Originally Posted By avromark <<<<They're not happy just making a profit.>> No, it really is all about turning a profit. These corporations only seek to meet stockholders expectations and they will do anything in the short term or long term to accomplish those goals.>>> Herein lies the problem, and look where it led us with the financial crisis. You can only milk it so much. Cutting people/wages/quanitity/research) and raising prices will only go so far. The market will only bear so much. Are you ready to pay $100.00 for a 2 inch single topping cheese free extra large party sized pizza using the finest grain with only 30% insect infestation? Even if you can afford it, can others? <<<<I'm shocked that many of my counterparts across the border (while having less taxation) have less benefits. I'd hate to have to pay a penny for any medical need.>> I would prefer lower taxes. There is no way I could ever go for a legally mandated single payer medical program. In fact the rest of the world agrees with me. Canada is unique with that one.>> Hmm let's see United Kingdom, Australia, have universal healthcare. Even France and Norway offer comprehensive vacations, paid pat/mat leaves, childcare etc. <<<<countries like Germany pay high wages and offer things like more generous vacations>> In many European countries Labor and Business seem to have a much better working relationship. Except when everyone goes on vacation in August and leaves hundred to die in the Paris heat>> Well I technically make above average wages, but I sure as heck don't feel rich. Those above me certainly make a lot more doing a lot less. Oh I know their decisions are more important and whatnot. You know they need multiple residencies. The corporate model is flawed. That said it seems not too long ago companies could make reasonably obscene profits, stock splits yet provide a decent quality of service to customers and provide decent wages to workers. Why do Americans buy cheap? Maybe partly because with the reduced wages they can't afford the American built blender they used to buy at Sears instead of the chinese built one at Wal-Mart. I doubt many people shop at Wal-Mart by choice. Let's just ask our fellow LPers if they like Wal-Mart. If you pay your workers decently shock and awe the become your own captive market consumers. Didn't Henry end up with half the cars in the world being made by him using this philosophy? Isn't a quality product what Uncle Wally was after? Didn't it make people covet this product while hundreds of boardwalks and trolley parks turned into vast wastelands? <<<<And before you go on me,>> I'm not going to go off on you, I promise! <smile>>> It's not my fault I'm unattractive. It must have been those years in the California sun. Oh that must be why my mom left. (That said she wishes she kept her house and sold it before the housing market crashed )
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<That is what corporations do. But when it comes to the auto industry and the UAW its an unsustainable business model.>> I would say that most of corporate America's biz model has been unsustainable: pay low wages and expect customers to borrow, borrow and borrow to buy our stuff.
Originally Posted By avromark How can anyone survive with $30,000 a year? Let alone raise a family to a decent standard of life. Yeah that pays for oh the foyer. Isn't the highest quality of life for all Americans part and parcel of the American Dream? I doubt it's I just lost my job so someone In India can wear diapers sitting in a call centre not making enough money to buy a sack of rice, while I can no longer afford Goodwill was part of it.
Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom johnno52 medical services are not a Constitutional "Right" in the USA. I can't speak for every state or city in the USA but here in Atlanta we have Grady Memorial Hospital that is state and locally funded (through taxes) and provides FREE medical services. They have the top burn unit in the State of Georgia. Here is their website. <a href="http://www.gradyhealthsystem.org/about.asp" target="_blank">http://www.gradyhealthsystem.o...bout.asp</a>
Originally Posted By avromark I think all non doctors in hospitals should be given an immediate 30% raise
Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom <<I would say that most of corporate America's biz model has been unsustainable: pay low wages and expect customers to borrow, borrow and borrow to buy our stuff.>> I have to agree. I'm in no way excusing American Corporations who have been lying to Americans for years. But hey this thread is about how the UAW is thumbing their collective noses at everyone else in the USA that is going without. Right now its GM and Chrysler that are in Washington DC begging for a Federal bailout NOT Circuit City or KB Toys. And the Senate would have given them the money if the UAW was willing to play along, which they were not. So just like the UAW ultimately doesn't have to conceede anything, quess what the USA doesn't have to bail out their employers either. Its funny how that happens.
