straightUp Loc: California

I guess I'm just... not the one limiting my arguments to economy cars, where cost is all that matters. (I know, it suites your argument.) But I seem to recall 12-cylinder Jags from back in that era too. But fine, let's just talk about economy cars... And let's assume the foreign manufactures were ahead of the game on efficient design. Can you point out how labor unions can be blamed for that too? Especially considering the fact that automotive engineers weren't even unionized?



So, let me get this straight... Washington raised the bar for cleaner air and lower fuel consumption, foreign manufactures meet the requirements and start exporting... meanwhile, Detroit went crying to Washington because they couldn't handle it. What makes you think Detroit deserved special handicaps? That's protectionism.

You stand on your pedestal of righteousness and b***h about unions demanding advantages for the workers but then you expect Washington to give in to Detroit's demands to protect their s**tty products?

Fuck that.

Reagan often made references to something called creative destruction, when creative innovators outperform the old fuddy-duddies that got too slow and heavy to react to change fast enough and so they're destroyed by the competition. This is one of the main compelling features of capitalism and since Reagan, it has ironically become one of the most opposed concepts on the right.

VladimirPee

** I don't think Detroit deserved special handicaps. That's the point. They were given special handicaps by the mere fact they were not in the small car business. Washington should have been more sympathetic to the plight of American companies and American workers. I know in your far left hatred for American business you cannot seem to understand that hurting a company also hurts its employees.

I agree with Reagan and fully accept that unions and regulations were only part of the problem. American auto manufacturers were slow to react to market changes. That is why I and many conservatives opposed the Auto Bailouts. Our position would be in line with those beliefs Reagan stated.

VladimirPee

How many 12 Cylinder Jags were sold in America? lets get real. I am talking about market share of major markets. Tossing out a few exceptional instances suites your purposes I guess.

And yes even the luxury niche was originally taken by price. An early Nissan Maxima or Toyota Cressida were fully loaded cars that were sold for much less than a comparable GM or FORD.

straightUp Loc: California

That's a very inaccurate blanket statement. The big paychecks in white collar sectors are for positions that require highly qualified professionals with college degrees - there are simply no substitutes, but as soon as there is a need for a receptionist or a bank teller or anything considered entry level, that anyone can do the pay drops to near-s***e levels - ESPECIALLY in banking. It's basic supply and demand. Manufacturing is no different... they all have white collar departments with top dollars for top engineers, while the blue collar workers pulling levers and pushing buttons on the assembly lines are paid crap - same reason. Where highly qualified professionals can rely in their relative scarcity to keep their rates high, low-end workers can't and THAT's where unions step in.

Just a note: I don't want to disrespect the union workers here... I recognize that the range of sk**ls covered by union workers is pretty extensive. Indeed there are some highly sk**led union workers too, in fact those "white collar" businesses you mention are very dependent on network carriers that are almost 100% union and in the health industry you will find unions protecting college educated nurses and technicians too. I'm just using the extreme examples to illustrate my point.

Something else I'll mention - I am currently making a good living on a very good salary but it's been a constant challenge to stay in the low-supply / high demand market. I actually make $120K less now than I did 10 years ago because the vertical market I specialized in disappeared and I had to essentially reinvent myself to tap into a market with a larger supply and I'm on the verge of doing it again. At 53, I worry about how much longer I can keep this up. I will acknowledge that I've done better in the past than I could have with a union, but there is also no safety net for me if supply and demand takes a bad turn.

So I hope you see that the value of a union can't be determined by simple political arguments or emotional "I h**e unions" bulls**t.

straightUp Loc: California

Enough to prove that cost isn't the only thing that matters. And we didn't start off talking exclusively about car manufacturers either. We were talking about unions in general. I already gave you other examples in other sectors where cost was secondary and they weren't exceptions to the rule either. You're the one that's been narrowing the scope to suit your argument... "I'm just talking about cars... Wait, I'm just talking about economy cars..."

Yeah, wh**ever.


Dude - repeatedly mentioning these cars doesn't make you argument any better. I'm not sure what makes you think those are luxury cars but they certainly aren't the first foreign cars on the luxury market. Mercedez has been there from the very beginning, so has Rolls Royce and many others and they weren't there because they were cheap.

VladimirPee

There is nothing inaccurate about my statement

" Corporate profits are up but few are in the manufacturing field. The profits are coming from white collar businesses like Yahoo and Google and Goldman Sachs etc.
All of which pay MUCH better than any Union Job in America."

Corporate profits are up. Do you dispute this?

We have lost most of our manufacturing ? Dispute this?

Bank Tellers and receptionist are entry level positions and never paid well. But Tens of Thousands of people work on Wall Street and most of them get paid very well.

