Time To Bail Out

Correction: None of this money has been handed over, much less allocated. Congress awarded the authority but didn’t clearly define the terms. Inside at least one of the car companies they’re still trying to figure out how to write the paperwork for the applications because the DOE rules are such a confused and contradictory mess.

As for your assertion that people won’t buy their green products, the Chevy Malibu hybrid sells just fine, selling above the price of its heavily subsidized Japanese competition.

Last I heard, Nancy Pelosi was still flying around, at our expense, on a 747.

Good Morning RRRA. Great post. Can you or anyone else explain why/how is it that Nancy Pelosi can take bankruptcy off the table? How did this woman get like this? It sounds like there are still some independent thinking Dems in DC, but will Nancy and her band of thugs (Dodd, Schumer, Reid, Frank) beat them into submission?

The unions and management deserve the predicament they’re in. No tears here – astonishment yes, tears no.

GM has too many fuddie duddie cars, too many line of cars, making too little cash for their high price cars with low mileage and equally low quality.

GM from top to bottom lived in an ivory tower of days long past. Living on your grandfathers and fathers accomplishments makes for spoiled, rich, frat boys. Reality was calling 30 years ago during the fuel crisis and the newly arrived, better quality foreign imports.

What did GM do – asked for protection and lobbied against fuel efficiency mandates. Then they tool around in $100 million dollar jet fleet with 10 people max using them. And they still can’t get why congress and most of America looks at them as if they are crazy.

Get off your high horse about the three Auto Exec who flew in on their private jets. Should 3 million hard working people lose their jobs because arrogant fools display their arrogance…like Pelosi and her jet, and Obama and Bush, and GE executives and Cnn executives and others who are losing shareholders billions and billions and billions. The autoworkers are not responsible for Waggoner and Mulaley or whatever their names are. How much money will the govt spend in a stimulus package that will never come close to creating 3 million good paying jobs. It is insane to allow this industry to be destroyed because fools that have run it are stupid. Should we allow this country to be destroyed because fools like Bush and Cheney ran this country into the ground too? Of all things, we should save the auto industry because of the fools who have left it in such dire straits. Just like people voted for change….
Please, have some compassion. Should the people of New Orleans have been allowed to drown because of the ineptitude of Bush and Brownie and Nagin?

Detroit Auto and their gangs,UAW, are simple wanting early returns on their $83,000,000 investments in campaign donations to That One and his Alinski Organizations. Socialiam doesn’t come cheap and this is only the beginning.

Um, the same way she took impeachment off the table?? That’s abt all I can figure. Sheesh.

Honestly, I don’t know. I had such high hopes for her, and she has been a sheer disappointment from the very beginning. She seems hellbent on not listening to what the people are saying at all, and not doing what is right for the country. It is going to be a tough four more years with her as Speaker, I’m afraid.

Mr. Natural is wrong – there most certainly was $25 billion made available in SEPT. for the US automakers, particularly to move into green car-making. That was the whole thing abt R&D, see. I don’t believe I said anything abt their green cars not selling, Mr. Natural, but whatever – why bother sticking to what I did say since it doesn’t bolster your argument…You know, there are links to these articles in posts for a reason. They take the place of footnotes for documentation. Just sayin’.

So do the Japanese and German automakers in the US. The latter are BUILDING plants, not looking at bailouts or bankruptcy.

Utter nonsense. The Japanese have heavily subsidized their auto manufacturers. And make no mistake about it, those are sovereign Japanese corporations, not fuzzy happy America loving transplants. Their American assembly plants assemble cars from kits, which allows them to optimize payment of U.S. taxes, i.e., not. Japan is a monolithic society, as racist as it gets. Almost all of the vehicle engineering brainwork, except for EPA and manufacturing engineering details, is done in Japan, not here. They use American labor like we use “wetback” day laborers, low skills and low rent.

Your assertion that other auto-building nations are sitting on their hands while their manufacturing bases collapse is even more ill informed. Japan, Korea, Russia, China, Germany – all have all put offers of support, i.e., money, on the table, for their already heavily government supported manufacturers.

You want to blame the UAW? Be my guest. They’ve had the car companies in a stranglehold for years. Once in a while they relax their grip. They give automakers a gasp of air, but never enough oxygen to regain strength.

The fifty states have a hand in this too. Why can’t GM dump those excess dealerships? Because of massive state regulation and interference. This is a picture of left wing Union Greed + right wing Dealership greed in a deadly embrace.

You know what the definition of a third world nation is? A nation that doesn’t own its own manufacturers.

