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Automotive News & Views United Automobile Workers of America (UAW)
16738 messages, Last post on Dec 03, 2009 at 10:07 AM
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Replying to: lemko (Nov 13, 2008 8:10 am) Easy, pal. Measured against other post-WWII recessions, our current situation rates as a mid-pack downturn. For all of the loose talk about another 1930s-style Great Depression, we aren't even close to the lows of the 1981-82 recession. |
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| jimbres. I was a young Daddy at that time and a Boeing union employee. We were all worried about our jobs and in Mar.of '82 I got my pink slip. On the same day John Belushi died. That was a recession for sure for sure. | |
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Replying to: jimbres (Nov 13, 2008 9:39 am) I agree that we're nowhere near a Great Depression scenario. I was born in 1970, so I was just a kid when we had that downturn in the late 70's/early 80's. The main thing I remember was Mom griping about paying $1.10 per gallon for gas, and trading her '75 LeMans 350 in on an '80 Malibu with a 229 V-6. Still, I wonder if overall, this time around might actually be worse, even if we're not calling it a recession just yet? Back in the late 70's and early 80's, house prices kept appreciating for the most part, even though the recession. And in those days, pensions were much more common. The federal government had its own retirement system. And if you were a federal employee, you were basically like the Pope...guaranteed a job for life! Sure, people would still get laid off. And if you didn't get a new job in time, you ran the risk of burning through your savings and losing your home if you started missing payments. But today's economy is much worse. Many people are getting hit not only with a job loss, but a house with plummeting value, and a 401k, if they even started one, that's quickly eroding in value. Another problem is that most of the "success" of this current decade has been based on bubbles. First the tech, then the real estate and the rampant consumption fueled by easy credit and rising equity. This decade has also seen the gap between the rich and the middle class widen. Many high-paying jobs from the 1990's were wiped out, and have been replaced by much more menial, low-paying jobs. Truth be told, the economy was pretty jittery through most of the 1970's, so the recession that ensued actually managed to straighten things out, to the point that the 1980's and 1990's would be a good long period of prosperity. Sure, there were some blips, like Black Monday in October 1987, a relatively mild recession in the early 1990's, and another blip around late 1998. I think that the bad times that started hitting in 2000, and were exacerbated by the 9/11 tragedy, and then pretty much bottomed out around late 2002, would have been much worse, but lowering interest rates and relaxing credit standards sort of delayed it. Didn't make it go away, but just put off the inevitable. And now, we're finally starting to pay for it. As for upswings in violent street crime, depression, suicide, homicide, etc, sad to say, it's already been happening. With the mortgage/credit meltdown, suicide prevention hotlines have been ringing off the hooks. People have also been resorting to extreme measure, such as torching the house to collect on insurance, having a car that they can no longer make the payments on mysteriously get stolen, shooting their entire family because they somehow feel it's more honorable than living on the street, etc. If anything, we might be even more ill-prepared today if another Great Depression came along, than our forefathers were. Back in the day, many people knew how to live off the land. But just imagine a scene like that today...people raising their own chickens, pigs, cows, etc...that would really get their HOA's panties in an uproar! And how many people nowadays would even know how to slaughter a chicken or pig or whatever? Sure, it's one thing to kill it, but then you have to prep it just right, or the meat goes bad, and if done wrong I think it's even possible to poison yourself. How many people could grow their own crops these days? Or do their own home repairs? Or patch up the car when it breaks down? Needless to say, if we entered another Great Depression, most of us would be screwed! |
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Replying to: andre1969 (Nov 13, 2008 11:02 am) I've read somewhere that aggressive driving also increases in economic hard times, something else for lemko's gloom and doom  I think the people have been taught to not be self-sufficient in any way. The only real thing that comes out of these times is centralization and consolidation of power...and to be on topic...those powers will do anything they can to see the UAW die. |
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Replying to: andre1969 (Nov 13, 2008 11:02 am) I have grown my own garden, but it's more a supplement to my food purchases rather than a substitute. I could probably keep my 1988 Buick Park Ave or 1989 Cadillac Brougham going indefinitely, but her LaCrosse and my DTS are too high-tech for me to diagnose and repair if something goes wonky. I think I could survive a Great Depression intact, but girlfriend, who comes from a privileged background and is a bit of a princess still, would be finished. |
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Replying to: andre1969 (Nov 13, 2008 11:02 am) I live on Long Island, which in the 1950s & 1960s was a one-company town. That company was Grumman Aerospace, & it provided extremely well-paid employment to many thousands. We never felt recessions & thought that the good times would go on forever. But after the Vietnam War ended & the Apollo space program wound down, Grumman had to drastically downsize. Home prices hit a wall in the early 70s & didn't recover until well into the 80s. During the Carter years, I couldn't drive 3 blocks without seeing at least 1 boarded-up house. In short, the 70s were a terrible time around here because of our excessive dependence on defense contracts. Today, though, our economy is far stronger because it's based on hundreds of small & mid-sized companies instead of one huge employer. As a result, the current recession will pinch us but it won't knock the stuffing out of us.
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Replying to: jimbres (Nov 13, 2008 12:56 pm) That is a point I have tried to get across to Rocky. Michigan is a one pony show. They can try to compete making movies or whatever. Until they get out from under the UAW and the Automakers they will be slaves to that industry. Every time it has tough times it will take Michigan with it. Same can be said for states that depend on oil or military or tourism for their livelihood. One states boom is another states bust. Just the way life is. Most of the country is feeling pinched right now. I think they expected more from the election: I was so depressed last night thinking about the election, I called Lifeline. Got a freakin' call center in Pakistan. I told them I was suicidal. They got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck. |
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The big 3 are 100% competitive with anything on the market(especially GM), better established and offer more donations with their profits than any other. 1. better 2. better 3. better than best 
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this conversation is taking me back to 2003-2005 in Missouri. My wife and I and our animals moved there(Rolla)in order for me to get my re-training. In a city called St.Louis we loved to go see a rock band we discovered there. They're called the Drive-By Truckers, we first saw them in the spring of 2004 at Mississippi Nights, a great rock venue right on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River. My wife and I and our son attended that show. Then in the winter of 2004 my wife and I went and saw them at another venue. After the show I was tired but didn't want to get a motel there in St.Louis. Rolla is about 125 miles or so west from St.Louis and I felt I could make the drive. As I started making it away from the venue we noticed some really bad looking buildings. Oh, man, that city has this thing going where you see a good building then there is one with bricks fallen down inside and outside of it and everything. This pattern repeats itself again and again. That was in late 2004. It was a snapshot of what St.Louis has looked like for a long time. St.Louis may have looked it's best back in the 20's or 30's I think. This current conversation about the Depression has popped my mind in to thinking of that night after the show. Depression has been with us already for a long, long time. Only now it's starting to affect people who never thought they'd live through this type of thing. |
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Just caught the tail end of a story on CNN that said Chrysler workers get $75 per hour while Toyota workers get only $48 per hour. I assume the Chrysler workers are UAW and the Toyota guys are non-union. Of course those can't be actual per hour pay figures. That has to include benefits and pensions too, right? No matter how they are figuring the pay, the domestic companies are getting killed by that differential. 
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