Comments on: White House, Dems Clash Over Auto Bailout
Administration Resists Using Money From $700B Rescue Package To Help Big 3 Carmakers
Add a Comment See all 459 Comments
- Well, dear, yes they have....all of Europe is also suffering because of the global economy...Germany for instance is suffering the exact same crisis we are right now...
You might go read up sometime before you spout off.
Posted by Rowdydfw at 08:00 AM : Nov 18, 2008
Yeah EVERYONE can see how they have TRASHED their workers and their unions like we have. GET REAL! THEY are struggling, yes. Are they putting THOUSANDS of Workers out in the streets to satisfy some hatred for Unions? NO!! - Reply to this comment
I don''t know why people keep om trying to blame the workers, when the problem is as clear as the nose on your face. The workers built what they were told to build.
Management told the workers what to build, which for years was junk, or close to it.
They were unreliable, broke down often, and if you were lucky got 80.000 to 90.000 miles out of them.
Even when their quality improved, they had lost so much market to the Japanese, that they couldn''t recover fully. And too answer the Japanese and others, they started building these giant SUV''s. Sure some people wanted them, but they started to become a status symbol, and people wanted them for only that reason.
What they should have done is to put their R&D money into cars that would have answered directly to the Japanese, as opposed to trying to avoid them, in a different market class.
Slowly people would have started drifting back to Detroit built cars. But their reputation stopped a lot of people from going back to Detroit cars.
Even their styling was a lot to be desired...- Reply to this comment
- Yeah, right. I read a story the other day where auto workers have the jobs bank program where some of them lay around all day for up to 6 years getting full pay doing NOTHING.
Try again sweet pea.
Posted by FloydZeppd at 07:51 AM : Nov 18, 2008
So? We have no idea what that program is about and how many workers were involved. YOU take one story and are willing to trash THOUSANDS of workers who work HARD every day. You have no idea how hard these people work, you don''t know how difficult their jobs are! You know NOTHING of them, you only hate them because some guy MAY have found some loophole in a program set up to protect the earnings of people hurt by "Free Trade". It''s no skin off my back, I''m retired with a pension that is Insured, but you mark my words, you people allow these workers and their high paying jobs to be wiped away, YOU and your kids WILL suffer... GREATLY. The problem is NOT in the American Worker or their Unions. How long it takes you people to figure that out? We''ll have to see!! - Reply to this comment
- BUSH/CHENEY SHOULD BE IN JAIL BUY THE END OF NEXT YEAR
- Reply to this comment
- FloydZeppd still gets his b utt wiped by his mommy, that''s why he doesn''t have a clue of what will happen if the Big 3 go down. Saying, "let them fall" means that Michigan will fall and you WILL have to bail us out anyway. What, you want a ghost state?
- Reply to this comment
- So the truth is out now. It''''s been the Dems all along who are giving away the great grands kid''''s America. Nice going, Dems. I''''m sure the generations to come will appreciate all you''''ve given away for "their" sake. Hey, I''''m happy already knowing some jerk with an air powered screw driver making $35 per hour is going to keep his job while I''''m in the unemployment line. Kinda gives you warm fuzzies all over, eh?
Posted by ThatGuy56 at 07:50 AM : Nov 18, 2008
Sure let''s drag that Jerk who makes $35 an hour down to where the Jerk flipping Hamburgers is! Helll why stop there? Once those people have given up all they have worked so hard for and HAVE earned, lets move along to some other "Overpaid" worker... never mind that the rich CEO''s pay increased 400% over the period where this guy''s went DOWN. Never mind that those CEO''s put us IN this mess to begin with. You just be so envious of that worker this LIAR says makes $35 dollars an hour and YOU drag him down to YOUR level... Guess what YOU are leaving YOUR kids?? My father left me a better Nation and a better world. How? By striving to earn MORE and Spend MORE on his family. - Reply to this comment
- Sometimes we as a nation must learn lessons over and over again. It comes from success! We are about to learn one and it will be a very painful one indeed. No OTHER nation in the G-7 that has taken advantage of "Free Trade" has done what we have done to our workers and anyone who thinks this is going to be helpful to this nation or to themselves is simply hiding their heads in the sand. I don''t care what you do for a living, YOU are going to HURT and HURT badly for the pleasure of seeing these workers loose all they have worked a lifetime for. But hey, sometimes stupidity has to get rewarded! LOL
- Reply to this comment
- The prob is everyone wants it all and they want it now don''t ask me to work just give it to me and if you don''t you are a peice of shi! its the American way.
- Reply to this comment
- Tough. Its time to face the music. You can''''t have impact wrench operators making $45 an hour. You can''''t have a jobs bank program where a laid off auto worker makes full pay sitting on his assss.
The Industry needs to sink and Mich. can sink with it. If you morons were so stupid and lazy to let yourselves be tied to ONE industry its your own fault.
And rememebr, your Messiah Bush and his buddies are the ones with the economic policies that caused. I remember YOU screeching "The Econoy is GREAT under Bush!"
Well it wasn''''t. So suffer for your ignorance grandma.
Posted by FloydZeppd at 07:40 AM : Nov 18, 2008
You just keep right on pounding those workers sparky. NO impact wrench operator makes $45 an hour by the way, by you go right ahead and trash them. You pound them and their unions just like you have now for 3 decades and see where it gets YOU! Unless you are some CEO or Executive I''ll tell you where it will get you, it will drop you even farther down the list in the Standard of Living. When you turn ONE of those jobs into a job at Wally World, it doesn''t just hurt HIM and his family, it hurts us ALL. How long it takes you freaks to figure that out will determine how close to the bottom we actually get!! - Reply to this comment
- Tough. Its time to face the music. You can''''t have impact wrench operators making $45 an hour. You can''''t have a jobs bank program where a laid off auto worker makes full pay sitting on his assss.