Tell ya what, kiddies. We’re heading in that direction. Last I heard, and this was mid Bush Era, over 19,000 major manufacturers had been bought by overseas “investors.” The Chinese buy plants like we buy snickers bars. But they don’t stay here. The plant parts are carefully numbered, labeled, photographed, disassembled and shipped, en masse, by crews of Chinese engineers and technicians, back to China where people don’t mind dirty work.

Good point. What Wagoner and his pals really needed was a David Axelrod to manage their spin.

If you read about how GE and GE Capital are in such dire fnancial straits that they are going to need a bailout that I now understand why GE and NBC and MSNBC were and are so up Obama’s butt that there is no room for anything but spin, lies and deception. GE has a deal with Obama for a bailout. Probably they keep trashing the U.S. auto industry so they won’t get a piece of any bailout that would go to GE. I have never seen such ias as NBC (GE) in the last election. And now it makes sense. GE has turned itself into a bank to get their hands on the TARP money. And I am sure Obama et al have given their OK for GE to be one of the winners.

Um, these “fools” are going to be the same ones running it, so what do you think will change?? It is illogical to expect the people who got them into this mess to get them out when they have shown no willingness to change the status quo.

And the workers are also responsible in a way – when they have their unions demand they get paid $83 an hour for repetitive work with machinery doing the bulk of the work, they have priced themselves out. That’s a ridiculous amt of money, and almost twice what the foreign car companies pay.

Your solution is to just keep pouring money down this hole? That’s not a solution.

And I have plenty of compassion for people, thank you so much – especially in NO. That is an incredibly complex situation. Part of it was lack of proper materials and money by the US gov’t. Part of it was decades-long destruction of their wetlands, mainly human in origin, thus removing natural barriers. And part was an act of nature. There is nothing comparable to what the Big 3 have done.

Bush and Cheney didn’t do this on their own, btw. The Dems have been in power for a little while now…

The point is that the Japanese make better cars, irrespective of how the company is financed. US auto makers can’t get around that pesky little fat.

This is false, Reverend. None of that 25 billion has been paid. None. My source is a primary source.

You wanna know something?

What I’m reading here is barely different, except in the direction in which it is pointed, than the vitriol directed at Hillary Clinton by the O’bots.

Seems to me, Reverend, that you would have a bit more compassion, a bit more insight into the nature of scapegoating and venality.

3,000,000 hard working people ? If they were hard working people they wouldn’t be in this predicament. Screw them and their American tax payer subsidized $71.00–$83.00 per hour lug nut twisting jobs. Instead give em cotton sacks and let em pick cotton for their wages and GM, FOMOCo, and Chrysler can lump it or follow the lead of the Japanese auto manufacturers. NO more hand out or BAILOUTS for the socialists.

Typo–fact, not fat.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Bull.

Oh, I suppose the Japanese are holding guns to the heads of prospective buyers. Never mind; you’re right.

New people running the auto industry would be the first thing needed. They are as criminal as Bush, Cheney, Pelosi, and all the creeps who will not deal with sanity. And as stupid as the people who voted for Obama over Hillary.

It’s funny that when times are good, they want no part of government interference but when they lose their shirts due to their own shortsighted business strategy, they line up in droves for handouts. American corporations’ problem is that they are no longer true capitalists but robber barons.

Where are these $83 jobs the auto business? Most are in the $20 range.
Chrysler had the right idea back in the early 1980′s when they started building 4 cylinder front drive cars that got 30 mpg. Only problem was they didn’t make that much per unit so they and GM and Ford lobbied to have trucks and SUVs exempted from the CAFE standards.
The unions had a hand in this too. Things were hokey-jake until gas prices started to climb again. We ‘Merkins luvs us some big jacked up road monster trucks and SUV’s. Noting says manhood like a Hummer
Those of us who sat in gas lines back in the 1970′s knew this day was coming but the lesson was lost average Moran-American. Detroit is paying for it now.

In Japan if their CEO s of Toyota, Honda. Nissan ran their companies into the ground would have handed in their resignations with their heads bowed! What’s wrong with these people! What’s wrong with these people!! Welcome to the “NEW” economic model…. Borrow, spend and beg. Not the old model!!!! Work, save and THEN BUY!!!!!

No, they’re not Ferdy. In fact the Japanese are stopping lines and delaying plants right now. Nobody’s selling many cars.

The Chevy Malibu hybrid sells, and sells out, at a premium to it’s Japanese competition.

Marketing says it takes 8-10 years to overcome a damaged reputation. These folks have worked hard, for years now, to rebuild from the self inflicted damage to their reputations.