Interesting tibit I found

" Goldman Sachs Receptionists earn $29,000 annually, or $14 per hour, which is 11% higher than the national average for all Receptionists at $26,000 annually and 70% lower than the national salary average for ​all working Americans. The highest paid Receptionists work for Boeing at $62,000 annually and the lowest paid Receptionists work for Baylor University at $13,000 annually.

Maybe we need to unionize college receptionists? Entry Level

Entry Level Union Job at GM is barely above 30K

http://www.careerbliss.com/goldman-sachs/salaries/receptionist/

http://www.uaw.org/content/major-improvements-entry-level-workers

straightUp Loc: California

That's just not being in the small car business. How the fuck is that a handicap? Microsoft isn't in the small car business either. Is that a handicap for them too?


Why because they couldn't position themselves before their competition could? What if Microsoft DOES decide they want to make cars? You think Washington should tell all the manufacturers and customers to hold off on buying and selling cars while Microsoft get's it's s**t together because ...they aren't in the car business so they need extra time? WTF?

Washington doesn't come up with these regulations overnight either, they are almost always in response to public concerns that develop over time. If Detroit had any brains they would have been more aware of the trends that might impact their future business and been more prepared when the regulations were enacted.

Bottom line is... Detroit lost because they're business model was r****ded making them unable to compete in a free-market and you are apologizing for their incompetence.


OK, I know that's just standard right-wing drama but let me clue you in to some reality. It's not "American" business we have a problem with, it's "Bad" business that we take issue with. It's the practice of right-wing propaganda to blur the difference and convince conservatives that if you aren't kissing the shoes of "American" business then you're a c*******t.

And yes, I am aware that any pain that falls on a business will also fall on it's employees. It's not like I've never been there.


Wow... Thank you for finally acknowledging that.


I've seen conservatives on both sides of that issue. I think the more fed-up "Libertarian" conservatives opposed the bail outs on the principals of economic liberalism (as stated by Reagan) Still, others in that group were really just reacting to Obama and if it was Bush making the suggestion they would have been fine with it. I think the mainstream conservatives were more divided. Some sided with economic liberalism and some sided with industrial protectionism - which is of course what the bail outs were.

I admit I was a little confused about the issue too, simply because of the magnitude of the problem. I'm good with creative destruction when the advantages and disadvantages are the direct result of decisions made by individual companies. But the bail outs were about saving an entire industry from a bad situation that was created on Wall Street.

I don't know if you picked up on this but unlike most conservatives AND most liberals for that matter, I don't see commerce as a double-layer cake with business on the top and it's workers on the bottom. What I see is a triple-layer cake with investors on the top, business in the middle and workers on the bottom. The "crash" was 100% the fault of the investors on the top, not the business in the middle, or the workers at the bottom. so I kind of see a no fault argument. On a more pragmatic level, I think letting Detroit fold under could have triggered massive chain reactions across the entire economy, which could have made things far worse than they were.

So... next time you accuse me of hating American business - try to remember, it's the investors, not business where I see about 98% of the problem.

straightUp Loc: California

No.


No.

I'm not disputing your first statement I'm disputing your second statement, where you assert that these "white collar" businesses pay MUCH better than ANY union job in America. That's bulls**t and I think you know it and that's why you didn't ask me if that's what I was disputing.


You said they pay MUCH better than ANY union job in America.


Only because tens of thousands of people working on Wall Street are highly qualified professionals.


You said they pay MUCH better than ANY union job in America. I bet there are union jobs that pay more than $14/hr. Sorry for being a stickler, but I'm just trying to make a point about your exaggerations.


I'm not going to get into a shoot-out over who pays the highest of the lowest wages because it would take days to make fair comparisons. You have to factor in benefits, job requirements... You know this. You weren't born yesterday.

All I'm saying is that the only general rule I am comfortable with making is that pay depends on supply and demand and the only two things that I know of that can stop a company from exploiting an oversupply of labor with s***e-wages is a considerate company policy or if that doesn't exist, then a union.

You said that unions were useful at some point back in history and maybe they aren't as critical now as they used to be, but I suspect their value may return based on this last observation.

More and more of the decision making is shifting from that middle business layer, where considerate policies are possible, to the investor layer where they simply don't care. I mean why would they? A business commits itself to it's brand... it's reputation... it's workers. Investors are simply placing bets - there's no better way to describe it.

robert66

Yes they were. Does the union engineer the products or are they a group of tradesmen and laborers? You still have to do what the boss tells you , union or not. In this case they were instructed to build s**tty cars.

VladimirPee

** I totally disagree with you on the bailout issue. Conservatives were vehemently opposed and Bush gave into an Obama request as President Elect to give GM a lifeline for 90 days which he did in TARP. Romney wrote a very detailed OP-ED in the Wall Street journal opposing the Auto Bailout as well. It wasn't just libertarians. The auto industry was in trouble before the fiscal crisis.