The Industry needs to sink and Mich. can sink with it. If you morons were so stupid and lazy to let yourselves be tied to ONE industry its your own fault.
And rememebr, your Messiah Bush and his buddies are the ones with the economic policies that caused. I remember YOU screeching "The Econoy is GREAT under Bush!"
Well it wasn''''t. So suffer for your ignorance grandma.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by FloydZeppd at 07:40 AM : Nov 18, 2008
Sorry, but you''re the ignorant one. The UAW is a DEMOCRAT run enterprise, this block has voted Democrat for as long as I can remember and it will be your grandma Pelosi that will try to hand out a blank check. My first post mentioned major concessions and I ment it, UAW workers make WAY to much money.
Also, your coldhearted view includes suppliers who have nothing to do with the Big 3''s manangement or union decisions. People who work for suppliers DO make competitive wages along with the rest of this country and they don''t deserve to bend over just because UAW workers want to keep their high wages. - Reply to this comment
- A bailout with major concessions from management and the union are needed. After all, do we want to bail out Michigan? I live in Michigan and believe me, with no bailout we will fall. To me, I would rather see the federal govt. oversee the bailout of the automakers, than watch Jennifer Granholm and our legislature divvy out any rescue money.
Posted by promaclaura at 07:23 AM : Nov 18, 2008
--------
You sound like a Republican. "Bailout! Bailout! Give everybody Free Money!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by FloydZeppd at 07:27 AM : Nov 18, 2008
Sweety, I''m right here in the middle of it and mark my words, Michigan will need a bailout if the Big 3 go down.
ps I am sickened by a bailout because I am no fan of the UAW, but I am not willing to watch Michigan''s economy go down the tubes so I can shove it to them. - Reply to this comment
- I think that if they go under the goverment has to pick up 70% of there pension and this will be the taxpayer.
- Reply to this comment
- A bailout with major concessions from management and the union are needed. After all, do we want to bail out Michigan? I live in Michigan and believe me, with no bailout we will fall. To me, I would rather see the federal govt. oversee the bailout of the automakers, than watch Jennifer Granholm and our legislature divvy out any rescue money.
- Reply to this comment
- CBSOliver good luck in trying to get these people to understand this tanks for the post and have a good day.
- Reply to this comment
- the cost will be massive in any case. Does anyone else think that free enterprise in America is not broken and that these concerns are just part of Capitalism as a whole. Free enterprise allows for loss as much for gain and if there is a cost to be paid, pay it and move on. What is on the other side of this crises is our future this is only an echo of past greed.
- Reply to this comment
- When gas was cheap everyone wanted big SUV''S and everone had to have one they made and sold what the American people wanted. Then gas goes to four bucks a gallon and guess what no one wanted one everyone wants a auto now that gets 50mpg so in a week or so the auto company should just have one. If the big-3 go under guess who will pick up the tab? the tax payer and it will cost a lot more than twenty five billion. Everyone wants to blame the union and the auto workers for this but guess what the union did its job they were there to get everything for the workers they could and did. The workers did there job buy making the auto''s that people wanted. And if you do not have one of these jobs it''s not there fault its yours. If you do not have a good paying job it''s not everyone else''s fault but yours.
- Reply to this comment
- An irony of the current situation is that the long and effective anti labor union propaganda program of the US auto industry may well lead to Americans supporting the dissolution of the industry itself.
Sometimes deceit can yield unexpected consequences. - Reply to this comment
- Posted by Dean Baker on February 15, 2008 at another site:
"Nutty Math on Auto Worker Pay at NYT
An article in the NYT discusses GM''s plan to replace its current workforce with new hires. According to the article, the average hourly wage of the current workforce is $28 an hour, the new hires would get $14 an hour. The NYT then tells us that: "Including benefits and retiree health care costs, each worker who leaves under the buyout program and is replaced by someone on the lower pay scale would save G.M. about $48 an hour, or nearly $100,000 a year."
Okay, does anyone think that the health care and pension benefits of an autoworker average $34 an hour? That comes to $68,000 per year, for a 2000 hour work year. In fact, since new workers would still get some wage and pension benefits, the cost of these benefits for current workers would have to be even greater than $68,000.
Obviously, the NYT has committed the sin (encouraged by the auto companies) of averaging its liabilities for retired workers over the hours worked by the current workforce. This is a very misleading figure because GM is obligated to make these payments regardless of how many workers it currently employs. It is also misleading because the current workers do not see this money, so it is not their compensation." - Reply to this comment
- Given that the "big 3" appear to need massive bailouts about every 5 years or so--and do they ever pay them back? The fact is--the auto industry has become habituated to periodic bailouts and no doubt factors such a scheme into their profit margin. It is not that they or anyone who gets any other type of welfare do not need help--it is that--they eventually make the welfare a crutch and ALWAYS need help.
Time for the automakers to grow let there be no more bailouts for them. Any concessions made now will guarantee bad habits for the future. If bailouts were only a one time gesture, we''d have a stronger country--that goes for individuals as well as businesses. - Reply to this comment
Mike Huckabee on GOP "rock stars," 2012, health care reform and more.