Remember too that the Japanese automakers in the US got billions in gifts from the individual states that they settled in. There was a bidding war for these plants. They got whopping tax forgiveness, free land, favorable loans etc from the states and who knows about other incentives. The US automakers did not have this advantage. It is alot like the Airlines and the railroads. Airports and the US govt have a sweatheart alliance. The airtraffic controllers are paid by US Govt and the airports are built by govt. The railroads have to pay their whole costs and then they get a bit of a subsidy to defray some of their expenses. We are always comparing apples and oranges as if they are the same. Quit trashing the auto unions. It is a right wing mantra that is full of lies and distortions.

Mr. Natural – you are free to disagree with anything I write. But you need to get a grip on your attitude, particularly attacks on my character.

I never said that the money has been paid, Mr. Natural. I said it was AVAILABLE. Perhaps you need to re-read my post before lashing out.

And what abt all of those people who do NOT have jobs because of the economy, or who have lost their entire pensions because of the stock market? What shall we do for all of the rest of us? At least 30% of Americans have lost their pensions – and they are supposed to subsidize workers making more than most of these people ever had an hour?

I’m tired of arguing with you already – so this is it for me.

That’s right. They want no part of government regulation but are always happy to take government (American taxpayer’s) money. They are just more generational welfare recipients.

Now, I know people can argue, and I would myself, that the unions have lost perspective in their demands. I mean, really – should someone who builds cars really make over $80 an hour???

Does someone who builds cars really make $80 an hour? Where are the facts. The link to actual facts that shows ‘someone who builds cars’ pay check says ‘hourly rate: $80.’ Anybody have one? No, nobody has such a link. The $80 an hour figure is mostly dreamed up. A guesstimate. That guesstimate usually includes everything ever other company with employees has to pay. Paid sick days, holiday pay, paid vacation, cost of matching social security, unemployment insurance and more are usually included in the guesstimate. The same costs just about every other company has. So no, somebody who builds cars does not get a pay check that says ‘hourly rate: $80.’

No, I don’t have a link to actual facts but I will guesstimate that a good chunk of GM’s employee costs are for health care. Thanks to the unions GM workers have pretty good health care coverage. So when we say someone who builds cars gets paid too much aren’t we blaming GM employees for the out of control cost of health care.

If you don’t think that every company with unionized workers is going to follow this model and cry the same thing, I have a birth certificate for sale. Look the auto inducstry was probably one of the first to get unions to agree to concessions. What happened, every other industry then went to their folks and followed the same pattern. I am afraid we are headed back to the same place we were in the 30s, two classes rich and poor.

If you don’t think every other benefit that folks have struggled to get over the last 60 odd years isn’t going to fall, you don’t get the big picture here. Obama is the same as Bush, he is only a figure head propped up by those that control the wealth and want to continue it.

Those guys that flew to DC last week will still be in control of their companies after all this is over, and the guy on the line, following what management tells him to do will still be in the same place, gettting screwed for someone elses mistakes.

Simple question, if they get the $25 billion, what are they going to do when that runs out? That is over three times the net value of those three companies.

There is currently a corporate model that loses on average $1500 for every unit produced..what is going to change? I don’t care who shoulders the blame, UAW, management or consumers….if the model doesn’t change how is the bailout going to help?

Bankruptcy and restructuring are the only viable options available to save the automakers. Restructure, cut unprofitable lines, decrease the legacy costs associated with retirees invest in R&D for new products that are competitive.

Will some jobs be lost…of course they will, but at least there will be some jobs saved.

Indeed–there is plenty of irresponsibility in government and industry. I work for a government contractor and I can’t count the number of times really stupid things were done at the behest of the government for the sake of expediency (pay nothing now, pay a lot more later) or blame-shifting, “he did it”-the new capitalist motto. It is part of the 5-P principle, Piss Poor Planning Prevents Progress.

This is how they want it though, as it keeps them employed for life (and their children and their children, and so on). Did you ever wonder why certain projects never seem to get to completion? The government orders something; the contractor submits it behind schedule and over budget and asks for more money because of “scope change”. The government supplies the money and changes the scope again. Repeat, as necessary to ensure a lifetime of employment. Look at the WTP project at Hanford to get a real-world example.

Anyone with half a brain can see where this leads. A project never gets finished but there’s always “progress” being made. It is now all about progress and not about the finished product.