Here is an article predating the fiscal crisis

General Motors Death Watch 181: Bankruptcy
http://www.thet***haboutcars.com/2008/06/general-motors-death-watch-181-bankruptcy/


This one in 2005
http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2005-12-11/what-if-gm-did-go-bankrupt-dot-dot-dot



The crash certainly has more blame at the top but lets not ignore those at the bottom who tried to make a quick buck flipping homes or those who bought homes they could not afford. Then cried foul that banks c***ted them. Or claimed ignorance. My niece is a great example. She lives in Arizona and is a CPA. She built a new home which was up $100,000 before she ever moved in so she sold it and bought 2 more. Then the crash hit and she was stuck with her primary home and 2 investment homes. She ended up walking away from 2 of them. The bank got stuck.

straightUp Loc: California

I don't claim to know the positions of every conservative alive - I was just stating my own personal observations (I thought I made that pretty clear) I personally know several conservatives who agreed the "life-line" was a good idea. I won't say they were enthusiastic about it but then again I don't know who (outside banking) was. This is why I said "mainstream" conservatives. From what I can tell most conservatives, like most liberals, are moderate and don't go around screaming their opinions, like they do here - so you probably just don't know about them.



I'll just use your own weapon and quote from the second paragraph of the GM Death-Watch-181 article...

In February 2006, The General halved its dividend to .25 a share. At the time, GM claimed it made the move “to support its ongoing turnaround plan, particularly in its North American business, to reduce costs and business risks, and to further enhance its financial flexibility.” Two years later, GM’s spending $3b a year on interest payments, burning through a reported $1b per month and contemplating borrowing $10b to bolster its liquidity. In short, the dividend is doomed.

Now, let me repeat the statement I made earlier to which I believe you are responding.

"next time you accuse me of hating American business - try to remember, it's the investors, not business where I see about 98% of the problem."

You might have assumed that my reference to problems created by investors was actually a reference to the 2007 "fiscal crisis", but it's not. It's a reference to many years of manipulation from Wall Street investors. It amazes me that so many people think the "fiscal crisis" in 2007 just popped out of nowhere simply because that's when they first learned there WAS a problem. Terms like "predatory loaning" all of a sudden becomes common vernacular but it took years of predatory loaning to build up to the breaking point and the sub prime market was just one of many examples. Another example is GM. Stock splits are not about the business of making cars, which is always synonymous with production and brand success. Splitting stocks is a financial strategy for attracting investments and the success of investment is measured ONLY by it's returns while investment safeguards make actual production and brand success negligible.

Now, before you get all "class room theory" on me, let me say that I *do* understand how investment is critical for large scale production - it's the basis of capitalism and you will find very few Americans that have a problem with it when it serves the greater good. But there *is* a dark side and Wall Street is it's Darth Vader. The article goes on to say that within two years GM was spending $3b a year on interest payments. I'm guessing that cost to the business rivals the additional compensation for workers that unions demand, if indeed it doesn't overshadow it. And this isn't just paying back money that GM borrowed... this is just interest payments! So when I refer to the problem being in the financial sector not the business sector, this is exactly what I am talking about.

If investors didn't loan billions in cash to GM so they can make money from interest, the car company would have been forced to make real improvements to the business of making cars. From that perspective, what Obama and Bush did was basically the same thing Wall Street had already been doing for years, the difference being that tax payers became the collateral, which explains the sudden outrage. At least Obama added stipulations that companies pay back... I don't remember Bush doing that at all, perhaps that's why conservatives refer to Obama's stipulations of responsibility as "socialism". ;)


I agree 100%. I watched my property value go down BECAUSE of people like your niece defaulting on her loans... and buying two "investment" houses makes her an investor, which makes her part of that 98% I mentioned. Also being a CPA means she should have known better. There were millions of Americans buying homes who were not financial experts and had to trust their banks who were offering all this "creative financing". Most of these Americans we buying these homes to live in... to provide shelter and stability for their families, not to fucking "flip" which serves only serves their greed while making it harder for people who need houses to buy them. Please don't take this personally, but as far as I am concerned, your niece is a thief without morals.

VladimirPee

I agree totally on my niece and that Dem Congresswoman in California who did the same thing. I also believe anyone who buys a home and takes a mortgage should know what they are doing. Claiming ignorance or blaming a bank because they made a bad investment is simple bulls**t.


Making arguments based on ones limited personal contacts is meaningless to me. Gallup shows 73% of Republicans opposed the Auto Bailouts
http://www.gallup.com/poll/152936/Republicans-Democrats-Differ-Automaker-Bailout.aspx


The investors in GM lost all their money. I am sure they didn't want to lose their money. GM was overburdened with pensions and benefits. And had questionable management decisions. Don't blame the investors

straightUp Loc: California

I agree.. makes no difference to me what a thief's political leaning is.


