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Automotive News & Views United Automobile Workers of America (UAW)
16701 messages, Last post on Nov 20, 2009 at 3:39 AM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: lumoy (Jan 07, 2009 4:30 pm) I agree with you on all your points. Brilliant minds think alike. What I want to add is that we have an envy factor going on here too. Who cares what the CEO and or a forklift driver makes? If they are reduced to working Walmart jobs, we will all suffer. Instead of the upscale restaurant, they will have to suffice with McDonald's. Then Walmart will absolutely be the winner in this mindless race to the bottom. All of those other, more expensive, choices will have to cut back in the least. More jobs gone and in the end few new cars will be sold as used cars will be the middle class standard. We have no earthly idea of the multiplier effect that this race to the bottom encompasses. Good paying jobs fuel this economy and if the prevailing wage in any given area goes down, so does the purchasing power of the consumer. I'm not against progress and want competition to thrive. However, we have no idea of what transpires at the factory in China. Certainly, we don't want to find out that children were exploited to make the very shoes were wearing? We could go on about all the products which have made the store shelves, only to later learn that they don't meet our free enterprise standard. Dog fur in coats might offend animal lovers? Lead based paint might upset parents? This all race to the bottom is nothing but the wholesale of jobs to the third world, with some faint promise to have entry into their markets in some future date decades away. We have had competition prior and will continue to do so. However, if $10 a hour jobs by the bulk of the middle class is the vision, even those with $20, $30, and $50 and hour jobs will see a drop in business. Just do the math and see if you think this is a great idea? Once you realize were all connected, suddenly it doesn't make sense. In closing, if you knew prior, that buying all those wonderful things at great prices, at Walmart, would fuel the consumer in China to be the second largest consumers of cars. Then those cars would require fuel/gas and that price is the rationing mechanism of gas. Would those goods purchased at Walmart, have been as attractive when $5 a gallon was nearing? |
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 07, 2009 6:35 pm) |
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Replying to: steve_ (Jan 07, 2009 6:28 pm) i really think as far as the healthcare issues go, there have been a lot of medical advances and that coupled with the good continuous medical care has resulted in the retirees living a lot longer than anyone projected. |
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Jan 07, 2009 5:51 pm) I want special interest out of health care and their spending millions in Washington to cease. >The government places limits on what doctors and hospitals can charge, and that would be about 50% of current Your govt went along with the AMA (doctors union) to limit the supply of medical doctors/openings for future doctors at medical schools. The lower the supply of medical providers, the higher the cost of their services. Critics of the American Medical Association, including economist Milton Friedman, have asserted that the organization acts as a government-sanctioned guild and has attempted to increase physicians' wages and fees limit by influencing limitations on the supply of physicians and non-physician competition. In Free to Choose, Friedman said, "The AMA has engaged in extensive litigation charging chiropractors and osteopaths with the unlicensed practice of medicine, in an attempt to restrict them to as narrow an area as possible." |
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Replying to: cooterbfd (Jan 07, 2009 3:40 pm) Ya just can't believe everything you read. Joe the plumber isn't making $150,000 a year either. I just have that feeling.
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 07, 2009 7:09 pm) I wasn't implying that he made $150k, but that it is possible for someone to make that kind of coin with lots of OT. I see guys here at Verizon working close to 1000 hrs OT a yr. My point is that whether you make $30/hr or $13, to try and live off the OT like the well is never going to go dry is foolish. We've seen it happen at Verizon and guys have put themselves in quite a bind when the OT dries up. |
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 07, 2009 7:09 pm) Don't bet your retirement on that feeling. Joe the Plumber just left for Israel as a war correspondent. If he pulls it off he could make a lot more than $150k per year. The speech you are commenting on made a very astute observation. If you pay someone more for any given job than the average pay for that job, you are setting them up for failure. The lug nut assembler that is making $30 per hour will become accustomed to that wage. He will base his life on $62k per year plus OT. When that job comes to a halt and he finds out that the rest of the USA is only paying $15 per hour to install lug nuts, he will most likely lose his home, car and wife. The UAW has nurtured an atmosphere of entitlement that has no basis in reality, except in the rarefied air of the Domestic automakers. Now that they are on the verge of bankruptcy and laying off 1000s of workers it creates a real problem for those that thought they were worth more than they actually are. The Big 3 and the UAW have done a disservice to the lug nut assemblers and Oscar the fork lift operators by paying them MORE than they are worth in the real world outside of Detroit.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 07, 2009 9:42 pm) What GM and the UAW have done to the rank and file is quite similar to what Madoff did with all those investors. They promised huge wages and benefits and planned to pay them with future earnings. Madoff did the same thing and will go to jail. If the retirees lose their health care as a result of the GM/UAW Ponzi scheme should the leaders of both go to jail? |
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Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp., Japan’s biggest automaker, is asking workers to accept lower pay while it extends a domestic production halt to cope with plummeting demand for new automobiles. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a8jMxijVuiVE Our UAW friends may find this interesting.....All Japanese plants are unionized.... |
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 07, 2009 4:51 pm) Now my point here is that one of the reasons the cost of medical is so high is that the insured and well off are paying for all those who do not have insurance. If you pay $3k for a bedroom stay that money is also paying for a bunch of emergency room work and a whole bunch of others that will not be able to pay their bills. I read a while ago that GM not only pays the medical for all it's employees and retirees but some huge number of non insured. If GM does drop medical (already did for salaried retirees) for the union retirees the cost of medical care for everyone else is going to go up. Of course if they go under then it will be alot worse. |
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