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I guess they think bankrapcy is better then getting paid less
WASHINGTON – A $14 billion emergency bailout for U.S. automakers collapsed in the Senate Thursday night after the United Auto Workers refused to accede to Republican demands for swift wage cuts.
yep blame the rebublicans
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081212/...congress_autos
I guess they think bankrapcy is better then getting paid less
At first glance, it sounds great.
But now it sounds like Bush and Paulson are going to be little es and use TARP funds to cover their tab for the next 2-3 months, then Obama and his merry band of suckass Dems will give the Big 3 and the UAW whatever they want
And we're now well on our way down the slippery slope that was opened up with the bank bailout. Now as each industry in our country starts feeling the effects of the economic crunch, they too will also go to D.C. for funds.
And the Dems will buy their votes for 2010, err, bail each one out on the back of you, me, our kids, grandkids, etc. Can't wait til' we're all paying 60-70% of our income in taxes thanks to the 'leadership' in D.C., or the dollar crashes and isn't worth the paper it's printed on, whichever comes first.
It pisses me off to no end that W. is caving in on this and reaching for the TARP funds. ing asshole.
I heard a senator at one of the recent hearings said something like:
Toyota sold 10.4 million vehicles this past year and made 17 billion profit.
GM sold 10.6 million vehicles this past year and lost 39 billion.
I haven't fact checked this but wttttffff
If GM were to become a penny stock, would they then be tempting?
If 15 million in bonuses is too much for a CEO, why isn't $55 an hour too much for a forklift operator?
I hope GM hurries up and files for bankruptcy though (I doubt they will with news about Bush reaching for the TARP), nothing's going to change for the big 3 until they get rid of unions.
All you need to know is both GM and Toyota sold roughly the same amount of cars last year. Toyota profited 17 billion, GM lost 40 billion. All thanks to like the union job banks, and the bloated pension and benefits for UAW members.
As much as I hate the auto bailout, they sure as deserve that money more than those ing cheats on Wall Street. At least they produce a tangible good, something no one else is doing with the rush to Chinese manufacturing. Pulling $14 billion away from Wall Street to give to lesser bag s is a lot better option than just printing 14 billion more Washingtons.At first glance, it sounds great.
But now it sounds like Bush and Paulson are going to be little es and use TARP funds to cover their tab for the next 2-3 months, then Obama and his merry band of suckass Dems will give the Big 3 and the UAW whatever they want
And we're now well on our way down the slippery slope that was opened up with the bank bailout. Now as each industry in our country starts feeling the effects of the economic crunch, they too will also go to D.C. for funds.
And the Dems will buy their votes for 2010, err, bail each one out on the back of you, me, our kids, grandkids, etc. Can't wait til' we're all paying 60-70% of our income in taxes thanks to the 'leadership' in D.C., or the dollar crashes and isn't worth the paper it's printed on, whichever comes first.
It pisses me off to no end that W. is caving in on this and reaching for the TARP funds. ing asshole.
Anti, I did find this...
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/gmvstoyota/
I still don't think we should have bailed out Wall Street either. Let those banks fail and others step up to take their place.
Where does this madness end? This Big 3 bailout is a Democraptic kickback for the union love for Obama in the election. Bush is just a pussy who doesn't want the Big 3 filing for bankruptcy on his legacy.
Where does this end? As each industry in this country contracts (and it's going to happen), they will each take their turn going to D.C. asking for a bailout. And then what happens? I can already promise that the first time an industry gets denied, they'll be filing suit in court over it because Detroit got bailed.
They have a ty business model and no amount of taxpayer subsidies is going to fix the problem up there in etroit. This is a joke.
It's not even the government anymore dude. Americans are brainwashed now into thinking they DESERVE things which they do not.At first glance, it sounds great.
But now it sounds like Bush and Paulson are going to be little es and use TARP funds to cover their tab for the next 2-3 months, then Obama and his merry band of suckass Dems will give the Big 3 and the UAW whatever they want
And we're now well on our way down the slippery slope that was opened up with the bank bailout. Now as each industry in our country starts feeling the effects of the economic crunch, they too will also go to D.C. for funds.
And the Dems will buy their votes for 2010, err, bail each one out on the back of you, me, our kids, grandkids, etc. Can't wait til' we're all paying 60-70% of our income in taxes thanks to the 'leadership' in D.C., or the dollar crashes and isn't worth the paper it's printed on, whichever comes first.
It pisses me off to no end that W. is caving in on this and reaching for the TARP funds. ing asshole.
At the end the same question is always asked, how much longer will this cluster of stupidity and greed be able to sustain itself?
These mother ers turned down pay-cuts, in exchange for money that would save their employers existence? Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. Greedy ing idiots.
