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Badmovies.org Forum  |  Other Topics  |  Off Topic Discussion  |  The Big 3 Auto Bailout « previous next »
Poll
Question: Do you think the federal government should bail out the Big 3?
Yes!  It could affect our economy even worse if they don't - 2 (13.3%)
No way!  They shouldn't be treated differently than any other company - 11 (73.3%)
I don't know - 2 (13.3%)
Total Voters: 14

Pages: 1 [2]
Author Topic: The Big 3 Auto Bailout  (Read 6898 times)
CheezeFlixz
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« Reply #15 on: December 13, 2008, 12:13:58 AM »

No, they need to file Chapter 11, restructure and get out from their restrictive overpriced Union contracts. It's the only way, if they are bailed out the current contracts stay in place and that's bad.
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lester1/2jr
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« Reply #16 on: December 13, 2008, 10:25:20 AM »

Don't Cave!
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.


If you write and follow politics enough, you eventually realize that most evil in this world is brought about by those seeking a lesser of two evils. And those who assist in this very much resent it when you point out that they are promoting evil.

My inbox has been inundated in recent days with people who think along these lines. Consider the Detroit bailout for example. Now, this idea is preposterous on the face of it. One of the glorious aspects of this recession is that it will finally deal the crippling blow to this industry that has been a decades-long drag on American productivity.

Wicked unions have thoroughly looted the capital stock of these companies, and the workers themselves are wholly focused on their own well-being rather than that of the company and the consumer. The management is deeply embedded in the regulatory structure of the state, working to effectively turn the American car industry into a public-private partnership of the sort Mussolini would applaud.

You don't have to be a technician to know that foreign makers – whether building abroad or residing in the United States – make a superior car at a better price, no matter how much the "Big 3" waste on hopped-up advertising campaigns. In fact, we should welcome their complete bankruptcy. Maybe they can regroup or maybe they can't. That's for the market to decide.

In the meantime, not cranking out these endless cars would be a welcome relief, freeing up labor and capital for more economically useful purposes. 

To bail them out with tax dollars is an amazing insult to American consumers. What Americans have chosen not to buy, the government is now effectively forcing them to buy. You want a Toyota and paid for it with your money but your government is now saying that you should have bought a Pontiac, so it is tapping into your bank account to make it happen – and then not even giving you a car for your money!

But let's return to the problem of those who have caved in. I'm getting messages from people who believe in free markets saying that we have to do this bailout anyway, otherwise we will face worse consequences. The unions will strike back. There will be massive protectionism to prop up the industry. Free market people will get a bad name for not supporting the little guy. Our industrial base will further erode. Unemployment will soar and then the masses will riot and we'll get Bolshevism. And so on.

Dick Cheney himself is reported to have gone around to Republican senators to tell them to pass the bailout, even if they disagree. Otherwise, they would be like Hoover, not having done anything about the depression. Leaving aside his stupid historical point (Hoover did plenty, all of it wrong), it is never right to do evil that good may come of it.

I grant that all the predicted results of failing to pass it would be bad. They might even be worse than a bailout, who is to say? But these are speculations about the future. What we face right now is a terrible evil of a bailout, and great good comes from its failure to pass. What's more, if free market people can't bring themselves to oppose that, what good are they anyway?

People who think along these lines imagine that they personally can control the political process in clever ways, giving a bit here to get more later on. I actually heard these same arguments about the first round of bailouts back in September: we'd better support this now or else it will be worse later.

What is striking about these arguments is how tyrants always use them. Hilary Clinton used to claim that we either pay for her health care program now or pay more later. FDR said we need to support the New Deal now, or else face full-scale socialism later. Actually Hitler was the same way. He justified his entire program on the idea that only National Socialism could stop Bolshevism.

If a dystopian nightmare of the totalitarian state finally arrives in the United States, it will be a result of a compromise, and there will be people around until the very end who will insist that we should be grateful because it could be much worse.

This kind of strategizing also works as a cover for selling your soul. The temptation to do this is very great indeed. The state loves nothing more than a seeming libertarian who weighs in from time to time with a pro-state position. This allows the state and its minions to justify their oppression even from the standpoint of libertarian intellectuals. When you sell out, this is the role you are playing (and this is the role that some D.C. organizations have been appointed to play).

There is only one sure way that you can know that you are on the right side of history, and that is by saying what is true and defending what is right, without exception. It is not left to intellectuals to play political games. Intellectuals are supposed to tell the truth, regardless of the moment. That means, in these days, completely opposing all increases in state power under the cover of "countercyclical policy."

Let evil people take responsibility for their evil policies. Those who know better should stick to the right and true.
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ghouck
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« Reply #17 on: December 13, 2008, 01:51:37 PM »

No, they need to file Chapter 11, restructure and get out from their restrictive overpriced Union contracts. It's the only way, if they are bailed out the current contracts stay in place and that's bad.

Will that really work though? I was under the impression that merely filing for bankruptcy would not be enough, logically or legally to dislodge the UAW. No matter how you look at it. the FIRST thing that needs to go is the UAW. I was leaning toward support of a bailout if it meant we could put a leash on the UAW. Sounds like that isn't likely, and if the UAW won't consider having their people take a reasonable pay cut to save the gifthorse that is the taxpayers some money, then perhaps they need to know what being WITHOUT jobs is like. I think many of them are in for a very rude awakening when they realize how much experience and/or education one needs to perform a $30/hr job OUTSIDE the auto industry, not to mention the competition for those jobs. In the real world you don't get $30/hr for doing something that requires no education or experience and only 10 minutes worth of training that's you're paid for taking in the first place. I just don't think UAW union workers understand how many jobs unions have bargained out of existence in this country, perhaps they could use the lesson. I wonder how many actual workers would take the pay cut over the JOB cut, but since unions generally represent THEMSELVES more so then the actual MEMBERS, we don't hear it.