This is quibbling. Where’s the $25 billion? It’s tied up in a seventeen month process. Did you know any of the details before throwing it in our faces? No. Can GM fight with the DOE paperwork monster for seventeen months? No. They’re dying right now. As we speak. Why? Because there’s no credit for anyone but the best credit risks right now. People can’t buy cars. The proof is easy to find. Look at the TBill auctions. People are so desperate for safety that they’re accepting zero and near zero percent interest on their money. Auto loans would pay more, a lot more, but they don’t want to touch them.

Hey, feel free to bankrupt them. Those pensions will fall on the taxpayer back within a year. How do you think that will work out, eh? Do you really think it will be cheaper than $25 billion in loan guarantees? Not bloody likely.

My attitude is defensive. The reflexive antipathy of America bashers is what I find offensive.

Amy we’re on OUR OWN Sista!

It’s beyond apparent that everyone is only out for themselves (everyone meaning those that have any power to do squat about anything)

and the divide between the far left and the neoCON right just keeps getting larger

During one of the hearings, one of the three executives said that they were willing to work for $1 a year. When the other two were asked if they would be willing to do the same, they demurred. One said he wasn’t ready to answer that question and the other said something like, “No, I’m okay with the way I am now”.

You would think that doing the $1 thingy would be great PR for them and they probably would make more money in the long run if stock prices rise (I think they probably own a lot of that).

It’s amazing that when people get in an ivory tower atmosphere they usually lose all perspective and make these ridiculous, obtuse errors that make them look like total jerks (which they probably are).

Excellent suggestion, Mr. J, to the Big Three about refraining from taking a private jet…one would think they would have gotten together to car-pool and build some credibility in the process…

http://ontheseventhday.wordpress.com/

Taken into account their wages and benefit packages at the auto workers plants $20 an hour wouldn’t even get you a back row seat in their break rooms. Don’t take it that I am against unions, I’m not. What I am against is unions who base policy on politics rather than quality of product and performance. Detroit and the UAW are simply political machines and their products and price prove it.

There are others who are preparing to line up at the trough — American Express wants to be a bank now, and, if I’m not mistaken, GMAC is looking for bank status. I’m sure there are many more. We should question why all of a sudden everyone wants to be a bank?

This bailout crap is just going to snowball into one big line, and I think the guys who crafted this whole thing knew it from the start. This was designed to slow the march to socialism down so that the masses barely notice or have the ability to label it when it happens. This is not going to get better from here unless we reject the “fix it at all costs” mentality that relies on the goverment to make it all better. We have to accept that progress doesn’t come without pain. We are bigger than this mentality, or at least we should be bigger than that.

I’m probably a fatalist, but my opinion from the start has been that we’re screwed and we should just pull the band-aid off all at once and commence to the part where we have to work our way back up. How are they going to fix this thing by throwing money at it when they don’t even know what or where to throw the money so it’ll stick? This is such an opportunity for corruption to really take over, as in the case of all these financials now wanting to be banks.

This is also an opportunity for learning, but I have little faith that much will be gleaned from this. We have a media who is either unwilling or unable to expose what has gone on. We have a population who is unwilling to accept responsibility for their own mistakes – whether that’s greed or laziness or a combination of both.

There are many who don’t realize the doo-doo we’re in right now and are continuing to make decisions in the same old way — thinking that it’ll be a tough couple of months, and then the market will recover, business will come back, they can keep buying without any plans for how to pay for things. It’s going to take a cultural revolution something like the Depression caused to get people to change their behaviors. I hope we’re strong enough as a nation to make the right decisions, but I’m very worried that we’re not.

While those folks may have worked hard, management did not. I’m sorry, but any company that can afford jets that never fly full should go into bankruptcy. The only way this will ever change is if enough people get hurt so that an effective remedy can be put in place to stop this nonsence once and for all. I’m all for helping workers and their families. I am not in favor of corporate welfare, however. They were told ad nauseum to stop producing dinosaurs. Too bad their invincible ignorance made them ignore the patently obvious.

JEZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

now you went and ruined ANOTHER song for me!!!

and I used to LOVE that!!

First I stopped listening to RUSH (the band) cuz I couldn’t stand the NAME (I’m over that now)

Then I couldn’t listen to GAven Rossdale and his band BUSH whom I saw with my daughter in concert years back. THAT hurt! (I am a bit over that too as Bush is almost gone, but may fear his replacement even more)

NOW you toy with my love of the WHO!!!
ohhh you should not go there!

I agree, the unions are only partly to blame. The entire system is corrupt, possibly beyond redemption.

But that is exactly what the song is about and they are one of my favorite groups.

I doubt most Americans even know this – I know I didn’t.