I agree that anyone who buys a home and takes a mortgage should do their best to understand what they are getting involved in. But I also think it's bulls**t to ignore the guilt of the banks when they already KNEW what they were doing and were being dishonest with the borrowers.

Like I said, not every American home buyer is a frickin' bean counter... most of them exhaust their time and energy on being nurses, doctors, teachers, engineers, mechanics, firefighters, soldiers... The BANKERS are the ones that have all day to think up predatory schemes.
> It was the BANKERS that were encouraging borrowers to over-extend themselves just so they could write up the loans.
> The BANKERS were the ones that knew they could minimize the risk of default by turning around and selling the loans on the secondary market where the government hedged the risk of default on each loan by packaging them all together into mortgage-backed securities made available as debt products to foreign investors like the Investment Corporation of China.
> The BANKERS were the ones that have been doing this since Reagan established the secondary market by creating the state-run corporations (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac) for that purpose.
> It was the BANKERS that knew the executive politicians were doing this to generate collateral so the Treasury could borrow more money without telling the American people OR clearing it through their representatives in Congress.
> The BANKERS were the ones that knew the real reason why Clinton was encouraging home ownership was to increase the volume of debt pouring into these securities, so he could fund more government bulls**t.
> The BANKERS were the ones that KNEW why the first thing Bush did when he got into office was drop interest rates to make the loans even MORE attractive to home buyers thereby increasing the volume of debt even more so he could fund more of HIS government bulls**t.
> The BANKERS were the ones that knew what Bush really meant by the "ownership society" ... as in owning debt.
> The BANKERS in league with the POLITICIANS were the ones that intentionally did not explain ANY of this to the home buyers.

Well there we go... Only 73%, which proves my personal observation was correct... there WERE conservatives on both sides of the issue. I should just let you make my cases for me all the time. ;)


The article YOU linked to PROVED that they were overburdened with debt to investors and that this debt was the main reason for their crisis. It didn't even mention pensions and benefits. Do you even read these articles?

Why are you being such a brown-noser for Wall Street anyway? The evidence that they were gambling with American business is everywhere and towing that line that Wall Street is innocent has long reached the point of ridiculousness. I suppose the Holocaust didn't happen either. This isn't a left-right issue, this issue is about standing up for the American people.

Hey, can you breathe way up in there?

VladimirPee

There is no question that some c***ted where a mortgage broker used a " friendly" appraiser who would overvalue a home in order to make a mortgage. This is a given but please don't tell me a Nurse or an Engineer is not smart enough to read a mortgage document or at very least have their attorney explain it. Not being a bean counter is a poor excuse.

The Gallup article does not go into great detail about GM. It was to show that most Republicans opposed the bailout despite your claim . Where do you see where it places any blame on investors? GM borrowed money to operate by issuing bonds. These bond holders do not run the company.

straightUp Loc: California

Dude... If the "friendly appraiser" was the only problem, the mortgage market would not have collapsed.

Dennis... think about it... I just explained the entire supply-chain of debt-based value from the mortgage contract to the Investment Corporation of China. All 50+ pages of a mortgage contract is concerned with the agreements of only ONE link in that chain between the buyer and the lender. What happens between the lender and the secondary market is legally none of the buyers business, nor is any other link in the chain from there out. And although the lowered credit standards could have been recognized in the terms of the mortgage contract, all the information available in that contract would indicated that sub prime standard to have been a good deal for the buyer and that smart family lawyer would have agreed, because the increased liability of lower credit is on the lender not the buyer. Granted in more extreme cases buyers should have been able to think in terms of "too good to be true" but for most of these buyers it seemed within reason. I mean, do you really think the unprecedented tsunami of sub-prime loans was created by some sudden epidemic of gross stupidity among buyers? It was the lenders absorbing the risk who were playing the dangerous game of how much aggregate risk they can pass on to the secondary market.THAT information was NOT available to home buyers. When the banks lost that game they basically screwed themselves and brought everyone else down around them.



Yeah 73%, that's most Republicans... got it. But I never made any claim to the contrary. I said there were conservatives on both sides of the issue I never said how many or that one side had more. We have plenty to argue about, you don't have to make up stories about claims I'm not even making.


The unions don't "run" the company either. That doesn't stop you from blaming them for GM's demise by adding to their burden of cost. You're tap dancing bro. That article said 1.3b in interest payments... If you can blame the union for adding a hundred million or so to the burden of cost then I can sure as s**t blame the financial plan to accept 1.3b just in interest payments alone, never mind what the principal is. The point here is that it's the investment market that made it easier for GM to just throw money at the problem instead of doing the hard work of improving the business model. And how much of that decision do you think was made by directors sitting on the board who's first interest is short-term gain on the stock market? All of it?