Originally Posted By johnno52 Tom I do believe that there are many places in the US that are like this however, not all citizens have access to them. I don't want to get off subject however as you brought it up I will add this. I don't know if you seen a 60 minutes a few months ago about the once actor in Mutual of Omaha's Animal Kingdom had a medical fly with many caregivers into one of the SE states'People lined up hours and some the day before to receive free medical care. These were not people that wanted something for nothing just someone to look at their ailments because they did not have the money or a place that provided it for them at no charge.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << So just like the UAW ultimately doesn't have to conceede anything, quess what the USA doesn't have to bail out their employers either. >> Ultimately, the USA will be bailing out the pension plans that the automakers and all of their suppliers will cut the strings on when the companies declare bankruptcy. This bailout plan is a bargain compared the pension costs that your government will be picking up the bill for. Of course, we can't afford to do that, so it's more likely that you end up with a substantial percentage of the Baby Boom population living a retirement in complete squalor once their pension plans are dissolved.
Originally Posted By avromark It's all the same issue if the corporations didn't do it to themselves the workers wouldn't have to make concessions. Funny how stocks are, people want to make money not doing the actual work (not even really making a direct decision other than to believe in the decisions made by people at the company are the right one). If I have a binding contract I expect the other end to fulfill their end. If you purchase something say a GMC "Accord", you must pay for it once you sign that contract. Even if it means giving up the "finer" things such as let's say a Dulce De Leche every 5 minutes. But corporations are unwilling to do so. Why should the workers suffer, not those who wouldn't give up their desserts? Didn't you nearly have a problem just getting time off for an important event many many moons ago. You'd kind of think those things would be a no brainer to attend. A lot of "rules" corporations set unto themselves as catch-alls seldom work out.
Originally Posted By johnno52 "Right now its GM and Chrysler that are in Washington DC begging for a Federal bailout" Please get this as most people are missing the point ! "THEY WANT A LOAN NOT A HANDOUT" They cannot get one from the banks as they are hoarding the $300+ Billion that they were given to alleviate borrowing demands.
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<I would prefer lower taxes. There is no way I could ever go for a legally mandated single payer medical program. In fact the rest of the world agrees with me. Canada is unique with that one.>> It is my understanding that the USA is the ONLY indusrialized 1st world nation that does not have a single payer health system.
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<I would prefer lower taxes. There is no way I could ever go for a legally mandated single payer medical program. In fact the rest of the world agrees with me. Canada is unique with that one.>> It is my understanding that the USA is the ONLY indusrialized 1st world nation that does not have a single payer health system.
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<How can anyone survive with $30,000 a year? Let alone raise a family to a decent standard of life.>> They can't. Which is why charitable food pantries across the country have bare shelves and in many states the public assistance programs (food stamps, assisted housing, etc.) are broke. In Orange County, California there is a 5 year waiting list for section 8 housing and they have stopped accepting applications. In the US we have accepted a mindest that having a substantial portion of the populace living in poverty is acceptable, and in some cases, necessary. When one adds the underemployed (those who can only find part time work) and those who have given up looking for a job to the "officially" unemployed, the percentage is 20%, which isn't that far from the 25% during the Great Depression (which included those two other groups). Many pundits have been touting the low official unemployment rate as a sign that (until recently) that the economy was strong. Yet flat or declining wages have demonstrated that real unemployment has actually been high. Here in Larimer County, Colorado which is a darling of those "best places to live" lists (Ft. Collins and Loveland) wages have declined 10% since 2000. Yet during this period our official unemployment was never over 5%, and averaged about 3%. People have been substituting debt for income, and it worked for a while, but no more. As I have said before, people don't need more credit (how are they ever going to pay it back?), they need pay raises.
Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/12/politics/otherpeoplesmoney/main4595068.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.cbsnews.com/stories...68.shtml</a> <It's true, as bailout proponents argue, that GM employs about 263,000 people. But corporations including AT&T and IBM employ more, and by that line of argument, WalMart (2.1 million full-time employees) would always be far too big to fail. The Feds have already been profligate in doling out cash; a GM bailout would invite a long line of supplicants, with the most politically-connected companies muscling their way to the front of the queue. One explanation for Washington's haste is that while bankruptcy would alter union contracts, a bailout probably won't. The labor movement spent, according to Financial Week, a whopping $385 million to elect Obama and other Democrats last week. Nobody writes such large checks without expecting something: now it's payback time.>
Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27806336/" target="_blank">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27806336/</a> <<Sen. Jim Bunning, R- Ky., who is up for re-election in 2010, said Wednesday, “It’s not a balancing act. It’s whether the federal government should intervene in the private-sector economy. And I believe it should not. I am very concerned that people as hard-headed as the three people who spoke to us yesterday would not have a plan in place and not have any concession to make, but they would just want the money so they can burn through it. That’s unacceptable.”>>
Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom <a href="http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2008/11/18/93514/227" target="_blank">http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/...3514/227</a> <--if we are really worried about American manufacturing jobs--any financial assistance to GM would require it to invest in producing cars like its new hybrid LaCrosse in the USA rather than in China. (In order to seal its deal with China, GM had to agree that a percentage of each LaCrosse would be "made in China" and plans to build a $250 million fuel research center in Shanghai). After all, how stupid would it be for US taxpayers to subsidize an auto industry that outsources to the People's Republic of China, the main threat to manufacturing jobs in the US? Wouldn't it be wiser to let these companies go under via chapter 11, and offer tax breaks to Honda, Toyota, and Nissan for each laid off Big 3 worker they hire?>
Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/29/news/companies/bigthree_bailout/index.htm" target="_blank">http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/2...ndex.htm</a> <<The risk to Wall Street Other economists argue that as large as the automakers are, they don't pose nearly the risk to the economy as does Wall Street and the nation's banks. Together, the Big Three automakers have about $75 billion in debt related to their automotive operations, with just less than $60 billion in unsecured debt, according to figures from credit rating agency Standard & Poor's. That's only a fraction of the value of the mortgage backed securities, credit default swaps and other damaged financial assets that prompted the Wall Street bailout package. "It's not a systemic risk with the automakers," said David Wyss, chief economist with Standard & Poor's. "It's a big problem if you live in Michigan. But there isn't going to be a shortage of automobiles or even auto parts if one of them goes out of business. It's fundamentally different from the financial markets. When financial markets go, they affect everybody else.">>
Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom <a href="http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/big-3-bailout-in-neutral-2008-12-02.html" target="_blank">http://thehill.com/leading-the...-02.html</a> <<The Big Three submitted their plans to Congress on Tuesday, with General Motors Corp., in the most precarious financial position, saying the company needed a combined $18 billion, including $12 billion in loans and a $6 billion line of credit. Chrysler LLC said in its plan that it needed $7 billion in loans by the end of the year. Ford Motor Co., in the best financial position of the three, intends to carry out its business model of building a fleet of smaller and more fuel-efficient cars without federal assistance, but is seeking a $9 billion line of credit should economic conditions deteriorate. >>
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Sorry to the autoworkers here and I'm not trying to pick on anyone. But even excluding benefits, the typical autoworker is paid about $30 per hour. That amounts to a little over $60K per year. Please tell me ONE OTHER OCCUPATION that requires nothing other than a High School Diploma where a person can average $60K per year. I'm not talking about what an ideal world would be. Sure, ideally anyone working full time would be able to make 60K per year. But that is not reality. I'm talking about what is. And the autoworkers KNOW THAT IT IS NOT REALITY. That is why they fight so desperately to hold on to their jobs. They know that with their qualifications they would be lucky to make $15 per hour anywhere else. There will need to be some concessions. I think that the wages could actually stand… it is the benefits that are bankrupting the company. And from what I’ve been able to read the benefits for both current and retired workers far exceed those available to most employees. I know they exceed what is available to me as a state University Employee, and I realize that my benefits are better than most. When you have many families in America trying to scrape by with Husband and Wife COMBINED not making $60K per year, how can you expect them to spend their tax dollars making sure you can keep making what you make?