This is a video of a new Ford plant in Brazil .
One look at this and you will be able to tell why there will probably never be another one built in the USA .
It will also point out why more assembly plants will go offshore.
http://info.detnews.com/video/index.cfm?id=1189

Kos Kidz: “What We Need is Some Marxism”

http://patriotroom.com/kos-kidz-what-we-need-is-some-marxism/

These companies should be forced to forgive all interest on credit cards they issued if they are going to be bailed out at OUR expense. No one should have to pay twice, especially for abominable service and shitty attitudes. If it’s offered to them that way, I just bet they’d say no thanks to a bailout.

You’re working cost-plus?

Ferd, you’re living on a continuous bail-out.

http://www.boston.com/cars/news/articles/2006/09/24/made_in_america_hard_to_tell/

I hear ya. Still, this 2006 article sure does mention $83 an hour.

1948, a brand new chevrolet cost $2800 right off the show room floor. Today one of the UAWs @ 80 bucks per hour makes $2780 in 31 hours–the price of a brand new chevrolet before taxes in 1948. and the gasoline to go in it was about on the average 15c a gallon, and John Wayne and Stage Coach was still popular. Maybe another depression is what is needed to open the eyes of the American people. ;(

Its ironic that the biggest “welfare queens” turn out to be the darlings of the right wing–corporations.

That signpost up ahead? Third World Nation.

They’d better take the Greyhound the second time around! These executives have got a lot of nerve!!!!

You have no idea how much regulation the automakers endure. CAFE is just the tip of the iceberg. California has written emissions regs that no one, not even the academics who drafted the damned stuff, can tell them how to test for.

They’d better take the Greyhound bus the second time around! These executives have got a lot of nerve!!!!

And all these insults from a cost-plus contractor.

The $50,000,000,000 the auto manufacturers are trying to get their grubby hands on would build several auto plants in foriegn countries. No? Then Uncle Sam could kiss their Detroit ass and so could the UAWs.

You should get out in the sun more often, goob, it would do you some good. I’m making a general statement about the condition of the system and you’re tilting at gnat wings. Your post is just another example of why we’re in the mess we find ourselves in. There is plenty of blame to spread around, starting with partisans like you.

What they ought to take is one of the GM/Allison hybrid powertrain powered buses that are popping up all over the country.

Yeah, that’s right. Toyota didn’t make them.

According to GM’s 10K report, their cost per hour in wages and benefits for UAW workers last year was $83 an hour.

Right. The cost of a UAW worker. $83 is not what a GM worker gets paid. GM, like just almost every other company will pay unemployment insurance, sick pay, vacation pay, social security ect. Those are costs just about every company pays. Even if the UAW union never existed GM and just about every other company would still have those costs.

It would be nice to have a breakdown of what makes up the $83 an hour number. I would guess a big chunk of that comes from health care but I don’t know. I looked I couldn’t find anything.

And what are the costs per employee at other large manufacturing companies. What is the break down of thsoe costs and how does it compare to GM’s costs.

If the auto companies want a bailout, there should be strings attached such as all management gets a post-dated pink slip and no money could be used anywhere but in the US. They’d walk away from the table, I’m sure.

GM is also manufacturing in Brazil. Some of the paint jobs are electric – colors like Amazonian poison dart frogs.

Why do we see such a small set of bland colors on American highways? Because American buyers worry more about resale than about enjoying the car while they’ve got it.

You’re sure of a lot of things. You’re also wrong about a lot of things.

Their overseas operations are being backstopped by the host countries. Same goes for the foreign manufacturers in their home countries. The rest of the world knows the value of owning one’s manufacturing base. It’s what separates us from the third world.

Look in the rear view mirror Detroit pasted on your wind shield. We have alredy arrived at the Third World point and are proceeding to a lower level.

The world economies are all connected, it’s really best to understand without US innovation, and US consumer dollars, their plants won’t really succeed, for the long term.

I think they need to clean up their own houses, and it starts with management.

I dont begrudge a union member health care benefits when he has no say in determining their cost.

It is solely a problem of horrific, obtuse management.

And you are parsing letters, while failing to see words, sentences, and paragraphs. I’m rather bored with your poorly presented hogwash posing as deep thoughts, Jack Handey.

I heard one estimate that the installed fleet of GM/Allison hybrid powertrain buses has saved as much fuel as the entire production of Priuses. Not sure if I believe it, but it sure sounds ironic.