Personally, I've ALWAYS bought American cars and have had little trouble, and nothing I would consider unreasonable. I've had a few that have lasted 200K+. My wife had a Toyota that was on it's last leg at 111K, after some major repairs around 60K. My Father-in-Law bought a brand new 4-runner and had HUGE problems with it, he said it was in the shop for over a quarter of the first year, but, he still swore by Toyota. Oh Well. . .
« Last Edit: December 13, 2008, 02:32:29 PM by ghouck » Logged

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Rev. Powell
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« Reply #18 on: December 13, 2008, 06:01:50 PM »

No, they need to file Chapter 11, restructure and get out from their restrictive overpriced Union contracts. It's the only way, if they are bailed out the current contracts stay in place and that's bad.

Will that really work though? I was under the impression that merely filing for bankruptcy would not be enough, logically or legally to dislodge the UAW. No matter how you look at it. the FIRST thing that needs to go is the UAW.

Cheeze is right.  You'll never get rid of the UAW, but if the Big 3 go into bankruptcy they may be able to get the current agreements voided and renegotiated.  If the industry ever gets back on its feet again, I'm sure the UAW will get its chance to drag them back down.

And Ghouk's right, I  think, in that the UAW and other megaunions seem more interested in perpetuating their own power than in the interests of either the company or the workers.
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CheezeFlixz
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« Reply #19 on: December 14, 2008, 12:56:44 AM »

Currently it cost the Big 3 about $75/hours per employee to build a car, on the other hand the foreign auto makers building cars in this country pay around $40/hour (this is all cost not just wages). Why? Unions.

If you restructure that's not going out of business just dropping back and punting to re-field. You loss these contracts and a lot of these silly union perks, like getting paid not to work. Then maybe they can sell a car people can afford.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but a large part of the price of a Big 3 auto goes to pay for everything EXCEPT building the car/truck. If you look at a new car or truck does it really look like it's worth $40,000 or more? No it doesn't.
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ghouck
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« Reply #20 on: December 14, 2008, 12:30:36 PM »

The big 3 made that $75/hr claim, others have calculated it to be closer to $60, but still, wages alone for floor workers average $30/hr, while Toyota in the US averages right around $20. A large part of what has happened is decent spells of overtime for big-3 workers, followed by 40-hour workweeks, and the UAW bargaining for more $ to make the 40-hour weeks match the income of the 50-60 hour workweeks. The problem was that he unions bargained for the future raise at the BEGINNING of the overtime spell, when the company couldn't afford a work slowdown. Mid-contract negotiations are some of teh most unethical things ever done in business. They have also demanded their way to one of the highest retirement percentage payouts there are, ie, a person's retirement is HUGE compared to their wages, one place mentioned close to 90%. That's ludicrous, especially when you consider those wages are already 50% or so out of line. . . 
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Raw bacon is GREAT! It's like regular bacon, only faster, and it doesn't burn the roof of your mouth!

Happiness is green text in the "Stuff To Watch For" section.

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"There's always time for lubricant" -Orlando Jones in Evolution
CheezeFlixz
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« Reply #21 on: December 14, 2008, 11:09:17 PM »

Back when I installed CNC's and automated robots for assembly lines I really hated working in union shops. A job that should have taken me a day or so would take a week or longer in a union shop do to the fact that I couldn't do the work. I had to train and tell someone in the union how to do it, but not just one person oh no ... I had to have a electrician to connect the power and a plumber to hook up the hydraulics and a mechanic to bolt it down and a machinist to start it and so on and so on. Half the time one or the other was on break and if it was their day off, oh well I could do anything but wait. It was the MOST inefficient way of doing anything, a complete waste of time. Even if I got the machine going and had to make a small adjustment I had to go track down someone to find the right person to get to make a adjustment and it all depended on what needed adjusting as to who I got to adjust it. 
Alone I could have installed a CNC's with a Fanuc Robot in one good long day, with the union it took a week or longer. So I'm not even a tiny bit surprised they're in trouble, I'm surprised it took this long. And I don't feel sorry for them, they reap what they sew.
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ghouck
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« Reply #22 on: December 15, 2008, 04:52:01 PM »

My problem with this whole situation isn't the autoworkers, it's with the nearly five times as many suppliers. My Uncle founded and owns a plastics business in Ohio and they have fought off the UAW for YEARS, and it looks like the UAW is STILL going to manage to kill those jobs. Several million parts provided each year, running many years with zero defects, providing good jobs at reasonable pay and benifits to several hundred people. THAT is going to suck: People that are actually a GOOD part of that industry, losing their jobs because of the bad part taking them down with them. The UAW several times tried getting the people to make my Uncle's company union, and were never successful, but it was getting slightly closer every time.

The autoworkers themselves would just be getting the ugly end of reality if they lose their jobs, it's everyone else that is getting dragged down that have my sympathies.
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Raw bacon is GREAT! It's like regular bacon, only faster, and it doesn't burn the roof of your mouth!

Happiness is green text in the "Stuff To Watch For" section.

James James: The man so nice, they named him twice.

"Aw man, this thong is chafing my balls" -Lloyd Kaufman in Poultrygeist.

"There's always time for lubricant" -Orlando Jones in Evolution
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