Auto Bailout

[Allee]

It seems strange Ford's fate should be tied to other companies that haven't been half as adaptive. I'd say soften the crashing of the other two, but don't try to prevent it from happening.

Agreed.

I'm thinking that what really burns me about this whole thing? Is that not once, through all this debacle, have I heard the word "sorry", or any sort of admission of f**k-uppery from the car companies or the UAW. Their executives just expect to trade on the whole "national pride" thing, walk away with people's money, keep their cushy jobs, and carry on with the same incredible arrogance and lack of relevance they've exhibited for the last 20 years. If there's gonna be pain, then these guys should be the first to feel it. If any of them get parachuted, there should be rioting in the streets.

[Jack M]

How can you'll bitch about a paltry $15 billion or so to support 2,000,000 actual jobs?

Folks... Chapter 11 means reorganization. Chapter 7 is liquidation. I'm all for Chapter 11. The jobs (real jobs, not job-bank jobs) don't go away, the company just takes a mulligan and takes their head out of their ass.

To any union worker making $74/hr.... can you hear this? It's the world's smallest violin playing My Heart Bleeds For You.

[John Gilmour]

for $74 an hour I expect a lot better car.. I say let them tank.

Pay a teacher $74 an hour instead- and hire according to results of the students.

Our country would be a lot better off.

________

Suzuki t series

[lowrider]

what will happen in 20 years when toyota honda etc have the #:argue: of retirees the big three have now ???

[Rob Stevens]

The big three was only doing what the North American public and shareholders asked of them.

They made trucks and profit.

The one-two-three-four punch of oil, bull**** credit, unrealistic personal entitlement and higher than average benefits created a top heavy, unsustainable system.

It's done and dusted and now, the only question is how long will they last? Let them go now and take the huge hit, or let them die slowly, hanging on an IV of soon-to-be-worthless dollars (hyperinflation, anyone?). If you see the latter as a bigger problem, you know what needs to happen.

Unfortunately, for Keynesian economics to work, the unions will have to cut their pay while the automakers solid assets are sold and restuctured. If they don't and try to live on bailouts, Ricardian economics takes over and you see absolute failure and deflation, followed by hyperinflation when the currency is valueless. There has to be some penalty for "fiat" money.

Not a problem though. If you have 1,000,000,000 US dollars in the end, it will buy 100,000 Ameros and that could see you through.

Ironically, the American dollar will do well over the next while because the Euro is even more ****ed and is really the only other choice, besides the Yen, but it's not the world's reserve currency just yet either.

Modern markets are a dynamic place and with the constant fear-spin of the media, what will happen is probably something nobody counted on.

Have a happy day, though, because it's not your apocalypse coming, unlike those poor buggers in Zimbabwe.

[bigdyno]

Folks... Chapter 11 means reorganization. Chapter 7 is liquidation. I'm all for Chapter 11. The jobs (real jobs, not job-bank jobs) don't go away, the company just takes a mulligan and takes their head out of their ass.

To any union worker making $74/hr.... can you hear this? It's the world's smallest violin playing My Heart Bleeds For You.

I'd like to know which union workers are making $74 an hour, I am a union Ironworker working on a nuke plant retube and the only people making that kind of money on our job are management, they may be union members but they aren't working under our collective agreement so it can't be said they are union workers.

[bigdyno]

what will happen in 20 years when toyota honda etc have the #:argue: of retirees the big three have now ???

I don't think they will experience the same problems as the UAW/CAW have seniority that is leading to the retirement crunch and since the Japanese car makers are non-union they shouldn't have the lines populated with near retirement staff like the big three.

[carvedog]

I'd like to know which union workers are making $74 an hour, I am a union Ironworker working on a nuke plant retube and the only people making that kind of money on our job are management, they may be union members but they aren't working under our collective agreement so it can't be said they are union workers.

No one is making that much. That is the "cost" per employee. Which includes health care benies if any, pension contributions, matching futa, suta, WC, and all that crap. Plus the cost of administering and paying all that.

So say a $40 an hour employee has state and fed taxes taken out, the company doesn't have to pay that but they do have to pay matching social security and medicaid and something else I can't remember now. SS is usually 7.5 % of gross or $3. Company kicks in $3 as well. Same with some of the unemployment taxes and????? it just seems to never end.

[bigdyno]

The original quote stated a $74/ hour wage. My wage package is just under $45 (pension and benefits)and there is some additional government payouts such as provincial health care in the wage cost, but nowhere near $74. I earn a good wage, but I am a certified tradesman and our path to that certification would rival any college or university degree.

[BobD]

. I earn a good wage, but I am a certified tradesman and our path to that certification would rival any college or university degree.

Counts for nothing in some peoples eye's. For them, it's not fair that you have a union to bargain for you and they don't. Some people are more worried about paying a few more dollars in taxes than about giving everyone a chance to earn a decent wage. People always feel that they deserve more than others and would drag others down rather than organize to better their lot. The Southern politicians see a chance to drag the auto workers down to the level of wages paid in their States. What they don't say, is who is going to subsidize their States when Federal taxes from the blue States are down. The reality is that befor long, those foreign manufacturers will be closing plants as well.

BobD

[Surf Quebec]

Do not forget that if the big three are where they are right now, it's a management problem not a employee problem.

[bigdyno]

It also seems interesting that the cost of cars and trucks is always directly attached to the line worker and not the higher cost thresholds per person of staff in management and engineering. Also left out of the cost equation is things that get overlooked like transportation cost like holding yards, the offices and staff of all the management facillities and the finance companies (for the dealer financing).

[rhaskins]

Cost allocation baby.

There was an article a while back about a computer industry related company (may have been HP) where the costs were allocated per square foot occupied. Management got a bright idea: cut down floor space per person by reducing office space per employee cubicle. They made the cubes as small as possible and the hallways as small as the fire code allowed to pack as many offices on a floor as possible for some departments, and encouraged cube mates (2 employees per cube) to work every other day at home. They cut their costs per employee allocation way down compared to the rest of the company. Looked like friggen heros for keeping their per employee cost down.

Just a numbers game. And in some companies, Gaming the system is what it is all about to look good. Your next bonus and raise may depend on it - not on how good you are or what you are actually adding to the bottom line.

If you got your hands on the financial numbers for that $74 dollar an hour cost, you could restructrue it any way you wanted to make it look better or worse.

Rick

[Dr D]