Tom Stephens on hybrid buses: http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/archives/2008/01/orders_for_hybr.html

business will come back, they can keep buying without any plans for how to pay for things

There’s so much focus on the evil corporate masters and the greedy union apparatchiks that everyone seems to be missing the part that John Q. Public played in this fiasco. When credit became available to anyone with a pulse, I didn’t notice too many folks turning it down…yes, some of us continued to live within our means and held off on purchasing a home or a big ticket item until we knew we could actually afford it.

But the idea that we as a nation could live on credit seems to have taken over from the idea of responsible stewardship of one’s own finances. This may actually be a permanent shift in the country’s consciousness, I don’t know, only time will tell. If it stays this way, though, I agree with you that the idea of “Bailout du Jour” will become the new normal, to our collective detriment.

Oh really? You mean the Japanese didn’t force any modifications on American autos?

Let’s see, I’m an employee and you’re calling me a contractor. I’d say your silly little argument smacks of the composition/division fallacy. Ah, but you don’t need to understand anything about logic because you need what little functioning brain capacity you have left just to continue breathing.

Go away, little boy–the fabulous furry freak brothers want to share a bong with you and Zippy.

He doesn’t care so long as his supply of weed lasts beyond next week.

Yeah. It’s just the idea that the government would subsidize selected enterprizes and not all. But then that would be socialism wouldn’t it?

Unfortunately, Dawnelle, politics is a continuum with the far left and neocon right meeting at the fringes, becoming one and the same. That may be partly why centrists have a difficult time getting elected.

That is such absolute rubbish. If they couldn’t test for them, they wouldn’t know of their existence because they would not have found them in the first place. Check out EPA methods TO-13A and TO-14A for starters.

I love you Ferd.

Why do we see such a small set of bland colors on American highways?

This is one reason I love going to classic auto shows…the colors from the 1950s are a joy to behold. The only real colors now available are red and blue. Even the greens are greyed down.

I don’t care so much about the resale value, I just want to be able to easily spot my car in a crowded lot. I may have to go with taxi yellow.
(there’s still a few of those out there…)

p.s. I know BMW has their own special palette, but they are out of my price range.

Maybe you should step away from reading this blog then. You seem to be disturbed and getting more so by reading it. Surely a reasonable person such as you have been presenting yourself to be can understand that you will not be able to help America out if you have become ineffectively bitter.
Helpfully,
the Dr. (no charge, friend)

me thinks you must live in Detroit, or are employed by one of these big three. You were very opposed to my post about the bailout as well….

I replied to you in the other post, but I don’t think you ever saw it:

don’t you think it was in the best interest of the car manufacturers to plan ahead for the rising costs of oil and global warming issues? do you think a bailout, which according to many experts will not help, is spending our tax dollars effectively? don’t you think it is valuable to have a discussion, without resulting in name calling?

do you think if a company has mismanaged their finances or set themselves up for financial disaster through retirement packages, they should be bailed out by taxpayers?

don’t you think a discussion, done so in a fair and balanced way, is better then calling people who discuss this *american bashers*? I don’t think that is what Amy is doing here.

Do you not think the CEO’s flying in on private jets, (GE owning a fleet of them) and salaries of $27M, and the massive pension plans are in part responsible, and need to be addressed, befor tax payers hand over, what is it something like $3600 each?

When times are tough in most homes, people tighten their belts, and make sacrifices, before they ask for help. Sounds to me like these car companies don’t want to sacrifice, they just want a handout.

An employee? Don’t complain to me, Ferd. Ceding responsibility for your destiny is exactly what what you’ve been advocating. Let the all knowing all powerful all beneficent Japanese handle everything.

BTW, the brain insult? Rude and cliché.

And I’m tired of your willful ignorance and clichéd insults.

Stick it in your bong, partisan hack.

As demonstrated by this thread, you started the insults, mouth-breather. I merely responded to your flights of partisan fancy. If you don’t like what I have to say, then stop poking me, troll.

No one is mentioning the part of the unions in this scenario. The unions did their own part in bleeding the companies, so the low-level workers are also part of the problem through supporting unions. Don’t try to shift the blame to crooked bosses. If there were crooked bosses it means the whole culture was crooked.
No one is mentioning the part of the advertising thrown at Americans for the last 50 years, to expend their capital on constantly upgrading for frivolous reasons, so that carmakers were not forced to develop better cars sooner. Look up Vance Packard’s books, starting with The Hidden Persuaders, 1957. He got a lot of things right about the consequences of a disposable culture. Read The Insolent Chariots, John Keats (not the romantic poet), 1957–he skewers everything wrong with car design. How long has it taken to fix it? Can we blame the media a little bit?
No one is mentioning the complicity of the oil companies in encouraging autos and asphalt. No one is mentioning the city planners who laid out city with the assumption of universal car ownership: plenty of suffering all the time for those who don’t have a car, another old and unresolved issue.

