QUESTION: Writing that the Union must become 'competitive' into this legislation . . .doesn't that mean they are no longer negotiating with the companies.. but Unions will now have to negotiate with the Government? I don't think that is a good precedent to start Rocket River
The Big 3, particularly GM, were very heavily invested in the production of SUVs. For years, that is what people wanted. When gas hit $3-$4 a gallon, they stopped selling.
How to drive a bucket insane: First, I advocated a higher gas tax as the best way to get more fuel-efficient cars on the road. Then BetterThanEver attempted to raise an objection: I pointed out that this post, in fact, only served to emphasize the significance of the price elasticity of demand for oil, which is the foundation of the argument for raising the gas tax. The tax doesn't do any good if it doesn't get people to use less gas. I questioned why, if BetterThanEver wishes to object to such a tax, he chooses to emphasize evidence of how effective it would be. His response: I asked for clarification. So high elasticity of demand for gas is an argument against the gas tax because -- and only because -- US companies don't make fuel-efficient cars, even when the market is demanding such cars. Are you actually asserting that the US government, when formulating its policies, should have as its priority protecting domestic companies from having to be well-managed? Or is there some other reason for this failure by the Big 3? Would we need to stop regulating the safety of toys if we found out that US companies just weren't as able or willing to make safe toys as their Japanese competitors?
Perhaps they should have been better prepared, perhaps not. But you seem to be coming close to an argument that BetterThanEver might make, if he thought of it. Maybe the Big 3 were just set up in a way that reflected the market of a few years ago and didn't have time to adjust to higher gas prices. In other words, it's a problem of volatility. If they had had some expectation that prices at the pump would be higher, then they would have adjusted accordingly. So this argument relies on the unpredictability of oil prices. A gas tax, however, would be much more predictable and long-term. There might still be an adjustment period for automakers, but the market would ultimately settle in a much happier and environmentally sustainable place.
As if there was any doubt this was a setup, just like the UAW guy said... This isn't about the auto industry or jobs or anything else but sticking it to unions and it certainly shows where Repub loyalties lie, even if it means lying about their actions and crippling America. The Midwest just went solidly Dem for a generation.
via TPM -- Morgan Johnson, UAW President in Shreveport on junior Senator David Vitter (R-LA), who's become a point man on killing the automaker bailout (from the Times-Picayune) ... ouch!
Read through 5 pages of post by all of you and what I see is a bunch of couch CEOs trying to tell people how they should run a company. Everything from which brands to slash, right down to design of the actually. If you geniuses are so good at making cars then why don't you apply for a position a one of the big 3? This is the same kind of stupidity going on in Congress where morons like Nancy Pelosi and the likes will dictate to car makers what car to make, how to build, parts to use, environmental regulations to meet, safety measures, fuel mileage etc...etc... This bailout will lead to nothing but the nationalization of failed enterprises, Congress being one of them. Prosperity in America is the result of ingenuity and ability to reinvent yourself as a buisness in times of crisis.
Michael Moore on the bailout... say what you want about his weight and his partisanship, but you can't deny he cares about people and makes some good points on this matter...
As probably the biggest Moore fan on this board, I have no problem saying he's dead wrong on this one. I knew he was going to go off the deep end because its his home turf.. but using the rationale that because Wall Street got its money, the auto industry should get its? That is just bunk. Two terrible decisions doesn't make things right, it just makes more terrible decisions.
I don't think that's quite his point. He's drawing a distinction between what was asked of the finance industry workers and what is asked of the auto industry workers and pointing out the double standard employed by the Repubs, particularly those that voted for TARP and against the auto bailout for the express purpose of breaking a union.
I don't see him making a strong case for an auto bailout, but I do see what you're saying. Double standard? Absolutely.
1. This is part and parcel of poor and outdated ways of running the company. Due to the way that the US automakers build their lines, it is much more expensive to shift the line to building a different vehicle type than it is for their foreign counterparts. 2. A tax on gasoline "just because" is a dumb idea, particularly during a recession. Who do you think would get hurt by it? The wealthy? Riiiight. It would be the middle and lower class working families that would feel the bite. Genius idea.
I never knew that the rank and file workers at banks had a union. Can you point me to their website? Can you cite where their retirees are entitled to health insurance for the rest of their lives at company expense? Apples to footballs, rimmy...apples to footballs.
could you please show me where it says that having healthcare benefits into retirement are somehow bad things we dont like and thus unworthy of bailing out? i must have missed that part of our code. oh and also show me where it says that in europe and japan bankers make hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses or where first yaers out of college make upwards of 140k in a good year. does this happen in europe too? no?
1. I never said that health care benefits were bad things. I used that as an example of how the situation in the auto industry are different than in the Wall Street bailout. That was in response to rimrocker attempting to compare the two as being the same and making a charge that this is being handled differently just to bust a union. But, OK, I'll bite. They may not be bad things, but they are incredibly expensive things that we already have Medicare and Medicaid for. Retirees in other industries either buy health coverage or use Medicare. In a bailout situation, you identify those things that are expensive and can be cut. This is not rocket science. 2. As for the Europe analogy, nice try at building a strawman. If those bankers in Europe generated the revenues that they do in NYC, they would be pulling down those salaries too. There's this little concept of being paid according to the revenue that you produce. Shocking, I know. It isn't like at 140k a year that these guys are living in a 5th Avenue penthouse either. NYC is an unbelievably expensive place to live. Regardless, your argument is totally irrelevant to the post I made. Nice try.
I disagree - the situations are pretty similar. In both cases, the US Government is having to bail out industries that were run in ways that would lead to collapse in an economic downturn. Both are being rescued because of the very real possibility that a collapse would lead to an economic depression. In both cases, employees were compensated unreasonably - in the case of the autoworkers, it was absurd salaries and benefits. In the case of Wall Street, it was absurd bonuses unconnected to performance, and awarded even for bankrupting the companies. However, we gave $700 billion to a financial industry lost many hundreds of billions this past year and that needs to reform itself without demanding any specific reforms. We are (so far) unwilling to get $15 billion to an auto industry that lost about $30 billion this year and that needs to reform itself without a very specific reform plan. It's all politics. Bush using TARP money to bailout the auto industry allows Republicans to vote against the bailout without having to deal with the consequences that would come with it - which would basically be a loss of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan for the foreseeable future, without which it's virtually impossible for the GOP to win a national election going forward.
How many of these bankers in NY are actually held accountable for the losses they generate? What would happen if their compensation also get hit for the losses those portfolio they took? What if they have to given compentsation back after they are fired from the company (like they'll have to pay some earned money back for making the bad decisions)? It's easy to lend out money, grow a large outstanding base and collect revenues early in the books if you don't care about what happen later on. Please don't act like some these guys didnt' do things because they know it will help their compensation a lot when times were good even while knowing that the risk they take on are could really hurt down the lines. What's sad is due to the wall street culture, the banking industry is compensated on what they can show on the balance sheet today and not have enough reprecussions for what they did in the past/what's coming down the line.
We were talking about thew lower levels (ie entry level) at investment houses versus the auto line workers. In many cases, the lower level investment bankers paid for it by losing their jobs. Ever hear of a Wall Street fall guy? Are you suggesting that auto line workers pay for the shortcomings of their products with their jobs? The executives (not just the CEO) at the big 3 should bear the brunt of what is going on. Similarly, the upper levels at the Wall Street companies should as well. High level executives at MerrilLynch, Countrywide, and AIG are looking for work. I'm not sure what more mythical accountability you want.