Well, let's be honest. McCain and Obama were both just suckling at the Michigan teet and both were making all sorts of bailout promises in MI. So let's not pretend like this is a mutually exclusive idea for the Democrats. If McCain had won he'd owe the same auto unions, almost the exact same promises.
Short term bandaids that will keep the same ol' problems and thinking that led to this debacle in the first place. And who benefits, union leaders and government officials? That's good looking out?
Pay-cuts and a revamped union policy could save their employers existence over the LONG TERM should they survive.
If they don't survive, I guess people will wake up and move to right-to-work states.
The south shall rise again. At least economically.
Last edited by Anti.Hero; 12-12-2008 at 12:32 AM.
McCain's a Republican in name only. He's a liberal, just not as far to the left as Obama. I really don't care who d themselves out for the UAW vote, they all suck ass.
But let's be clear, this little bailout really is about paying the UAW, plain and simple. The Big 3 don't get their money and they have to file for bankruptcy, and then that destroys the UAW power structure and grip over Detroit. Can't have that. And you heard the UAW over the last couple of days saying they won't renegotiate a damn thing.
I suspect that's not just him being brave, someone behind the scenes in D.C. told him not to worry about it, that they'd get their money one way or another.
I really wish there was a way to stop all this by us the taxpayers. Like a lawsuit or injunction or something. It's clear from this that no one is that cesspool of a city in D.C. (well, outside of the Senate Republicans anyway) gives a damn anymore about the rest of this country.
And yes, I know some of them stepped up and voted for the financial bailout. all them too. Just glad to see someone standing up to Pelosi and Reid in D.C., too bad Bush is going to be a trying to salvage something for his legacy.
sorry, that was over the top
sorry, that was over the top
God Bless America, I love you Uncle Sam...but I agree hahaha
So, in the US, how much more does the average union worker for the big 3 auto companies make than a non-union worker for a foreign auto company?
I found this...does anyone know if these numbers are right?
http://rightvoices.com/2008/11/18/av...-of-nearly-40/
Big 3: 73.21/hr
Toyota, Honda, Nissan: 44.20/hr
I also found this. The rates are considerably lower.
http://www.democraticunderground.com...578894#4580080
Q: Are UAW members really paid $73 an hour?
A: No. Wages for UAW members at Chrysler, Ford and GM range from about $14 an hour for newly hired workers to $28 an hour for assemblers to $33 for skilled trades workers.
Typical hourly wages at Honda, Nissan and Toyota are only slightly lower. Due to the effect of profit-sharing formulas, however, there have been some recent years in which a typical Toyota worker has taken home a larger annual paycheck than a typical GM worker.
The hypocrisy of it all is pretty amusing.
If this were just a principled stand to protect the taxpayer against hapless corporate executives who run their companies into the ground, rather than simply a mix of political theater and naked economic provincialism, one would reasonably have expected the treatment of AIG, among others, to be quite different. As it is, Wall Street executives "misplace" billions of taxpayer "bailout" dollars while wasting their days pampering themselves at luxury resorts and issuing one other millions of dollars in "retention bonuses," when ordinary people with any sense of ethics would be penitently burning the wick at both ends to extract their company from the mess they had created.
Any halfway-decent nation would have constructed a gallows extending the length of Wall Street by now. Perhaps if our government is not up to the task, we could build it for them and add one on Capitol Hill to boot.
This is the most outrageous example of blatant class warfare I have ever observed.
The Republicans in the senate have been offering generous subsidies to the non-union workers in Toyota plants in Alabama for years withe very little concern for the principles of free market capitalism or the wishes of the US taxpayer.
People need to use some common sense.
Do you honestly believe that union workers in Detroit are making anywhere close to $70 an hour? That's just a nonsensical number that someone over at the National Review pulled out of thin air to account for pensions, health care, etc. And that number has been disputed by everyone, especially the management of the big three.
What exactly do republicans want the UAW to do?
It's not like they get paid substantially higher wages than Toyota workers in Alabama, they have been making concession after concession to management for several years due to the simply reality of the market.
The truth is Republicans hate organized labor. They hate workers rights so much that they are willing to let America's manufacturing base collapse so they can finally kill the only union with any teeth anymore.
What the is this country coming to? In the 1930s, when banks came in to foreclose houses in working class and middle class neighborhoods, neighbors would organize and move all of the furniture back into the foreclosed house the same day.
Your grandparents and your great grandparents fought so hard for the right to organize in the workplace for a lot of good reasons. Maybe the people that hate unions so much just don't much about American history, but i suggest some of you look up the gilded age and worker rights back then.
It's really just pathetic how brainwashed this country is. So many people have bought into this bull narrative that we're all on our own--it's like no one gives a about their peers anymore. Everything is always the fault of the individual, there is nothing that ever comes from systemic abuse.
I guess the UAW should apologize to the nation for the credit crunch. I guess the UAW has a lot of explaining to do w/ regard to the house bubble collapsing.