There is plenty of blame for the failure of the American automakers in this instance; and after all, they aren’t the first businesses in this country to go into bankruptcy and reorganization, by a long shot. Nor are they the first automakers to go under. If the automakers are suffering now, and their workers, it should be no wonder to anyone. Yes, we will all suffer with them because no man is an island, etc., but that’s life in business! No point crying now, look forward to how these things can be avoided in the future. Like–in the airlines.

Forgive me for introducing fact into this discussion.

You can’t even get your facts straight about Comix.

Mr Natural was a curmudgeon, not a stoner.

Crap. They’re in court over it right now.

Chrysler’s Nardelli was paid $200 million at his exit from Home Depot.

you started the insults, mouth-breather.

A Picasso!

Experts are not in agreement on this. Many credible economists(Paul Krugman, for one) think that a bailout is the lesser of two evils, given our current economic crisis. They are worried because so many jobs are tied to the auto industry and feel we cannot afford that big a shock at this time. Krugman believes the companies will not be able to reorganize under Chapter 11 as the airlines have done(because of the credit crisis, I believe) and will be forced into Chapter 7 where they will have to liquidate. I have a bad feeling that he may well be right. (I do not work in Detroit and my income will not be affected by these companies collapsing – at least not in any direct way.)
I agree that both the management and unions have been wildly irresponsible, but I fear we will all be punished for their bad judgement just as we are all being affected by the mortgage meltdown.
There is no good answer to this mess.

Most auto assembly line workers ARE UAW….

it’s not Ford-UAW. It’s UAW-Ford.

People I know who did contract work in the plants know that average Jo/e workers got $70K/year, for non-skilled work.

Unless you’ve seen the full plant, you don’t know how little these people actually have to do…for huge wages, great benefits, cheap leases on their cars, and the ability to skip work 25% of the time without the mgmt being able to do anything about it.

These workers know they have it good at the trough. They are as guilty and liable as the idiots who buy the 12MPG tanks they build.

Get another freakin’ job or get your company to make more responsible cars.

The Right have managed to destroy the things that have helped American workers and worse we clap them for it.

Libruls. The most disgusting of haters here could not even explain the difference between a “Progressive” and a “Liberal” or what was wrong with either.

Here everyone is blaming the unions. 20 years after Reagan asked the question “are you better off today than 4 years ago”, despite several boom times most American workers are actually worse off in real terms as per hourly wage rates have fallen. Average pay has increased because of increases in the weatlh and earnings of the top 1%, never mind the top 10%. Tax the poorest but not the top 5%. They need the money. Great. Let the Country eat cake.

Why does Ford etc have private health care – beacuse they are providing to their employees what should be provided through taxation. Decent levels of healthcare. Other countries do and that is why Hondas do not cost so much.

Wanna bet those auto CEOs voted for Obama?

You bet!

snark snark

“they just want a handout.”

Last point first:

It’s not a handout. What they want is bridge financing and/or loan guarantees. Read the news. Credit is frozen. GM is sitting on $20 billion in assets which in better times could collateralize debt, but now, they can’t rent a dime on it.

“When times are tough in most homes, people tighten their belts, and make sacrifices, before they ask for help. Sounds to me like these car companies don’t want to sacrifice, “

They’re removing light bulbs from fixtures to save electricity. That’s how hard they’re trying to stay afloat. They’ve fired thousands of salaried employees. More are under the microscope. They’re slashing and burning, abandoning and mothballing programs and development.

“don’t you think it is valuable to have a discussion, without resulting in name calling?”

“Name-calling?” That reminds me of Team Obama’s approach. The “racist” meme. Remember that? Anything to avoid introspection.

“… don’t you think a discussion, done so in a fair and balanced way, is better then calling people who discuss this *american bashers*?”

If I were cynical, I’d almost think that some people enjoy elevating their own self images by disparging others. That’s certainly how Obama marketed himself into the Presidency. The “I’m superior/I’m enlightened because I’m voting for Obama” meme ran deep. In this case, it’s “I’m superior because I don’t drive American engineered and manufactured cars.”

“I don’t think that is what Amy is doing here.”

I don’t know what she’s doing here. Funny, I liked most of her previous posts.

“do you think if a company has mismanaged their finances or set themselves up for financial disaster through retirement packages, they should be bailed out by taxpayers?”

