for the UAW is that it is the least bad alternative. And note, the Republicans are not saying let's re-write the labor laws so management can break the union directly using all manner of tactics. Rather, they are simply saying: you've got to conform to the markets, or taxpayers shouldn't pay for it.
Finally, if you compare this to other bailouts, you see both justice and injustice at work. The Wall Street bailouts were strictly for the shareholder/pension/investor class crowd, not the working man. It is indeed an indictment of America's priorities that we pass without real debate 700 billion for investors but fight like gladiators over 15 billion for the workers. However, the point of the Wall Street deal -- I guess --was to effectively recapitalize shattered lending corporations (within existing shells, and existing shareholders) so the rest of America would have someone from whom to borrow. It's harder to see the greater public policy in the GM bailout. As I said before, subsidizing above-market wage and benefits is not good enough, at least for me.
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