But thank god those rich mother ers in wall street got bailed out though, because without those guys, there's no telling how much further damage the UAW could do this country's finacial sector. I shudder to think of it.
I have to admit, I am beginning to understand that there are few forms of life lower than the Southern Republican.
Link
They failed repeatedly to organize the foreign-owned auto plants proliferating down South, even now.
Their political action committee pumped millions -- $1,918,450 this election cycle alone, to be exact -- into the congressional campaigns of Democrats and only $12,500 into Republicans, according to opensecrets.org. In their 1999 contract, they won Election Day off and used it to back their (generally Democratic) candidates, a source of recurring irritation among the southern GOP stalwarts.
They ignored the Republicans, even auto state Republicans, who represent the so-called "New American Manufacturers" in places such as Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama.
Those are the same states whose senators stood astride the $14 billion auto bailout bill Thursday saying, "No" -- imperiling life as generations of United Auto Workers have known it.
Now a federal bailout for Detroit's automakers appears close to dead, delivering a crushing blow to a Michigan economy reeling from high unemployment, skyrocketing home foreclosures and sagging tax revenue. The obstructionists: southern Republicans determined to use a financial crisis to rework corporate balance sheets and rewrite collective bargaining agreements on their terms and timetables.
Paybacks can be when business meets politics, as union leaders, their members and tens of thousands of folks associated with the Detroit-based auto industry are seeing clearly in the wrangling to craft an emergency bill to throw lifelines to beleaguered General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC.
Stripped bare and put in the regional context of union vs. nonunion and domestic vs. foreign, the toughened conditions pushed by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., are legislative cruise missiles aimed directly at Detroit's business model, the UAW's Solidarity House and 70 years of Big Three bargaining tradition.
Radical change for the UAW
How could they be anything else? Immediately match the pay and benefits of foreign-owned automakers operating in the South, his terms say. Reduce your expectations for Big Three contributions to the barely funded retiree health care fund and take some in stock. Eliminate the Jobs Bank and supplemental unemployment benefits.
And if UAW and company bargainers can't get there by a March deadline -- along with concessions from bondholders, management, shareholders and suppliers -- GM and Chrysler must seek federal bankruptcy protection like almost every other private-sector player would under similar cir stances.
That's tough-minded business, to be sure. Understandable, too, given Detroit's glacial pace of change. It's also a naked attempt to use the credit-induced crisis swallowing the Detroit Three to radically restructure their bloated labor costs, rework their debt-laden balance sheets in 60 days or less and, perhaps, put one or more of them into bankruptcy, if not liquidation.
"I don't think the southern senators understand this isn't a Japanese and Big Three thing," says Gregory Raymond, a member of UAW Local 372 who works at Chrysler's Trenton Engine plant. "It's an American thing. All auto companies use the same suppliers and they're all going to suffer if the supply base goes down."
Except Corker & Co. don't buy it and I'm not sure they care. To him and Republican Senate colleagues such as Alabama's Richard Shelby and Kentucky's Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, the desperation of Detroit and the UAW vindicates the superiority of the nonunion, lower-cost, foreign-owned auto industry growing in Alabama and Tennessee even as Big Auto stagnates in the union strongholds of Michigan and Ohio.
Like the green Democrats in the House eager to coerce Detroit into hybridizing entire product portfolios irrespective of market demands, capital needs or oil prices, the southern Republicans see a win for the home team in subjecting the northern compe ion to the corporate equivalent of chemo: To survive, endure the painful therapy.
No unions, or more unions?
Detroit Bubble, meet the Bigger America. Cynics might suspect parallel agendas in the South's legislative hammer -- agreement on cost parity by March or bankruptcy. How? Because the auto bosses have long wanted to break the union, the thinking goes, and the southerners are happy to oblige.
But there's another possible outcome here, one maybe overlooked by a GOP wing in smackdown mode. Contrary to the tired stereotypes coming daily from Washington, President Ron Gettelfinger's UAW is well on its way to helping Detroit's automakers achieve wage and benefit parity with foreign-owned rivals operating in the United States.
Come next month, amid recession anxiety, job losses and widespread distrust of business, the union and others like it are poised to reap the political benefit of having bigger Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and a labor-friendly Democrat in the White House.
The president-elect and the congressional Democrats all have signaled a willingness to pass labor's top legislative priority -- the so-called "card check" legislation, which would essentially abolish secret ballots and make organizing easier. Everywhere.
If it passes, I'm betting the first stops on the UAW's southern swing will be auto plants in Shelby's Alabama and Corker's Tennessee, soon to be home to Volkswagen AG's first U.S. plant in a generation.
Let the paybacks begin.
Both industries are important for the US economy.
1 in 10 manufacturing jobs depend on the auto industry.
And banks, well they are just essential to the economy. No banks and society as we know it crumbles apart.
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