Those pensions are federally guaranteed. When the automakers fail, we’ll be paying the guaranteed portions of those pensions. The health care will also fall on our backs. Over time, that will make that $25 billion look like chump change. And you complain about the automaker’s planning?

“don’t you think it was in the best interest of the car manufacturers to plan ahead for the rising costs of oil and global warming issues?”

Vehicles are engineered and brought to manufacturing on timelines ranging from three to four years. Competition with and learning from the Japanese, as well as increasingly heavy and rewarding reliance on knowledge based design tools and supplier cooperation has reduced these timelines to where they are now, much leaner, tighter, and faster than the five year charts I saw in the late eighties.

GM has devoted massive amounts of capital to developing electic cars, battery technology, fuel cell technology, manufacturing technology, cellulosic ethanold production technology, more than I can talk about, and even more than I know about.

The gas price spike was a step function, abrupt and overwhelming. GM had hybrids deployed at the top and middle of their lineup, but was caught looking No denial of that. But they’d worked their way around that problem. They replanned. They slashed and burned. They reprioritized. They sold iconic assets.

This credit crisis is an entirely different can of worms. So how can they respond when few can obtain financing to buy a car? How can they buy money for financing when investors would rather sink their money in 0% paying TBills than trust anybody, and I mean anybody, with their capital?

“me thinks you must live in Detroit, or are employed by one of these big three. You were very opposed to my post about the bailout as well….”

I didn’t “oppose your post.” I objected to your interpretation of what I am willing to believe you believed to be the facts.

I see this issue from the other side, Italy. I see the good and the bad, the pros and cons. I’ve got a Silverado pickup in my driveway, but I’ve also got a Subaru.

It is how you went about it, lacking the civility that seems to be demanded so often, but followed by so few of those in dissent.

I agree that both the management and unions have been wildly irresponsible, but I fear we will all be punished for their bad judgement just as we are all being affected by the mortgage meltdown.

Their bad judgment should not be cause for others to suffer. As far as the mortgage meltdown, I stayed within my means and have done so all my life. Those who bought housing they themselves knew they couldn’t afford sould suffer the consequences. Those who sold them said housing should be indicted, arrested, tried, convicted, and jailed.

It is time for accountability. If a company goes under, take the assets away from the persons reponsible. The CEOs of Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors should be looking at handcuffs and seizure of their personal assets instead of billions for their willful stupidity. It was their decisions that caused their mess–not ours.

The voices in your ignorant head do not constitute facts. You have managed to piss off jusr about everyone posting on this thread including Reverend Amy. Do us all a favor and keep your ad hominem abusives and non sequitur arguments to yourself.

Rev. Amy — the range of topics you that you can deliver a rant is truly astounding.

Since I sort of know one of the Execs of one of the major auto companies — I’ve watched he and his wife try to find ways to spend/invest all the millions they are getting from that car company. As part of the perks of his job he got a super humongous vehicle — which he then shipped down to someplace in the Caribbean.

It would seem to me that we are in the process of a major shift — CEOs, CFO etc. are going to have to “live” on less. I think it was Times-Warner who went out and bought themselves a super duper CEO for millions. IMMEDIATELY there was an announcement that hundreds of Times-Warner employers had been pink-slipped. Sort of like Skinner’s Stimulus — Response. Or Cause > effect.

Our employees — the Congress — just don’t seem to understand that there is only so much money in the whole world. We have NOT yet found another planet to loot to pad the pockets of the Congress and their best buddies. (Europe found “gold” when they invaded the New World — looting of the New World really improved the treasuries of the Old World.)

Now this spouse of one of the Exec of one of the automakers is a very nice woman — gives her time and money to many worthy causes. And this is what many of the super wealthy do. However, it gets to the point that there is only so much that can be bought or given away. When did it become the norm to pay company Execs more than GOD? or a king or queen?

If the CEOs need a jet — why not “just” a Lear jet? They go fast, can land at tiny airports etc.?

Meanwhile the put-upon taxpayers wait in line at airports, have to remove their shoes and wait some more at the gates, we than cram ourselves into airplanes where we are inspected as if we are common criminals. Then we have to provide 2 IDs for the privilege of allowing fools to read our mail and open our bank accounts.

Ooops — Rev. Amy — it looks like you’ve inspired my rant. Sorry.

Hey, NW Rain -

Sorry that I just now saw you remarks – you should write up this rant to send to NQ!! Especially since you have first-hand experience on this topic.

And I would still love to see an expanded version of your caucus fraud experience.

Great comment!! And thanks!